real talk

If you end up spending a majority of time shoving it in everyone's face how happy you are with yourself, maybe you're not that happy with yourself.

Instead of trying to find artificial happiness in the words of others, what about the idea of being still with yourself for a bit and seeing if you can generate that happiness yourself.

My experience has been that true contentment generally isn't brash.

futile

This blog has not been updated much lately, not that anyone reads or even really knows to read.

 

The silence comes from struggle. I have come to the blogger site dozens of times only to have dozens of entries sit in the “draft” folder, and most likely never to see the light of day. My last entry of any substance touched on my feelings that, months later, still have a strangle hold on my words.

A friend asked me if I’d quit blogging and quit twitter. Kind of? (Well, yes, I did quit twitter, actually).

To be plain…I don’t feel like my words will be welcomed. The things that weigh on my mind often somehow weave into the relationships I have…..and I don’t think I have permission in any relationship (except my marriage) to be honest.

I was listening to a sermon the other day and the pastor said something to the effect of “You’d better have friends in your life that you give permission to be real and honest with you”.  And it struck me…..that’s why I’ve pulled away from social media, that’s why I don’t tweet or blog or post much on FB……I know that I do not have permission to be real with most anyone I am in a relationship with.  

I want to write things. And I write them and then realize that whatever I wrote  might end up hitting a nerve with someone I care about. Someone who I probably don’t have permission to be authentic with. So I realize I will probably just offend them or hurt them or, worse, push them away.  So I say nothing. And I hit “draft” instead of “publish”.

I don’t say any this in a judgey way. I come away from these situations feeling like a pretty horrible person most days. Whatever is going on in life and the world and our culture seems to dictate that I sit back and watch people I care about do harmful things. I feel like a terrible, terrible friend most of the time. Something in the way my brain is wired takes this on and I feel…..guilty. Why can’t I magically come up with the perfect words to tactfully and effectively convey what I’m trying to say? I suck at that. As this blog entry so clearly demonstrates.

So lately I’ve just been running away from it. I’ve been closing myself off from a lot of relationships and closing myself of from even having to engage it conversations.  I really just want to go between work and home and not think about what other folks are doing.  And I’ll be real…….it’s just because I’m tired and scared.

Anyways……….I don’t know if that makes sense. Or sounds just profoundly awful. Maybe I’m a horrible person and I just don’t know it. See? I’m finishing this up thinking “Oh lord, I’m going to sound like a giant jerk and it’s all going to be taken the wrong way and I’d better just hit draft instead of publish!”

 

So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m feeling like…..words are futile.

And no, don’t feel like this entry is a call for smoke to be blown up my butt or that I’m feeling sorry for myself.  I want people to be authentic with me. And I guess I need to figure out what, exactly, is my calling in this area of life. Right now, I just don’t know.

the world has gone mad

There is so much backward logic in the world. Has it always been this way? (a question I find myself asking a lot.......)

Once upon a time in a different life, I had a husband who left me. He ran off to another town with another woman and said many hurtful, horrible things to me. And during those times, back in those olden days, he posted on his MySpace wall (I told you it was the olden days) a quote attributed to Dr. Seuss:

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

I knew it was a virtual slap-in-the-face to me, the bitter ex-wife who criticized his choices and who he was. And it infuriated me because that's not what that quote is meant for, damnit!

I knew he took some smug solace in the knowledge that Dr. Seuss, of all people, approved of him being who he was and that I didn't matter, nor did my opinion. And oh it burned me up inside.

I see this all the time, and I suppose it's much more in my face because of the internet. But every day, I see dozens of examples of people bastardizing some quote that was meant to inspire. They post these quotes and and use them to justify bad/damaging/unhealthy behaviors.

And they are everywhere. There is no shortage of fun little quotes on the internet. Heck, I have a board of them on Pinterest, as do many others.

But lately....I feel jaded when I read them. Just a million and one more excuses to justify shitty behavior/actions.

