Seven Years Single

Well, practically.

I have dated a couple of guys during the past seven years. In a desperate attempt to attain romantic ideals I called them relationships, but I know now that those involvements were (really really) not. But for all intents and purposes I've been single now for seven years. I've been putting myself through school and raising my child alone. Being single for that long can really take a toll on a person's self-esteem. I began turning inward seeking answers to questions like, "What's wrong with me?", "Why can't I get dates?", and "How can I get a guy to like me?". Even earlier this week, I called my mother and told her that sometimes I feel so alone (or so single) that I toy with the idea of pretending to be dumb or needy just to get a guy to come around.

Then today, I happened upon this on my facebook:

After I read it, I wept.

I wept so abruptly and so hard that I had to stop what I was doing, pack-up, and leave my office. It really caught me off guard. It also felt really good, like a wave of relief washed over me.

What is "wrong with me" is that I'm too much!

I'm too smart: two bachelor's degrees and a master's come Dec. 2015
I'm too beautiful: that's right, inside and out, and I'm confident to say it.
I'm too strong: I've made it through divorce, addiction, and failures; I've parented alone my child's entire life (not to discount the assistance of family and friends who I wouldn't have made it without); and I have pulled myself up by the bootstraps more than once to be where I am today and I'm STILL not finished becoming!!!

There is no reason I should ever consider compromising any of my accomplishments for the sake of not being single.

I don't know what (or I guess who) I'm waiting for, but the Universe must be guiding me towards a man with giant hands.

Until then, guess I'll just continue becoming.

My Heart Broke For Her

I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona in the early Saturday afternoon sun when I turned my phone back on for the first time in three days. I had an onslaught of messages appear saying things like, "Call me asap, this is kind of important"", "Do you know?", "Are you ok?".

My heart sank a little when I called my twin sister and she used the soft-spoken something-bad-has-happened  voice when she answered the phone.

"I have to tell you something that's sad, but you may be relieved, I don't know." she said. "Are you sitting down?" I walked to the nearest bench and sat down. "I'm sitting." I said, "So what is it?"

"Lily's dad died of a drug overdose yesterday." she said.

"Ha!" was the first thing to come out of my mouth while I could still breathe - my family has a tendency to use humor to deal with intense or emotional situations, but I was drawing a blank.

" I- mean," I managed to gasp, "I always- expected it- but- I- didn't- expect- it."

I half-laughed, half-cried for a minute before the totality of the situation hit me.

"Does Lily know yet?"

"No, she doesn't know."

I would be the one to tell her. I cried from Winslow, Arizona all the way to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was sad and angry. As if her little heart didn't ache enough that he was never there, it would break to know that he never would be. I'd always held out hope that one day he would redeem himself in her lovely green eyes, that maybe one day he would apologize to her and try to be some semblance of the father he never let himself be before. That glimmer of hope is gone now.

Two days later I would do one of the most difficult things I have ever done as a mother. Forget cleaning up vomit, or all the poop that escaped the diaper on the McDonald's slide, and the emergency room visit that lead to her spending a week in the hospital. I would look into her eyes, the green ones she got from him not me, and I would tell her in the softest, most loving voice I could muster that her father died.

She cried, and she got angry. We collected the photos of him from albums and boxes I had managed to save over the years for her to look at. I told her the good stories I could remember, and left the bad ones to die with him.

"You know Mom," she said, "I'm sad that he's gone, but I didn't really know him."

"I know." I said, "I'm so sorry, Booboo."

"Mom, I can't remember his name." she said as her lovely green eyes welled up with a new batch of tears.

I told her, and together we cried.  

Yep, That Too!

I sat on my couch watching Booboo play a game on my laptop.
I watched her and thought about all the ways she's just like me.
She looks like me, she talks like me, she even moms her friends like me....
And then she started picking her nose.
I mean like knuckle deep, digging for gold, possible Egyptian brain removal technique picking her nose.
Yep,I thought as I laughed out loud,
That too.

Morning Mantra

Hey Folks! It's recently occurred to me that the majority of writing I have been doing as of late has been within the ole cranium and well, you just can't enjoy it there! So here's a little background on the morning mantra I began reciting to myself:

I quit dating about oh... ho-hum... four years ago as a general rule. I'd recently gotten my shit back together and I felt the need to focus my energies on myself and Booboo. I tried to "hang out" with a few people in that time, but as I think I've said before- my picker's broke, so they were never really up to par any way. (But should any one be reading this- it wasn't you it's me... you're nice and handsome and going to make someone else very happy... yadda yadda yadda ;) ) I realized about mid-October that the possibilities of myself becoming completely jaded are increasing approximately ten fold per year. I have a legit fear that I'll become one of those thirty year old a-sexual women that reverts to listening to the lesbian man-hating phases of all female rockers, because they ALL have "that" album they released usually right before they met the man of their dreams, decided men don't suck after all and started making babies and families... Except the Indigo Girls... and Melissa Ethridge... and Joni Mitchell.

