Breaking Blocks

I come here a few times a week to write something, because I feel the need inside of me.  Unfortunately, I get here, I hammer out like two sentences that usually begin as this post has, and then my fingers stop.  My brain freezes and my need goes unfulfilled.  It's a frustrating process and I can't seem to break free of it.  I then spend a lot of time thinking "I need to WRITE and get it out." and after a few days with that thought rolling around in my head, I come here again and start the process all over again.  I feel kind of like Roland Deschain, Gunslinger from Gilead.  Lucky for him though, he was never aware of his cycle of hell.  I am.  And it pains me. 

I guess I could get all philosophical and say this is the perfect metaphor to my life.  Rife with starts and stops that basically get me no where and once I learn to accept these starts and stops, maybe life will move forward.  But, that's new agey bullshit and I'm not even going to entertain that thought, well not again, after entertaining the thought when I wrote it down that is.  Everyone's life is rife with starts and stops.  We all swim in circle froms time to time and that's ok.  Eventually we adjust our fins and go straight again. If Nemo the crippled fish can do it, so can I.

 Maybe, I shouldn't have used the word crippled.  I've been reading the Game of Thrones series and they're not very "PC" in those books and I am afraid it has rubbed off on me.  If I start calling people "Ser" and "wench" and start saying my age as "five and thirty" then you know I've gone too far to be brought back.  Leave me to my flagon of Arbor Gold and light a candle for me in the sept and send a bird out to all the lands saying that I have gone over.  Weep not, fair child,  as I am my happiest here.

There are many things I want to touch on, just random thoughts I've had and I don't even know where to start. Nothing in particular about my life because life has been, well nothing more than life.  I don't have anything new or exciting going on.  Actually, my life is probably the antedote for anything exciting.  A dose of my life could probably bring down the most coked out party girl in a matter of seconds.  She'd be all "Whee! OMG! Life is great!!  I'm SO COKED OUT" and then inject my life into her body and she'd be all "Oh hey. 'Sup guys.  I'm so NOT coked out right now. Awesome.  Have you read the Game of Thrones?"  Because that's how I talk and yes I talk about Game of Thrones a lot.

I'm borderline content, though.  I say borderline because I'm afraid to say all the way, because I feel I SHOULDN'T be content with how things are.  But, I've been trying to "be still" and just enjoy the moments and it's been getting easier.  I lost sight of the moments for many months, when the world felt like it was going to fall down on me at any second.  But, it didn't and we're still here.  I've been finding it easier to let things go and to not worry so much.  I've started to go to church and that has helped tremendously. 

Talking about church and my faith has been kind of awkward for me.  Some have voiced disdain or disbelief that I've started to attend church and assume I'm going to start baptizing people on the streets, while others have been too forward in welcoming me to the flock of "good moral Christians" and then become disappointed when I'm not as "churchy" as they feel I should be.  It's hard to explain and it's a hard spot to be in.   People assume because I go to church now, I will or should (depending on which of the two above camps I'm talking to) hate gays.  I will or should be against abortions, I will or should vote republican, I will or should a million and a half other things.  I will say though, the liberal Christians are growing in number and that is exciting to me.   It's why I chose to start attending an Episcapol church, as their message is one of acceptance and love of all people and that no matter what, God loves you.  I like that.  I saw a member at church with a rainbow lanyard for his name tag on Sunday and I felt I was right where I should be.

So, no.  I'm not thumping bibles or anything and preaching that all baby killing liberals are going to hell.  I'm just trying to find my place in the world, and I can truly say that I feel SO much better since I've started going to church.  I question myself a lot, wondering if I'm using this as a band-aid for something deeper inside of me. I honestly can not say.  I will say though, that these people have welcomed us with open arms and are truly happy to see us there.  If anything, I love the sense of community that I have found.  I always said I didn't need a building to worship God. This was my excuse for not going to church.  I still believe it's true.  I've always felt God best out in world, talking a walk in the park, or hearing a story that brings a tear to my eye and a smile to my lips.  I always felt God is everywhere and people should focus more on that than church.  Yet, being at the church brings me something more than just God.  It brings me community.  Church gets me out of the house and put me in a situation that is different from my norm.  I have something to do at least one day every week and usually more days than that depending on what activities they have.

It seems I've broken my block.  Let's see if I can keep the gates open.

I vow this post will be only uplifting and so chock full of positivity that you'll shit rainbows for a week.

Uh.

Um.

POSITIVITY!!

That's all I can muster.