I see my friends doing it and, oh, it burns me up inside. People I know who are smart and good and kind and wonderful.....and they are also being deliberately obtuse with regard to their own emotional intelligence.

I want to shake them sometimes. "No! Don't make excuses to settle! Don't make excuses to accept less than you deserve! Don't make excuses to waste another year less happy than you could be!"

It doesn't burn as badly as that stupid quote my stupid ex posted that one stupid time on stupid old MySpace. (Sorry, Dr. Seuss....you know I don't really think you're stupid.....) But sometimes, reading these quotes and how seeing how folks corrupt them.....it burns a tiny bit.

I sat thinking about this while on Pinterest this morning. I should just stop pinning quotes. I mean...what if I'm just as guilty? What if I've done the same thing? I probably have. That thought burns a bit, too.

It's just another frustrating thing that people do that I have no control over that makes me just want to throw my computer out the window and take my kids to a remote patch of land in Montana and never be heard from again.

100 words - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Her name is strongly Japanese, although she looks anything but. Through the grainy veil of a webcam, though, she can be anything you want her to be I suppose.

"You're so strong" she says as you suit up in your gi for her. Of course your lessons ended years ago and you haven't actually practiced. Although you'll tell anyone who will listen that you will kick their ass if you have to.

"What is that over there?" she asks, gesturing towards the corner of the room. The little toy robot is your daughters. But you lie and say it's yours.

***************************

This entry is for my friend Lance's 100 Word Song writing prompt. This weeks is 100 words based on the song Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips.

note to self

The more disciplined I am in life, the happier I am.

what love is like

A friend wrote (or at least half wrote) a very beautiful story about how she got together with her fiance.

It reminds me a lot of my relationship with M. We struggled for years and years. And I got to a point where it hurt too badly to be with him so I ended our friendship. We were both in horrible, horrible spaces when we met and for a couple of years after...and it just wasn't our time.  And like Ally, I got to a point where I really had to so some soul searching and decide what I was willing to live with......the pain of just being friends or the pain of living without him.

***********

M and I had dated (poorly) and broken up (even more poorly). We didn't speak for a while, but of course that didn't last either. We struggled and argued for months and decided to start all over as friends. The point was to build a solid friendship, but I admit I had an ulterior motive. I figured "Yeah, we build a friendship....so we can be together". How awful to build a friendship on false pretenses. I think I knew how awful it was back then, I just didn't want to admit it.

Anyways....so for months we "worked on a friendship". Well... he worked. He worked very very hard at becoming a very good friend to me. And over the course of a few short months, he became my best friend.

One day we had this totally random unplanned day out. We went and explored the city and ended up getting tattoos together (no, not matching!). And it was just such a fun, awesome, easy, great, purely happy day.

And at the end of that day when we dropped me off and went off to do something else, I sat in my living room and cried because I knew that I had to accept that he would never love me like I loved him. But he was now my best friend and I couldn't just walk away. And I had to finally and truly accept that we were just friends and nothing more and that chapter was over.

That day was one of the best and worst days of that year. It was so so great and so so sad. But finally...after three years of struggle...I finally accepted the romance just wasn't there and decided it was time to move on and figure out how to get over this man while having him as my best friend.

And I gave up. And it was about two months later that he came to me one night and professed his love for me and hasn't left my side since. And when I told him about my recollection of the awesome/awful day, he laughed at me and said "That's funny, because that's the day I realized I could never be just friends with you".

Funny how life works out like that.

**********

I really have no idea how Ally's story ends but I want to know. Well, obviously it ends well because he put a ring on it and the are wedding planning. But if you happen to read this and happen to read hers too, please go pester her to finish her story. 

what ails me

I am beginning to think that this year is the year God really teaches me that I don't know anything.

Last year I learned a lot and changed a lot. But in all that new life, I was (and still am) just a baby. It's one thing to really learn things. It's one thing to come to a point of truly believing the truth.