BESIDES, didn't I sort of go through that phase back in '06 when I smelt like patchouli, listened to a lot of Ani DiFranco's album Little Plastic Castles and didn't shave my legs? Oh lord, lets not go there again! (Still <3 Ani! lol)

Anyway, I don't want to be that girl (again/ever)! In order to prevent any further jading on my part, I began reciting a new morning mantra to myself in the mirror each morning: I'm smart, I smell great, and someone somewhere thinks I'm a MILF! 

That's right, you heard it here first! SOMEONE SOMEWHERE thinks I'm a MILF, and I know it. I embrace it. You should embrace it too, if you have come to that point in your life where you have children. I feel like I should give you the FYI other mothers:

SOMEONE SOMEWHERE thinks YOU are a MILF! 

It may be your husband, your boyfriend, or that (completely not creepy) guy that watches you haul the kid shit out of your trunk in your sweat pants and falling pony-tail and thinks to himself, "Oh yeah, even in those sweat pants..."

So take that and run with it! No one can rob you of your MILF-ness, you have that s**t on lock-down ladies!


 

A Poem for Booboo

I've brushed your hair and tied your bows
and wiped your butt and picked your nose
and tied your shoes and counted toes
to make sure you have all of those.

I've kissed your cheeks and dried your tears
and calmed your cries and quieted fears
and when your bad I smack your rear
and when you don't listen I tweak your ear.

I grew you right inside of me,
I knew it was meant to be.
I love you and you love me,
and together we're a family.

(that's so corny it made me giggle)

Here's one I wrote that was inspired by Booboo and published in my university's literary magazine circa 2009.

A Cardinal in the Driveway

Death caught her eye at
The very first glance:
The bright red cardinal Frannie
Killed and left as a bloody
Gift to her owner. She asks
Why the cat killed the
Cardinal and all I
Think to tell her is
Cats eat birds.

She looks at me amazingly
Knowingly, unnervingly unafraid.
Lily is four; captivated by cardinal
Death. I'll die!
She whispers, smiles sweetly.

She's seen death before
And told someone at the
Funeral my aunt died because her
Butt quit working. That's not exactly right
I say, but nothing else, nothing.
How can I teach her somethig I don't know.

Role Reversal

As Booboo and I were sitting in the car waiting for the bus the other morning I had her help me clean all the garbage out of the car. I picked up a roudn cardboard canister out of the backseat and asked Booboo what it was. "It's mine Mom. Don't open it, ok?" 'Well what is it?" I asked. "What's inside?" "Don't worry about it Mom, just don't open it."
She crawled into the back seat and continued to clean out the car.
"What is inside this thing?" I asked, my curiosity peeking.
"Don't open it Mom, it's mine." said Booboo.
I couldn't help it, I wanted to know what was inside. While she wasn't looking I pulled and pulled and finally got the little canister open. Baby powder exploded out all over my face and clothes just as Booboo peeked back over the front seat.
"You just had to open it, didn't you Mom? I told you not to!" she said.
"Well you wouldn't tell me what was inside!" I exclaimed in self defence.
"It shouldn't matter." said Booboo, "it's mine and I asked you not to open it... Hey Mom?"
"What?" I asked as I tried shaking the powder off my t-shirt.
"Next time use your listening ears, not your hearing ears." she said with a smirk.
"Noted." I said with a laugh. She totally got me.

Booboo's Spring Break

She had a far better spring break than I! Mine consisted of a few interjections of fun, work, work, finishing a school project, and work.
Together we...
Went to the park to play, make friends, scooter, and walk the dog

 And we went to the river to take a hike and let Booboo to swim in the (too cold) water. 

Then Sister, my friend Lacy Drawers, and some other friends took Booboo fishin' at the slough

AND FINALLY...

Booboo's spring break culminated in a trip to the beach with the rest of the family to enjoy some fun in the sun and attend my counsins wedding!



She had a great time on spring break! I'm so very thankful that we had a few good days to hang out and that she was able to make the most of her spring break, she deserves it!

Thanks Mom, Sister, Aunt J., and Speedy for making her beach trip awesome!
Thanks Lacy Drawers and Sister (again) for the fishing expedition, she loved it!
AND thanks Becks for taking all the photos at the park and the river :)