Things that make you go hmmm....

Often people will say things to you that you either have no response for or you are better served by just keeping your mouth shut.
For example -
"Hey, I had dream about you last night and it was crazy, it in we were together and..." (I got this one from my UPS guy and a co-worker.
or
from a co-worker "Man, you don't look like you feel very good" (can't even remember how many times I've gotten this one)
or
"did you do something different with your hair" followed by an "Oh." then nothing else. (this is often said with a scrunched i-don't-like-it face)
or

"It's great to see you! it's been a long time, looks like you've put on a little weight"... pause "I mean, you look great!"
or
"Ahh, when's the baby due?" or "is it a boy or a girl" (most infurriating cause you know you're not pregnant! and yes, this did happen to me, but only once)
and last,
the creepiest one I've ever gotten was when I was pregnant and at Walmart and I ran into this guy I had met at work cause he filled in a day when our normal mail delivery guy was off. Anyways, we say the normal howdy-do's, then he just out of nowhere starts going on and on about how beautiful he thought I was and how he thinks
that pregnant women are sooo sexy and it's the glow we get when we're pregnant and how he loves big women and how my husband must be sooo hot for me..... I had no idea what to say or do, so I just let him finish, said thanks but I'm late for work, then quickly turned and walked away.
I mean, SERIOUSLY PEOPLE!!! What are you thinking!!!!

Oh V-day - why do you taunt me?

So today is Valentine's Day.
What am I doing today? Well, nothing.
But, I am not dwelling on the fact that I am alone or have no love interest in my life, no.
I am simply being thankful for what I have -
My freedom, my beautiful daughter, my health, my family, my friends, my occasionally sanity.

Today I am taking a day for myself.
Today I slept till 10:30am, have walked the dogs twice, had coffee, laid in bed all morning catching up on my dvr-ed shows from this past week, am still in my pj's, drinking beer on an empty stomach and about to go soak in a hot bath with my current book.

I thought about going to a restaurant and sitting in a corner booth and enjoying great food with a glass of wine and reading my book then going to watch a movie, but it seems I'm not able to muster-up the motivation to get out of the house today.

Pathetic, you may think, but no, I don't. I am woman who is doing exactly what I want to today, and right now beer, a hot bath, and good shave followed by some incredibly good smelling lotion and then re-dressing into a clean pair of pj's is exactly what I need right now.
So while I may not have some gorgeous guy to dress up for and take me out, I am going to be gorgeous for myself.
But, to all you happy "in-love" people out there - here's a cheers for you! (excuse me if I'm not smiling)

Something to Believe In

I just finished watching "The Time Travelers Wife" and I am still wiping the tears from my cheeks as I type this entry.
It was a beautifully enchanting love story and it leaves my feeling empty but full of hope.

The sadness is that I know what love is - full, unrelenting giving of yourself, the warmth and comfort of feeling safe and wanted, and the knowledge that even on the worst of days you can come home to open arms that will wrap around you and make everything ok again.

The hope I feel is knowing that I do know what real love is. And though I was blinded into making myself think and stay for too long with someone who was never going to be good enough to or for me, I know it will happen.

I have this fairytale dream that there's this wonderfully, slightly flawed man out there waiting to find me; and one day we will meet by chance and something in his eyes or the sound of his voice will trigger an old memory from a past or future life in which we were the best of lovers who completed the other's puzzle. Yes, I know I'm a cheesy romatic, but I can't help it. There is so much drama and awefulness in today's world that maybe it could use a few more people like me who believe in simple love and fairytale endings.
I've never, never considered myself an optomist nor do I think anyone who knows me would use that word to describe me, but I believe people can change for the better if they really want to. And if everyone could take all their good and reach out and spread it around like an intoxicating, infectious virus - then can you image the effects? I can, I'm a believer.

No spare pieces.

So as I'm reading my current book "The Penny Tree" by Holly Kennedy, I come to end of chapter 14 and this is what I read - It was a day packed with emotion, a day filled with memories. Annie was twenty-three then, naive enough to think that she and Jack were invincible, and in love enough to believe they'd make it through anything life threw at them. She knew there would be highs and lows, but she was ready. We can handle it, she thought with confidence as she slid into her dress that day. We'll show everyone how it's done, this loving each other until death do us part...........That first night in Seattle, they toasted each other with paper cups of wine, surrounded by unpacked boxed and wrapped in the contented silence of two people who were excited about their future. Of course, what they didn't know then was that years later it would all be torn apart, wrapped in a different kind of silence, deafening proof that no relationship is invincible.

Now first, let me say that my blog will not be countless entries about divorce and failed relationship, but that is something I have gone through and from time to time when it weighs heavy on me I will have to let it out.
So anyways, it got me thinking how dangerous a thing love is.
How it blinds you from seeing things in people you don't want to believe is there;
How easily you can lose yourself in someone;
How without meaning to, you can alienate others to be closer to your love;
How much or yourself you give up to be the person they need or want you to be;
And how life and all the bad things in it happen without you being able to do anything about it.

So this is where I am now - not dwelling on the past, but trying to piece together things I lost and rebuilding a better me. I'm discovering I have so many disillusions about love and relationships. I've always thought of it kind of like a cheesy Lifetime movie that always has a happy ending.
I am looking forward to start dating again, but am pretty sure I'm not ready to "fall in love"
I don't want to meet my soul mate yet cause honestly, I think I would just screw it up.
I know that relationship take work and that not everything or everyday is perfect, but there are certain things I expect and know that I deserve. I also know that to truly love someone you have to be able to give up a piece of yourself and trust that person to hold it and protect it and treat it right, and I am just not ready to do that - sorry, but I don't have any spare pieces right now.

The begining of now....

A bad relationship does nothing but chip away little pieces of you; most so small you don't even realize it's happening until you look down to find this empty hole.

By the time I left my home I couldn't even cry anymore. My home had become a prison to me.

What I can't understand is how do you protect a person you hate so much but yet still love them just enough that even when it's all over you still let them make you cry.



Numbness with the occasional, brief meltdown is how I would describe my journey to freedom. But my saving grace with this small, innocent child and with the feel of her tiny hand inside mine I swallowed down hard and held it together knowing because of her I couldn't break.



I have learned so much about myself - but most importantly I have learned my own worth.

I've learned two halves don't make a whole; that while people can better themselves, you can't ever really change them. People can't hurt you unless you let them; Numbness is a feeling; and Love alone is not enough.