But it's an entirely different thing to walk it every single day. And in a way, life can be harder when your eyes are opened to certain truths. I know how I'm supposed to respond or behave in certain situations. I know the answer! I know exactly what I'm supposed to do.

And I cannot bring myself to do it. I fail over and over and over. I know how I should respond or think or act....but actually doing what I know I'm supposed to do has been a huge struggle for me this year.

It's almost some weird curse, having the knowledge of how to make your life better. Because when you know, it feels like that much greater a failure when you aren't able to quite do it.

getting along

I've lost some "friends" over the past couple of days, in the wake of the Zimmerman trial. I lost friends in the wake of Newtown, too.

And I'm ok with it.

It may not be the choice most other folks would make. That's ok. In no way do I intend to judge someone else by my choice. For me, for my heart, for my soul, for my brain, for my sanity.....severing those ties was something that I needed to be ok with...for a few reasons...

1) I know the status quo is to smile and nod and try to ignore people with different, possibly offensive views. And that's cool, I can get on board with that.  Except when that complacency might end up with my kid dead one day.  When I sit there and smile and nod when gun nuts go on and on about their "2nd amendment right!", I feel like I'm helping pave the way for another school shooting. There are some thing that I don't feel I can be neutral on, because important things are at stake.  I think the "don't rock the boat" mentality is how we've ended up in the strangle hold of the NRA.....no one wants to get in fights or offend their neighbor. All too often people who hold those extreme views can't  really be talked to anyways. So we all just sit and smile and maybe mutter things behind their backs, but no one stands up to the bullies. No one stands up for those who can't stand up for themselves. And then we end up with dead kids. 

So you get into a discussion about Newtown or Trayvon Martin and people either get quiet or they get mad. And the problem doesn't get talked about or fixed and then another kid dies.

As I was writing this, a friend posted this on FB. Much better wordign than I ever could come up with.... "And to remain silent is to give tacit admission that we are okay with the cycle continuing."

2)On a more personal level....and I know some may not understand this.....people may not agree. That's ok. This is how I feel about it.

This needs to be personal. I believe we have done our society a disservice by compartmentalizing these tragedies, by distancing ourselves and ignoring that it could happen to us. I believe we are a worse nation for dismissing the sorrow of our neighbors.....even if they are neighbors we've never met and who live 1000 miles away. 

We need to let that sorrow and grief and anger and pain be part of our reality. These aren't news stories....they are moms and dads and kids like your or me and the thing is........at the rate we're, one day it will be you or me that's the news story. 

With that in mind.....your insistence on no change to gun laws in light of Newtown........your insistence that Trayvon Martin brought his own death on himself....your insistence that we are not a racist nation........the things you insist on defending are not only offensive, they are damaging. And deadly. They are dangerous to my children. And my neighbors children. And your children, even if you may want to ignore it. 

I see a lot of comments and posts and news articles talking about logic and reason and how we should dismiss the heart of the matter....what happens when a kid gets murdered. And I firmly believe that we are making ourselves a terrible country by choosing heartlessness when it suits us.

This needs to be personal because I am not so delusional that I can pretend it might not be my kids one day.

Your defense of current gun laws, your defense of the outcome of the Zimmerman verdict are direct attacks on my child's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Maybe we don't want to think about it that way.....Columbine and Aurora and Newtown parents might not have thought of it that way either. Defense of these hurtful ideals directly harms my children. 

You don't have enough respect for me, my kids, or our right to life. You openly advocate for things that support the status quo of children dying. So why are you my friend? 

3) One last reason I've lost friends....lack of respect. People have been posting some shitty stuff. In the days after Newtown, before there was even a single funeral, I had friends posting memes about buying more bullets and making gun jokes. After the Zimmerman verdict, I had friends posting that shit about what a juvenile delinquent he was or memes about whiney liberals "pulling the race card" or saying crap like "The system worked! Yay!"

