Ghettofabulous

She watches the roaches dance
Upside down on her ceiling
Playing solitary
Cause the one tv channel is boring

She waits for the boys
To get done working
To play darts and watch them drinking
She doesn't count the beer cans

She stays up late
With the boy down the street
No promises to keep
Just pizza and friendship

She stands on the side of the pool
As the children come out before she jumps in
She is a sea turtle, a seal, a mermaid
Her mind resets itself

She hopes one day to own a car
To fall in love, to be fat with children
For now, she's her own hero
Because no one else is here.

You don't own me

Cigarettes remind me of my ex-husband. He smoked a pack a day. You know, it's silly the things you miss. I still get sick from the swirl of smoke in the air, but I miss holding him and feeling the heat of the cigarettes coming out of his nostrils down onto my hair. I don't miss how he treated me, but he was my first lover, and somehow the smell got associated with physical closeness.

I am a strange hybrid of a being. On one hand, I value my independent lifestyle highly. I live alone, enjoy being able to come and go as I please when I am not working, and like having space to not clean for a few days or worry about making dinner if I don't feel like it. On the other, having a family with all the demands, time constraints, responsibilities, and obligations appeals to me. I prize love more than any single thing in this life. My personal hell would be to dwell in a loveless relationship. And there in lies the rub.

The tension between wanting to be with someone pulls hard against the angst of not wanting to be with the wrong person. I strike out in this so often because I genuinely want to be loved and valued, and I confuse physical attention for love. I am old enough to know they aren't the same thing, and old enough to realize that I still need my Daddy's protection. No man loves in quite the same capacity as a dad, and my Daddy always told me if I was ever having problems figuring out a young man's intention, to send that gent his way. I started talking him up on that offer recently.

Here is the deal. No man owns me. But I do belong to a family. That family has fought through hell and back for me. There was a time I was stolen away from them, yet they continued to love me the best way they knew how and hope that I would be returned to them again. When I came back, they sheltered me until I was ready to make my own decisions about life and pay the costs for those choices. They invested in my education, my mental health, and my spiritual development. They listen to me regardless of their own political leanings and viewpoints, letting me figure out life through the grand experiment of living it. And giving that up for some dude who doesn't respect my Daddy, well I did that once, and it was hell.

I am not the best at providing for myself, but I do the best I can right now. I don't really try to protect myself. I have a lot of angels and praying mommas for that. And I am always going to need someone to tell me I am doing well at life, that I am pretty and smart and sexy. This is who I am. I want a man in my life, but I want the right one. Sex is easy. Love is hard.

I know my point of view is fading fast, some feel it should have been left solidly in the 1950's. I am happy to have my college education, to be able to vote, to have been allowed to leave an abusive marriage in the dust no questions asked. I value my work, being able to have a bank account, and being treated as an equal member of society. But I am not a man. I am different from my guy friends, different from my ex-boyfriends and lovers. I can't hit it and quit it. Turning my brain off at night is nothing short of an act of God, and sometimes I just want to be held and heard. I don't need a solution. I am a woman, equal and different. I don't want to provide for my family in the same way my dad provides for me. I want to make my contribution to the world, but I have never cared about the money. Sometimes I even do the math wrong.

Not all women feel this way, and I respect that. I just don't want to be treated like one of them. I want to be seen and valued for who and what I am regardless of if we agree or not. Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe when I get treated like I agree with all of the patriarchy oppresses women stuff. I don't feel oppressed; I wish I would have listened when my Daddy said no to my first husband. I love it when my neighbors offer to shoot someone if they try to come after me on my block walk home. I think the most romantic thing a guy has done for me in recent history is to take my hand and walk me 20 minutes in the dark to my front door. Chivalry may be the cost of giving up patriarchy, and I am just not willing to part with it yet. Because I hope that someday, someone will ask my Daddy for my hand and that when he says I do, my Daddy will know I will be loved, cherished, and protected by that man. This is what I want in life. And it may not happen, but a girl can hope.

And no, no one owns me. But I belong to a family. And when I start one of my own, I want it to be with the love, support, and understanding that I enjoy now. I want it all. I still believe in chivalry.