*shuffles back to bed with a bottle of vodka and the 2nd book in the Game of Thrones series.*

Pink Eye

Jonathan and I have been struck with the deady pink eye.  Ok, it's not DEADLY.  It's actually quite lame, but holy hell does it spread fast!!  I'm talking, Jonathan was complaining about his eye tearing up at church, by the end of the night his eye was red and kind of swollen with gunk, and by the next morning, my eye was gunky and teary.    Pink eye is bad asss.  Pink eye doesn't care. Pink eye doesn't give a shit. 

I'm enjoying my time off, but in true Sandi fashion, I also feel guilty for not being at work, even though I've been told to "Stay home.  PLEASE." 

Of course, the pink eye has completely freaked out Aislinn.  She usually holes herself up anyway to keep away from her brothers "nasty boy germs" on a regular day.  You can imagine how it has been since she found out he's now CONTAGIOUS.   It's been pretty awful, and quite honestly,  I've been making her steer clear of her.  People without OCD get freaked out with pink eye, I can only imagine what her OCD addled brain is telling her.  I'm guessing it's very similiar to the pink eye episode of South Park where the community was over run with zombies, but the Dr. kept saying it was just pink eye.*


Aislinn has a very mild case of OCD and like most people with OCD, it gets worse the more stressed out a person becomes.  So, usually in the mornings when she's getting ready for school is when it will rear it's annoying head.  This morning, she was mad becuase me and Jonathan got to stay home and she had to go to school.  So, she refused to pee because her brother's toothbrush was on the sink by the toilet.  She wouldn't even have to touch it.  But, it's THERE and therefore, she can't pee.  I moved it.  That's my life.  My life is to make sure Aislinn doesn't have to touch anything she doesn't want to. 

In other news, I've taken to listening to sad songs like some emo teenager whose boyfriend has left her for the head cheerleader.  I guess this is fitting, considering my ex was my first boyfriend.  I kind of wish I had faced these feelings sooner.  Adele works wonders, though and it may just take me a little longer to get there than I hoped.  I hid from the hurt for too long, and it's hitting me full force right now.  I'm feeling my feelings and accepting them for what they are.  I was hurt and betrayed.  There is no shame in that.  There is no shame in  feeling sick when I see them together, even after almost a year.  She left a voicemail on my phone for Jonathan's birthday, and the sound of her voice made me almost hyperventilate and without thinking, I hit delete.  I felt bad, because it was for Jonny and then I realized that you actually have to delete it twice, so he could still hear it. 

Trying to figure out what these feelings mean have been tough.  I'm 99% sure it doesn't mean I'm still in love with him.  I'm actually pretty sure it doesn't have much to do with him at all.  I don't miss HIM. I never have moments where I think of anything I miss about him.  I don't think about his smile or his scent or anything.  Sometimes, I might think of something fun we did as a family, and feel wistful, but him, no, not so much.  How could I have been so in love with him and yet I don't miss anything about him.  Even those wonderful tender moments in the beginning, when you're new to each other and he does things like, brush him hands on your face?  I don't even give a shit about any of that.  When I see him alone without her, I feel nothing. 

I assume its knowing that I was so easily cast aside and that he didn't give our family a chance. He saw and out, and he took it and ran.  No counseling, no trying to work it out or anything.  Then, after that we pretty much shut out all forms of communication.  I don't know if I need closure or what.  What I can't deny is, even if I know he's not good for me, and I'd never want him back, just knowing you were so easily dropped, that hurts.  So, I think I'm working through the whole "I don't know if I could ever put myself in that postion ever again" thing.   It goes back to what I wrote before. 


*
Random side note, that was the first episode of South Park I had ever watched. I thought it was a very funny show, but I got out of habit of watching it regularly. I tried to watch an episode the other day, and the whole show was based on Kyle losing a bet and having to lick Cartman's balls. I turned it off about 5 minutes in. I guess when your whole schtick is to shock people, after so many seasons, ball licking is all you have left in your grab bag.

Only Tricks. No Treats.

When my ex and I first split, I told him I'd never have anyone to love again because he took it all, that I had given him all the love I was allotted in my lifetime and that I'd never be able to love again.  That's how I felt at the time.  I just really felt like I could never love again and by love again, I mean not even love HIM again.  My love was gone. Just poof.  He used it all.  I think it was gone before the marriage even ended.  He had wrung every drop of love from my heart and left nothing and he went on to the next.  I think that's why my heart didn't break like I would have expected because there was nothing there before the split happened.