Have some respect. Have a little class. I lost a friend or two not because we disagree........but because I am not going to sit around while you gloat over the dead bodies of someones children.  I'm doing us both a favor by not remaining your friend after you have the nerve to post that crap..........I lost all respect for you. I'm not your friend if I don't respect you.

*********

I know I have garnered more than a few sideways stares this year. The past couple days have not remedied that. I think I've made a few friends uncomfortable. I may have lost friends I don't know about. I may have earned my way to the "ignore" list. 

Over the past couple of years, one of the lessons I've learned is this: there is no value in keeping a "friend" who disrespects you. Who calls you names. Who insults you. There is no value in holding on to someone who hurts you and makes your life worse. I've mentioned before...it's all connected. I don't need to put those harmful thoughts and ideas in my heart, brain, and soul. I don't really need daily reminders that people think I'm stupid or beneath them. I know it. I accept it. It isn't really healthy to beat it into my own head daily.

What I've also learned is that I feel like a terrible human being when I keep people in my life just to avoid "rocking the boat". My gut tells me that it's not helpful or productive. Not for me, not for my community.

I want to be that zen person who smiles and blithely rattles off some very zen response and loves everyone even if they don't care if my kid dies or not. I want to be that person. Maybe someday I'll grow into that person. Although, as I approach my 40th year, I suspect that I am just not meant to be her.

So in the meantime...........I'm losing "friends". 

At the end of the day.....I guess everyone is broken and hurting and damaged. The difference is the degree of the damage.

So when you meet someone you want to judge,  I feel like that's God calling you to recognized that you aren't as bad off as you think you are. You could be worse off.

.....

I don't really know how it's supposed to be "empowering" to attempt change, half-ass your effort, fail, and then say "Well I guess I'm just gonna accept this because it's easier than actually trying"

giving

Something I've noticed lately....

The more capable a person is of replacing a resource they have, the least likely they are to part with it.

another "ah-ha"

I have a few friends who I know are not particularly happy within themselves. It radiates from them. (Wow, which just made me realize how it must have been the same for me.........)

And they are constantly trying to change things. Nothing meaningful, but things that are easy to change. And I'm not judging. Because I used to be the same way. I'd get fed up and get a new job or we'd move or I'd color my hair crazy or cut it all off. Something that was within my control.

When I was unhappy, I changed what I felt like I could control.

Except it never worked because my hair or my job wasn't what was fundamentally making me unhappy.

Your happiness is pretty much entirely internal. It's virtually always a choice. It sounds so cliche and silly but it's so hard to accept and understand. I get it. There are so many seemingly huge outside factors that we think make us unhappy........but the only thing ever really keeping us unhappy is ourselves. We just don't realize the power we have over certain aspects of our lives.

And watching my friends struggle with that and watching them be as blind as I was is so frustrating.

Sometimes I just want to run up to people and hold their hand and say "You can be happier!!! It's right within your reach!!!"

But, the other cliche is true..........everyone has got to walk their own path.

But yeah......it just hit me today. I did a lot of stupid things and tried to change a lot of stupid things that were unimportant because I thought they were the only things I could control. And I thought if I could change what I could control, I would be happier.

So many crazy, disconnected leaps in logic.....

owning

I know lots of people who are perfectly aware of what their issues are. They will tell you about them all the time.

Knowing what your issues are is one thing. But constantly talking about them isn't a solution.

Just because you are willing to tell everyone in the world what your issues are doesn't mean you are doing anything positive. Sometimes it's  just an excuse to keep doing what your doing that is making you unhappy.

high maintenence

I'm ok with being the girl who takes a half hour to do her hair in the morning.

I have friends.....more often than not they are mom friends....who seem oddly proud of the fact that they put no effort into their appearance.

How many conversations have you heard that entail statements like "Oh, there's no way I'm spending a half hour getting ready in the morning!" or "I want a haircut where I can just get out of the shower and go".

