one of those days

Was going to sleep in, after can’t-count-how-many days of getting up early. 

Alas, more z-s weren't in the stars for me today.

At 7:15 my 16-yr-old daughter comes crying into my room asking to lay down next to me. Consoling to be done. Relationship problems. Try to remind child of fact that she is blessed to have these first-world problems (possibly reminding self, as well) and urge to find ways to control overly emotional states every day. Already went to sleep crying. Mothering award - prolly not coming my way this year. 

7:35 a.m. friend down the street calls with car trouble. Not really car trouble. She just cannot maneuver her car out of tight parking spot. Is frantic about it. Get dressed to go help. Can’t find winter boots (decided to be organized a few weeks earlier and put all my boots downstairs in the storage bin. now have to go find and log back upstairs again. annoying repeat chore. never doing summer/winter clothes swap again. never works out cuz always wait too long to do the stupid swap).

Decide on half-broken old boots laying around the donation pile. Upon first steps into slush outside, immediately get socks soaked and walk with wet feet rest of the way.

Get friend’s car out of spot sliding through snow and slush, trying not to crash into other cars.

Go upstairs with her for coffee I can’t drink cuz can’t have whole milk. Damn lactose.

Back at home, feeling kind of annoyed and depressed. Not sure why. Probably remaining feelings of breakup with adorable but completely unsuitable boy. Or maybe just hormones. 

Comedy may help. Stand-up comedians on Netflix to the rescue. Making my own coffee now and start household chores. Each one of which seems to be going slightly wrong. Things fall (onto me. repeatedly.), fly across the room, spill, splash, and leave me in dust clouds. I get sharpie on the microwave (HOW?!), almost drop the air conditioner out of the window, and accidentally super-glue all my fingertips. 

Accidentally is a stretch. Ignored super glue spilling on fingers (even though gloves were within reach) as I fixed everything I could with the tiny opened tube. Had to make the most of it, for we all know the packaging’s promise to reseal and reuse is just false advertising.

Spend 20 minutes rubbing glue fingers with cooking oil and brillo pad. Could go on crime spree now as fingerprints seem to have been removed together with superglue.

Bad wavelength I’m on seems to affect all electronics, too. Music randomly disconnects from Alexa, then bluetooth speaker stops working, and now trying to make a brand-new laptop work, which is just at complete refusal stage. (Note: laptop brand-new but also was cheap as hell).

2pm now. 

Scared of rest of day.

Maybe should take time to do some readjusting = MEDITATION!

What is with my writing style? Probably influenced by Bridget Jones' movie I just watched a few days ago. Must readjust to own prose.

if you want your kids to remember you one day, be a monster (apparently)

This evening, as I sat with my daughters at the dining room table, engaged in post-dinner conversation, with the occasional interjected order of mine toward the older one to eat her vegetables, the question arose about how faulty human memory can be.

Do you have any memories from your younger years? Maybe around the time you were four or five or so?  I asked my second-born, Nini, who just turned 13. She shook her head, pulling her face into a clueless expression.
I remember something! Lee exclaimed, pushing away the carrots I had heaped on her plate.

I was excited to go down memory lane with her, when she revealed that the only vivid memory she seemed to be able to produce was when I supposedly almost choked her as a 6-year-old. I was mortified! I did no such thing! I practically shouted. Nini chimed in, apparently making the mnemonic connection immediately, from just hearing that one sentence. They both then recounted the story of how I once decided that Lee, the eternal "meal-refuser",  needed to eat the ravioli I had prepared, not via any stern or demanding commands, but by apparently grabbing her mouth and practically forcing a piece of ravioli into it. I found that hard to believe. I was that worked up about ravioli?! Knowing myself, that thing was not something I slaved over by hours of dough-making or whatever it is one needs to do when making ravioli from scratch. It probably came out of a can. Not exactly a meal to be proud of. No nutritional loss on my child's side here. In fact, probably would have been a good thing not to serve them this stuff in the first place.
But, my kids insisted that I lost it over those raviolis. They were crying tears from laughter at this point, embellishing the story with probably imaginary details. I, on the other hand, was almost in tears about how monstrous this act seemed to me in hindsight. I apologized profusely and explained to them that I do not recommend exposing oneself to motherhood of small children and working full time without help. Living with little kids is like living with tiny schizophrenia patients. But, sometimes, it can be mom who just goes crazy from stress and exhaustion. .... Just make sure you have an adult (!) partner and the proverbial village, I lectured as I fumbled for another excuse which would, perhaps more successfully, make me feel better.