Sad tonight...

I would pay someone to help make these thoughts go away, to stay with me through the night and just hold me to let me know I am ok, that everything will be ok. Sometimes at night for no reason at all, I want to cry, to scream, to escape life completely. I don't know what to do, who to call, or how to get myself out of it. I tell myself to hold on, that there are good things coming in life, that tomorrow is the Switchfoot concert, (or whatever else I have planned) and that this too will pass.

I breathe in and out and remind myself that it will be ok. I try calling a friend, maybe two, and then give up. I don't want you to see me like this. I almost walked a block to my neighbors house, but decided against it because what can they do? They can't hold me through the night and tell me it will be ok. And tomorrow I will probably be happy again, high on life. But tonight, my brain has taken over and I can't stop it. So I write, because writing is a safe way to say it without doing anything rash.

Thanks for listening. This is what my depression looks like. I am tired of trying to be brave for you. I love you all. Please send me a prayer and for my non religious friends, a good thought. Thanks for being in my life. I think of you and it keeps me here. All my love.

Trying them on

Sometimes I feel so indecisive on things. Today, I went back and forth in my mind on wether or not to go to AlAnon. Pros: awesome people who understand what I have been through and are trying in their own way to deal with the same issues. Cons: most of these people are new to the program and running a stretch of highway in the middle of the night after walking 45 minutes is bound to get me or someone else killed.

So just for tonight I have decided to go to Celebrate Recovery instead. It's a Christian based 12 step program to help people deal with life's hang ups and issues. There's a corporate worship service and then the ladies and men separate into small groups to discuss life.
I am hesitant to go because the last meeting I went to like this was held at a church that housed a homeless shelter I stayed at for three weeks before coming home to Oregon. Participation was mandatory, and I hated it. Knowing I don't have to go back if I don't want to is helpful.

So here I am trying to get healthy and be content with the life I have. I am starting to get real with myself about how I have been part of the problem. I want to be part of my own solutions now. Today, I am learning to breathe and be grateful to be in my small pond where people love me regardless of if it's how I want to be loved.

Maybe living your own life on your own terms is the biggest adventure of all.

Better off as friends...

I will kiss you on the mouth one last time
Shut the door and fall silent on the floor
Your words reverberating in my ears
We're better off as friends
This isn't what I want or need right now
Thanks but no thanks
You're not worth it to me

I thought you were different
Than all the others who came before
But you're totally unaware
Of what you've done to me

You captivated my imagination
And for one moment I thought I could
Just take it easy and enjoy the ride
But if it's a dead end, why bother?

I have spent my whole life
On a roller coaster, getting nowhere fast
It's been exciting and terrifying
But I am older now
I want to saunter, to enjoy the walk
And the view as I hold hands
With someone beautiful
Intent and content just to be together
For the joy of it

This mockery of love
Simply will not do
I have enough friends
I have one job opening
Leave me alone if you don't want it
You cannot have the paycheck
Without doing the job

P.S. Friends don't get the paycheck!

AlAnon

We come in all shapes and sizes to a room set with chairs and literature. There are pamphlets and books. We come from all different backgrounds, all walks of life and faiths are represented here. We come with only one commonality. Someone we love has a problem drinking too much alcohol, and we've come to the end of ourselves trying to fix their problem.

It's a curious thing that I can feel kindred with a group of strangers. I don't have to explain to them crying because I can't stop someone from drinking. I don't have to tell them about being disappointed because my plans fell through with a drinker and hear them remark, "Why don't you just stop making plans with them?" Financial crisis, sleepless nights, and hopelessness are all familiar to this group, as is the feeling of being completely out of control. We don't share because we are unfamiliar with these things. We share because we've held them in for too long. We're here because we need to borrow each other's strength in order to find the strength we've always had. We can carry on.

So I have started to go to AlAnon because when I tell my story here, people aren't shocked by it. These people aren't scared by this demon in my past, this thing I can never out run. They are staring it in the face too and living and loving in spite of it. If they can love regardless and learn to accept life on life's terms, I know I can too. They are the embodiment of hope for me. Life can be good no matter what.