January 4, 2020

Just Keep Going

Well, look at that. Only three days in and I have already missed a day. But seeing as how it isn’t a resolution to “write everyday” but a goal, it doesn’t matter. And if you do miss a day in achieving your goal, you pick yourself up and keep going. You don’t look back and you don’t hold regrets. You just keep moving.

Yesterday was miserable, mentally. The news had me fuming and work had me stressed so that it felt like I was wearing a blindfold of pain. In the end I chose to be with people who would make me feel at peace than allow myself to dwell on my misery.

I could claim all the excuses I want to why I failed at my goal, but it would do nothing. In the end I chose not to because I was tired. And that’s okay.

We have to be happy with our choices because it was the best one we could have made in the moment. (Plus, I didn’t want to make a post about the shit the world is going through. Because enough has already been and will be said.)

Most people dwell on the things they should have done as opposed to what they did. But if what they “should have done” was the right answer they would have done it in the moment. Be happy with your choices. They were the right ones.

January 2, 2020

Not a “Resolution”

One of my favorite lines from a film (which I know I have mentioned countless times in other New Year blogs) is when Forrest Gump and Lt. Dan go to a bar, in New York, and watch the ball drop with two beautiful women; and the one with doe eyes watches and remarks “Don’t you just love New Years. Everybody gets a second chance.” There is a sadness and hope in her voice that says she’s seen and done things she wants to forget. It’s so small but so powerful. It also completely encapsulates the mentality behind the holiday.

Human beings are filled with hope and possibility. Even at our most broken moments we wish for something better to come along. It’s ingrained in us. We also have this strange notion that because a new year rolls into existence that somehow we’re different people or our situations are different. For the most part that is true. We are different beasts from one day to the next. (Every moment we experience is unique.) Yet we can’t change who we are as easily as the roll of a calendar year.

That’s why I am not one to do resolutions. They’re silly and more often than not never are completed. Why would we magically do something now that we hadn’t achieved before? I guess we’re also just insane. We do the same thing praying for a different result.

Typically I tend to steer clear of resolutions. I rather just try and live than make some grand pronouncement that I will do ‘x’. In the past I have attempted and failed. Why would now be any different? (Maybe because I’m not the same person?)

In the spirit of “resolution” I have decided to write something here, everyday. It may be short. It may be long. But I will try and put my thoughts to page as much as I can.

To help facilitate such efforts I have the “Writer’s Digest presents A Year of Writing Prompts” in my back pocket if my mind just isn’t coming up with something to write. (And there will absolutely be those days.)

January 1, 2020

All down hill from here

As is custom, when I sit on the edge of a new year I take a look back at the previous one. And it must be said that 2019 was quite the train wreck. All the politics and world issues aside, my personal life was a rollercoaster.

Going chronologically, it started off great. In February of last year I passed my real estate appraisal licensing exam (on the third try) and officially became an appraiser. Then in May I was awarded my AA degree, summa cume laude (then proceeded to transfer to a more distinguished college campus). And in the space between these two landmark achievements, I felt empowered and returned to editing my novel (because nothing could stop the success train!)

I got halfway through my revisions before life turned on a goddamn dime.

The first punch to the gut was my mother getting, officially, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (Prior to that a nurse practitioner diagnosed her weird mental failings as being under too much stress.) Her loss of memories be damned, it was her erratic and bizarre behavior that finally showed my father and I the ugly truth we had been denying.

Following that my grandmother was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She was given a month to live and that she did. She passed away in the early morning hours after everyone had left her to rest.

Immediately after that death, my father fell and hit his head while taking his morning piss. (His third time falling that week.) He arrived at the hospital unresponsive and stayed that way until I gave the order to let him rest. He was gone in less than a minute, surrounded by his family.

Since then it has been failure after failure as I struggle to balance my job, my academic life, my romantic relationships, and being the sole caretaker for my mother. I try to keep up but I’m always letting someone down or forgetting to do something.

This had been the way of things until very recently…

After my husband had his weight loss surgery he began to have issues with his balance and walking. It got to be so worrisome that he was sent to a neurologist who ordered MRIs of both his brain and spine, and who gave an early diagnosis of “pressure on the spine.” He has since had them and now we wait for that news to hit us across the face.

To say that 2019 fucked me up would be an understatement. It bludgeoned me and left me on the side of the road to die.

But all is not lost…

This notion that at the stroke of midnight we are all given new lives and new opportunities is ridiculous. In reality we have that at all times. Even when things are shitty. Every moment is new and undiscovered. We get to forge new paths everyday. But just like any route the terrain is vastly different from the one that came before it. How you navigate through it depends solely on your willingness to keep going.

I am glad this year is done. But the shit storm that has become my life will only get progressively worse. It’s just the path I tread. However, I will take every moment I can to find happiness. I will surround myself with love and companionship to remind myself that in the end all that matters is what we did with the time we were given.

November 18, 2019

Dripping With Narcissism

I am about to write the most “first world problems” post of my life, and I want you all to hunker down and prepare yourself to get dizzy from all the eye-rolling you’re about to do.  Maybe take some Dramamine.

Okay?

Ready?

Sometimes it really sucks to be a nice, “attractive” guy. I use quotes because I think I am mildly pleasant looking, and I in no way think I’m that good-looking. I’m just going off of the instances when people tell me I’m “hot” and then immediately inform me that they want to “bed” me. (That last one is not a direct quote but more of a stand-in for the proper word.)

I say this because in the past few months I have met new people who have (almost immediately after our outing together) contacted me, privately, to inform me of their feelings. And this is after meeting and engaging with me with either my husband or my boyfriend. Evidently I exude this sense of “hey say whatever the fuck you want to me” that I don’t intend to do.

Of the instances that I have been accosted by gentlemen, I have only told the boyfriend. He won’t react the same way as the husband who will spin it into something else, primarily because he has been through this shit time and time again. (He also internalizes it and makes it about him and how “no one wants” him, etc.)

After these moments it becomes crystal clear to me why traditionally attractive people become assholes. The barrage of people who must hit them up is a lot (if even I just get a few) must get exhausting. I try to be polite to their advances but inevitably I am an asshole for being up-front. (They appear to take it that I find them unattractive or undesirable because of their looks or age. Nah, girl. It’s just that I am twice taken.) I never asked them to hit on me. Nor did I make it seem that I was flirting with them, at least I, in no way, intended to. I am not exaggerating when I say these people, who have tried to hit on me, got to know me with my significant other. Maybe it’s just the “polyamorous” aspect in which these people get the impression that I’m up for a fucking third… I don’t know. I just wish it would kind of end. I’m not looking for another and, in the end, how shitty would I be if I ended up cheating on TWO GUYS. And would you really want to be someone who was willing to cheat on two guys? Sometimes men don’t think about the long-term. (I understand, I am just as guilty here…)

The lesson I am learning is to be cold and aloof, and that goes against my usual way of being. (Don’t get me wrong, I can be an asshole it’s just not as frequent.) I’m always ready to make friends, (bizarrely I love people and find them interesting) but from my experience it makes situations complicated because the single (and from the most recent, married) guys will think I’m flirting or coming onto them. Sorry, dudes. I am twice taken. We’re all stocked up on significant lovers here in Josh land. So peddle that penis somewhere else.