After a minute or so, though, I wondered --- so, you are telling me .... that you don't remember ANYTHING from your childhood ... the thousands of times I exercised patience when you wouldn't eat your food, or would tell me the meal I just slaved over for an hour tastes like curtain, ... THAT composure you don't remember? Or the fact that I laid down with you every night to read and sing to you and often wait until you fell asleep. You don't remember that? Or the weekly outings to the park or the family art projects, .... all the endless spoiling basically ... for nothing? So .. THE ONLY REASON you remember that it was, in fact, ME who raised you so far, is because I once stuffed ravioli down your throat?! If I hadn't given you this one horrible memory, you may as well have been raised by someone else cuz clearly I could be anyone. Just swap me out.

The kids could not stop laughing. And instead of producing one nice, balancing memory, they thought of another incident, when I apparently chased them into the room so I could spank Lee on the bum for whatever reason (knowing Lee, there probably was a reason, but that's beside the point).

Anyway ... so now I'm really wondering... wth was it all for,  if they seem to only remember the bad stuff? What's the point of trying to be a good mother?!!

The bad moments are certainly outweighed at 99% by good or normal/non-traumatic regular family stuff. And, even if it is just at 80%, it is still a pretty darn good childhood they're getting. But apparently, all my efforts won't matter, because what they will walk away with, is the memory of that one time when I force-fed Lee a piece of canned pasta.

what i woke up to this morning (straight from my head onto paper it went)

It is the last free day before school starts again and I will be returned to a forced schedule of daily 6 a.m. risings. I lay in bed with my eyes refusing to open, ignoring the commando of yesterday's self, which set an alarm for a reasonable hour as to slowly adjust to the harsh reality of the upcoming schedule change.

Over are the 3 a.m. bedtimes of winter vacation. No more sleeping til noon just cuz I can. Good bye, sufficient hours of sleep. Welcome back, rings under my eyes.

I am holding on to this last morning of leisure like a small child attached to its mother's leg, attempting to stop her inevitable departure into the work day.

Dreams and reality exchange secret, complicated hand shakes as I drift in and out of sleep. In my head, I create brilliant story snippets and paragraphs, which turn out to be utter nonsense when briefly examined during intermittent, awake moments. Turtle-esque, I retract my head back into the protection of my covers, escaping too much light and too much world.

At last, one of the children appears at my bedside.
- "Weren't you gonna get up early?"
- "Go away!" I moan melodramatically.

Fine. I capitulate. Sleep has lost. My dreams now only surreal memories, I reluctantly unravel myself from the sheets to seize the day (or, let's start with a humble bathroom visit first and leave the "seizing" for a bit later.)

perspective ...

I got a $138 ticket for rolling through a stop sign WHILE looking straight at the cops parked on the corner. Apparently, I was too "high" on my 250mg of acetaminophen to react to the situation appropriately (‪#‎painmedsLightweight‬). Getting caught violating the traffic rules, is usually something that makes me angry. I know, it makes no sense, since it's my own fault, but sometimes we just don't make sense.

As the officers were writing me my fine, I sat waiting and listening to NPR and then simply became too sad to continue to be upset about this ticket. The story on the radio featured a refugee woman who watched the love of her life and a hundred other people drown after their boat was forcibly capsized. She also was given a toddler to join her on the flimsy little swim ring she was clinging on to and then had to watch as the child's mother drowned in front of her.