Since then, there were a a few moments I thought I could maybe I could love again, but I realized that those moments were more about wanting to feel normal.  I'm back to thinking that I'm out of love to give.  It's like it's Halloween and I'm hiding in the basement with my porch light off and my blinds shut tightly against the trick or treaters because I gave all the candy to the first kid that showed up.  He was adorable in his little Batman outfit and I was like HERE! Take it ALL!!  I don't even WANT the other kids to have candy because you're IT man! That costume is the freaking bees knees.  Then the little fucker kicked me in the shin and stole my jack-o-lantern.

I loved my ex freely and without shame.  I loved him hard and I loved him as best I could.  I loved him with my whole soul and heart.  I LOVED him.  Everyone who knew me knew this.  I saw those burning red flags with the bio-hazard signs on them.  One came in the form of an anonymous letter to me just a few months after we were married.  Yet, I loved him.  And he left.  And he left me looking like the fool.

Everyone knows that saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."  I don't know if I can let love make me look like a fool a second time. 

The basement has cable and internet.  The trick or treaters will get the hint eventually.



 

Confession

Sometimes, I wonder what I'm supposed to be learning through this whole process. I always try and notice and appreciate the little lessons life gives us. It's not always easy.

In late October I started to feel down and it carried on until the New Year. I'm starting to finally shake off the last bits of this sadness and move forward toward the sun.

Real down is an understatement. I had thoughts. Bad, terrible thoughts whispering to me, telling me I could end the struggle real easily. Today, reading about Dooce and how she found herself looking at the ceiling, dog leash in hand, well it made me sick because it wasn't that long ago I thought about driving off an overpass on an alarmingly regular basis.

Life was hard, there was little money and Aisy needed glasses. I knew anything I could get the kids for Christmas would be small. Insignificant.

I just prayed that Christmas would end. I have amazing kids. They have taken to the changes with grace. Yet, they're kids and one still believes in Santa. I was getting requests for laptops, IPads, bikes, and expensive Lego sets. It was so hard. I already felt like shit, and this made it worse.

I figured if I was gone, their dad wouldn't have to pay us and he could buy them those things.

Obviously, I see now how ridiculous that is. The kids would rather I be alive over having a laptop.

It's scary where the mind can take you. I'll keep a better eye on myself next October.

Logical Faith

As per my Facebook status, I went to church today.  Not for a wedding, or a bapism or because I was on a date, but because.. well I honestly don't know why, other than I wanted to give it a try.

When I was 13 and I read something that said that 70% of Catholics polled felt birth control was ok to use and this bothered me.  This was at one of the Smithsonian Museums during out 8th grade class trip.  I was a virgin and had never even worn a tampon and my first french kiss had happened a few weeks previous.  I was far from some worldly girl.  It wasn't even about the birth control at all.  It was that 70 percent said something was ok, but one man had deemed it not ok that bothered me.  This was on top of me being bitter about letting the non Catholic boys be altar servers and not the Catholic girls at my old school (the year I left, they finally allowed it).

As I contemplated this, and was just kind of offended as a thirteen year old could be, I heard a commotion.  One of the girls in my class was making a huge fuss.  She refused to go into the Darwin room because Darwinism was a sin and that anyone who even looks upon that will go to hell.  That God made us in his image.  Even our teacher told her that it was an interesting theory and God wouldn't be upset if she just went in and looked. 

It was the first time I realized I that I never really truly believed like others believe.  To me, it made sense that we came from monkeys.  How could you look at a monkey and NOT think we were related?    We had scientific proof for most things, but we just had faith when it came to Bible stories and this is where I got myself in a pickle with my faith.  I was headed that way for awhile.  The priest never could tell me why Norse, Greek and Roman Gods were considered myths.  The stories were just as fantastical as miracles, walking on water and turning water to wine, and rising from the dead.

I've always been a practical girl.

As I grew older, and I started to develop into the person I am today, I often felt like I could never go to church because I couldn't allign msyelf to what they believed in and so by going to church and choosing to not follow blindly as faith would dictate us to do,  I would be nothing more than a hypocrite and that's not WJWD.  I never stopped believing in  God.  Sometimes, my practical nature would try and sway me into thinking a higher power did not exist, but I could never go the Athiest route.  At the end of the day, I guess I just need to believe that some things are simple out of my hands.  I always prayed every night in bed, usually just a prayer I made up and I said every night.  Logically, I knew that the the ritual of saying the same thing over and over, night after night was comforting, but I liked doing it and I hoped that God took  my prayer to keep us all safe just as seriously even if it was said by rote.