And in my head I'm thinking....really? You want to look like that lady that just gave up? That's what you aspire to, walking around Target in ill-fitting, snot stained yoga pants? Your goal is to look like you don't give a shit about yourself? Really?

Don't get me wrong. There is a time and place for everything. I've had my days of dealing with two sick kids till 4am and having to find my way to a pharmacy in my PJs and a baseball cap because my hair was so bad. I've had days where I was just fucking depressed and sad and over it and didn't get out of my ill-fitting yoga pants all day. But those are rare days. Those are the exception, not the norm.

It doesn't seem like a bucking of the system so much as it seems like an "aw, fuck it...I just don't care".

I have friends who give me more than a fair share of shit when they find out how long it takes me to do my hair or who sometimes mock how many pairs of sandals I have.  And I will confess....it annoys me that somehow it makes me less of a woman in the eyes of some because I put effort into my appearance.

I'm  never going to be the most put-together lady. I'm a clutz and I spill and I couldn't keep a pair of white shorts clean to save my life. But I'm  still going to do my hair and usually put on some make up and at least try to look like I made an effort.

simple as it should be

I have these clients. A very young couple with their first kid. I'm pretty sure they don't have a computer and if they do, they certainly don't spend any time on parenting websites.

They do everything "wrong". They've been putting all kinds of baby food in the bottle since the baby was 3 months old. She sleeps with a big fluffy blanky. And whenever she would toss her binky on the floor, the mom picks it up, sucks the dirt off in her own mouth, and then pops it back in the baby's mouth. Without knowing it, they have been "sleep training" her.....if they put her down for bed, they don't go back in if she's crying and they know she's ok. She has a bit of a runny nose and instead of checking with a doctor, the mom says "well, I heard that's normal for teething, so why waste the $15 co-pay?"

When I first met them, I have to admit....I was a little appalled at all the things they do "wrong" with this baby. I was a little judgey. They'd take her and leave at the end of the day and I'd sit down with my fiance and tsk tsk over whatever stupid thing I saw that day.

But I've noticed something else.

Their little girl is just the happiest little baby I've ever known. And, for as wrong as it is, she sucks down her baby-food laden bottles and is thriving. She's wicked smart and, honestly, seems a little more advanced than a lot of other babies I've known. She goes down for her naps like a champ, cause she knows it's nap time. She doesn't seem to have any weird gas or poop problems.

And something else I've noticed. Her parents are the most chill, relaxed, easy going parents of an infant I've ever know. They clearly ENJOY their little baby so incredibly much. There is very little stress coming from them when it comes to their baby. They just love her so much and love being parents to her.

No one is telling them they are doing it wrong. And they aren't second guessing themselves every five seconds and losing sleep over things they can't control. They don't have a dozen voices each day in their face making them question themselves. They are just doing what feels right and what seems to be making their baby happy and living life and loving their baby.

I mean....what do you think is really worse for a kid in the long run............
Eating baby cereal a month too early? Or spending a good few years living with stressed out, anxious parents who don't enjoy what they are doing?

social

Social media makes me feel lonely.

I bet there were less lonely people in the world before the internet.

lesson

Today a friend did what lots of people like to do on Facebook...use it as a platform to rant about how something other people were doing was stupid.

And, IMHO, it was a stupid complaint. Yes, people do stupid things all the time. Posting about it on FB just makes you look like a pretentious douche.

I nearly went to post that very sentiment as my FB status. And as I was typing.....*DING*.....lightbulb. Reality check.

I'm gonna go on Facebook and passively aggressively complain about how someone else is doing something stupid and suggest they chill? 

Oh yeah. I'm the douche. 

Time to go chill.

sexism

As I'm reading a commentary on the Steubenville rape trial outcome, I get an email.

A Groupon for Pole-Dancing classes.

Oh, the irony.

Because those aren't marketed to dudes. Because dudes don't need to be fit or sexy to be attractive  but women not only need to be fit to be considered sexy, they also need to act like sex workers.