This just really put things into perspective and made it impossible for me to be aggravated by this traffic fine. In fact, it made me feel guilty to even have entertained the thought of feeding into my mundane aggravation. I had to hold back my tears about the story so the officers wouldn't think I'm crying about this stupid ticket, and I'm sad to admit, there have been days I have cried over something as ridiculous as a traffic fine.

Every day, I am grateful that we don't live in a war zone and don't have to know the unimaginable suffering so many people in this world today have to know. Every day, when I speak this gratitude I also ask and wish that the people in these terrible situations are given moments of strength, light, and hope.

a true revelation

I have been struggling with a certain inability to get over someone I should not even be having to "get over." It is a guy who is 10 years younger than I, a total playboy (or f***boy as they call them nowadays), someone who drinks and smokes too much, someone I would have never thought I could fall for. And, I probably didn't, ..... but it feels like it.
And here is what I mean by that.

Let's call this (29-yr-old) boy Tiburon. The Spanish word for shark, which is what they call him out there, as he is known for his womanizing ways. I chose to hang out with T deliberately for these reasons. I didn't want a relationship or anything serious.  In the beginning of last year I had attempted to have one of those and failed miserably, for I was simply still grieving over J, who I lost in 2013.

T was perfect. He was honest, funny, and charming. And he danced with a special kick in his step.
In the summer, I took a break from him, because I noticed that I began to get emotionally involved despite the fact that we were in a completely open arrangement. I'm one of those people who runs away when they feel vulnerable (i.e. develop feelings for someone).
T stayed away but kept reaching out for months asking to get together. I finally gave in on my birthday. I was alone and thought, foolishly, that I could keep it at coffee and would be able to resist him otherwise. From that day on (back in October), he came over almost every single day. It was beautiful. We never fought - because we weren't in a relationship and made no claims over one another. It was nothing but positivity and carefree evenings together, followed by nights in each other's embrace.
There were a few strange elements - for example, Mr. Player who used to come over for nothing but sex in the beginning suddenly didn't want to have any at all for long stretches of time. He also used to kiss much more than he then did when we saw each other daily. But, somehow, our intimacy still grew stronger despite this lack of physical action.

By the end of the year - around Christmas - he had an emotional breakdown. And, I don't mean that in the traditional sense of the word. I mean, this boy, who never let me in emotionally (i.e. we never talked about us ... and especially not about what he was feeling), suddenly opened up to me big time. It could all have been the liquor talking. Or the smoke or whatever. But, what he said, he told me while holding both my hands with tears streaming down his face. He said that I was perfect, that he didn't deserve me, that he can't give me what I want (he may have come to the conclusion that I want a baby - my fault), but that he can't even go with other girls anymore because he feels guilty. Now, if that isn't honesty then I don't understand this world. But, the things he did say to me were later identified as three red flags in identifying a man who is about to run. (I have learned this because I spent weeks watching dating advice videos after we split - trying to [a] understand what just happened and [b] get the F over this pain I felt over the loss of a relationship that wasn't even officially a relationship!

Anyway, so - naturally, the baring of his innermost thoughts suddenly created feelings on my end. Or, should we say, revealed them, for I was not aware that I felt this way, at all. Two days later, my jealousy had become so intense that I told him this isn't working and cut myself out of the equation. Because, here I was, falling for a total player. Danger! Danger! So, I ran because I was afraid of getting hurt down the road. What I did instead, of course, was hurt myself (and maybe him?) prematurely and I totally didn't anticipate how badly it would affect me. How could I be this emotionally touched by someone who barely wanted to sleep with me?

T obeyed my wishes without a fight. A fight, I wish maybe he would have taken up. But, I guess, the lack thereof should be a testament on its own about the true depth of his feelings for me. Maybe he was just not that into me and whatever he said, he said because he wasn't sober.