I have always been more of a liberal minded person and I believe in the live and let live theory of life.  Even though I believe in God, I didn't like being preached to about God.  I didn't like having God shoved down my throat.  I didn't like being told what God thinks about stuff because it's so presumptious to think you know.  In my head God was cool and loving and as long as you lived your life as a good person, you were kind, good and honest, you were ok in his eyes, no matter where you stuck your pecker, and if he DOES have a problem with it, God's cool and loves you anyway.  Just like I don't like shopping, but my sister does.  I love her anyway. 

 I also believe that if someone chooses to worship a different God that was ok, too because in MY head, they were either all the same entity bringing comfort to those with a certain set of beliefs OR all the Gods worked togehter in  like a big huge Justice League of Higher Powers.  All different, but all working for the common good of humanity.  This line of thinking isn't always welcomed in mainstream Christianity.

With my weird pseudo-divorce crap I have going on, I found myself leaning more on prayer.  Sometimes, prayer was the only thing that got me through a day.  My liberal sensibilities would sometimes make me give myself shit about it.  "Oh drinking the Kool-aid are we?  Soothing balm for the stupid masses."   Then I realized that yes. IT WAS a soothing balm for my soul. There were times I wailed in pain for God to just get me through one more fucking day.  PLEASE GOD JUST LET ME FIND A WAY TO DO THIS.  A few weeks ago, the only thing that kept me from really losing my shit was to scream my prayers from my house to my job while in the car, crying the whole time.


One could say well, ok you probably would have found a way eventually and they would be right. I mean, I got through my life before, but my life has never been this HARD before. I am not going to lie and say my life is the hardest it's ever fucking been and I need to feel like someone is looking out for me.

I had looked into different churches and was told that the Episcopal church is very liberal minded. They welcome logical thinking and questioning.  They allow women priests and gay people and just all walks of life and so today I went to one.  It's a very small congregration and it has a female priest who used to be a Catholic nun.  The people were very welcoming and were very excited to have a new person there.  I sat with at a table after with some older ladies as we had cookies and coffee and they told me their stories.  Most people in the Episcopal church are from different Christian sects.  It seems that it's a good compromise between two people with differing branches.  There were a few "Well, I was raised Catholic and he was raised  Baptist and we couldn't agree on either, so we came here" stories.  And I kind of like that. 

I plan on going back

Dude Fast Update

I realized I haven't really updated about my dude fast.  Well, it's still going, but not because I'm keeping it going.  Dude Fast has turned into Dude Famine.  Seriously and for reals.  I'm ok with that though.

I have allowed myself to commence with speaking to men other than my friends, I'm just not really speaking to them and that's a good thing.  I don't have the want or the need.  The dude fast was really eye opening and I'm really glad I did it, but I may be taking it too far now as I really don't have a real want to date right now.

Dating is EXHAUSTING and I'm lazy.  Really lazy.  I want to like, fast forward to the part where I can show up at your house in sweats and tshirt sans bra, hair in a ponytail.  I want to get right to the being bumps on the couch part.  The beginning part is too much.   Fixing my hair, putting on make up, wearing tight jeans while wearing sexy panties made out of some synthetic material and hoping to GOD you don't get some type of yeast infection from the tight jean/sexy panty combo.  The driving, the small talk, the "what the FUCK DO I DO WITH MY HANDS? moments.  The sucking in my gut for a whole evening.  The shaving. OMG ALL THE FUCKING SHAVING.

Today, a friend called me while I was getting ready for work. Actually, it was dude I used to obsessively pine over.  Since my dude fast, I am proud to say I no longer pine for him and we rarely even speak much anymore.  He called me this morning though, and he asked if I was getting dressed up for work and I said no, I was trying to wear something that was as close to sweatpants as possible without getting in trouble.  He said something like even though he doesn't have anyone to dress up for, he still likes to look nice when he goes to work becuase you  never know who you'll meet.

 Eff that, homie. 

 I know looking good makes you FEEL better, but sometimes, for me anyway, I just don't give a shit about strutting my stuff.  Sometimes, I just want to be comfortable because THAT is what's going to make feel better.  Because it's cold and I only have to work for 5 hours max on a Saturday and I'm just going to come home and put my sweats on and be done with it. 

I love my sweatpants.

I'm not impressed.  That's the problem.  I've been dating off and on for about two years and I'm not impressed.   Someone has to impress me enough to make me want to get out of my sweatpants into heels and tight jeans.  Good luck, fellas