And I'm reading actual comments about how the Steubenville rapists will have their lives ruined "worse" than the girl who was raped and it all goes hand in hand.

People think it's all harmless. Pole dancing classes and jokes about how dumb women are or how bad of drivers we are. They think it's all harmless. They think they aren't sexist. And that's probably the most harmful thing we have going in society today....the latent "harmless" sexism that no one sees. The comments that are part of the problem but no one will admit it. The people who think they are the exception to the rule and they aren't really sexist so it's ok for them to make damaging comments about women that they wouldn't normally make about men.

I don't believe there is anything harmless. In 2013 when we have a 16 year old girl going to a party and getting raped and people feeling sorry for the boys who raped her......there is no neutral ground. There is no joke about women that is ok. It all helps or hurts, but there is no middle.

I feel overwhelmed with how deeply sexist our society is and how much people deny it. Women cry "sexism!" and are dismissed. We even need dudes to validate that something is, indeed, sexist.  Men don't see it and don't experience it, so we have less men to validate that it does exist. Women pander to it, mostly without knowing, and are probably the worse perpetrators of it.

I just wonder....has it gotten better....or has it just gotten more subtle, more clever. If we've figured out smarter ways to perpetuate sexism.....is it ever going to end? Will teenage girls always have to prove they aren't sluts when they get assaulted?

today's prayer

Dear Lord,

I pray that you make me worthy of the man you have given me.

friends

I think a lot about what has changed over the past few generations. I wonder how much the internet and constant communication and hyper-information has affected things, like our relationships with others. I often wonder if the definition of friendship has been changed with our generation.

I feel like maybe people don't want real friends anymore. Or maybe they never did, it's just that now we know so much more about the personal lives of others that it's more evident. Anyways....

It seems like no one feels they should be questioned. Everyone feels entitled to be right and be comfortable all the time. And that translates into relationships and friendships that don't really feel....authentic or connected, at least to me.

If you can't say to someone you really care about "Hey, maybe that's not the best choice", that's not really a very close relationship. If you have to support every single thing someone does.....even when it's unhealthy or destructive or hurtful.....that's kind of fake, right?

I feel like there is a lesson for me right now. Because I find myself in a lot of relationships where I'm sitting here watching people I care about struggle and make repeated bad choices and do things that are really self-destructive. But I know....they don't want to hear anything other than affirmations of the choices they've  made. I've learned that more often than not when someone asks for advice, they are really just asking for affirmations of what they already have decided.

Most people don't want to be told they are wrong. Which is a totally understandable thing. I wonder if it's become extreme in the age of the internet. If we are so disconnected by screens that it makes it really easy to avoid our critic. We an so readily access people who will affirm any choice we make on any given day. And when someone says something we don't like? *CLICK* they are unfriended or hidden or we blast of an email. Easy.

I've felt a little overwhelmed lately with people I care about asking my advice about really deep things they are going through. Knowing they don't truly want advice. Sitting on my hands while they fall into a cycle that is going to hurt them.

Because I know if I speak any truth, they will be angry. I  know if I say anything that could be remotely construed as critical, I may lose that friend. 

I hate it. I hate it so much. I feel like there is a glaring spotlight on many of my friendships. God is pointing his giant finger right at them, tapping me on the shoulder and trying to tell me something about my own inauthenticity. But I am not entirely sure what.

I feel like just a horrible human being, though. Sometimes, sitting silent, I feel like the absolutely worst friend in the world.

I got an email from a friend the other day that said something about learning how people tick. And learning how to talk to people in a way they will hear. And maybe that's what I'm supposed to be learning out of all of this. How to talk to my friends in their own language. 

Or maybe I'm just supposed to be learning how to shut up. Most people simply do not want my opinion on their life. Maybe I just have to learn to accept that and find peace in that. All I can do is pray and be present. Maybe being a good friend is about respecting your friends choices, even if they are unhealthy.

I don't know.