But - whatever it may be - the separation was an agonizing struggle for me. To make matters worse, he had another chick in like a minute, something he didn't feel the need to be discreet about as he posted picture after picture of her on his social media feeds, which brings me to the conclusion that this may be more than just one of his many alternatingly used girls. I still see them together. Looks like he may actually like this one more than anyone else. Or, maybe he saw what a nice relationship could be when we were together and finally opened himself up to the real thing again. That thought feels better on the ego, so I'll go with that. Alas, it doesn't make the sadness any less intense.

What did take away some of my melancholy and obsession about this (or maybe not, since I am now writing about it) was a nearly spiritual experience I had last Friday. And this is why I am actually here. To document this strange revelation.

So ... this whole past week had been a struggle. More so than usual did I obsess about T, and then, simultaneously, spent time upset with myself that I was still m-f-in' thinking about him. It made NO sense! Why? He clearly had moved on. He clearly was never into me. We clearly had no future (for I have no interest in being with a self-involved player and yet another man who doesn't know he has a substance abuse problem.)
By Friday, after working until 1 a.m., until I literally couldn't look at the computer anymore, I stood there in my office room frustrated that I went right back from work focus to being sad about T. I ordered myself to stop thinking and decided to just relax, listen to music, and smoke (by myself, which is something I never really do but I didn't want to talk any of my friends' ear off  about T for yet another evening). As I sat there, the music's beat synchronizing to my heart, looking out the window, I noticed from the corner of my eye that a picture of my kids had fallen over on the shelf over my desk. I decided to get up and fix it and when I did, I noticed, that it had revealed my copy of the Qu'ran standing on the shelf. It was a copy that my ex-husband had brought into the house more than a decade ago and I had never actually opened it. I was raised Muslim, but I'm just not a religious person anymore. I believe in God (in an abstract way) and even in guardian angels (and that is a whole other story), but I don't really want to have anything to do with organized religion anymore. I believe it has its benefits but, I feel, mostly, it divides people when it should bring everyone together. ... Anyway ... this experience, even though it was religious .. ironically .. did bring all my friends of different beliefs together.. but let me not jump ahead of myself.

So - there it was ... this old, heavy translation of the Qu'ran. "This seems like a message", I thought to myself as I looked at all the other propped pictures on the shelf standing right were they were before. I dismissed it and returned to my futon to sit down. "Yea, but I don't want to read any heavy religious texts right now. ... I don't want to run into anything sexist that's gonna upset me .. I just don't want to ruin my high here." ... S! You listen when you're being spoken to. ... "Yea, but, I have my period anyway, and I'm not supposed to touch the Qu'ran on my period." (Something that I had learned when I was a kid and that kind of stuck. Like the not eating pork thing. Not religious anymore, just ingrained behavior.) ... -- Lame excuse. .. But, anyway, ... in case you haven't noticed ... you may be on your period - BUT - you have not bled ONE drop today all day. ... so, what is your excuse now?
I decided to end my inner soliloquy, for I began to feel guilty, and got back up to retrieve the book from the shelf. I sat down and opened it to a random page, starting to read in the middle of the page, and - I kid you not - this is what it said:

A direct response to my agony over how this didn't make sense but then again, maybe I had really fallen for him?! I was about to completely lose my way when this kinda set me straight.

T is not real love. It is all about self-indulgence. It is all about me, not him.
T managed to bring light into my life and make me forget, for just a moment, that there is a giant void left by J's death. T brought light-heartedness and hope back to me. He wasn't meant to stay and me now finding myself convinced that I must love him because I can't get over him, is a false conclusion.

I shared this passage with a few girlfriends and each one of them was able to relate to it in a different way as it applied to their situation, which made me think about how beautiful (but also dangerous then) it is what one can do with religious texts. Beautiful because it can be so versatile in its interpretation as to fit many different situations in life; dangerous because we all know what people throughout history have done with religious texts (interpreting them to their advantage). Let me not get started on this, because just the thought of this makes me upset. Extremist groups in the Middle East being some of the worst examples for this abuse of a guidance book that is meant to help people live better lives. And all in order to serve their own selfish desires. Ok, must stop now before I start an unrelated rant.