Auld Lang Syne or The Ugly Cry

It’s time to bid adieu to 2017. Looking back, it's been a year of change for me. I suppose if I had to sum up the year in one word, “Change” would be it. Most of it has been for the best and led to a lot of happiness. Some of it,however, was out of my hands and I simply had to learn to adapt. No matter what it was though, it has led me to growth and I’m thankful to have had that opportunity.

The first and most impactful change came at the very beginning of the year, January 23rd. That was when I Ieft my home in Virginia and moved back to Tennessee.  I didn't just leave my home, I left my son in Virginia - that broke this mama's heart! It didn't matter that he's an adult with his own apartment, I was still leaving my baby. I don’t care that he is a 6`5” sasquatch, he’s still my baby. I was leaving him all alone even though he has his grandmother and all of his friends and his job, to fend for himself - though he makes more money than I do - in a cold, cruel, foreign place  (he's lived in nearly all his life). Honestly, I really didn't handle that well at all; okay, Im still not handling it well, but it’s better. I think I did okay hugging him goodbye and locking the apartment door one last time. I did just fine outside on the lawn hugging him and giving him a kiss on the cheek and telling him goodbye again.  But honey, once I got in that moving truck I  watched in the rearview mirror as he got in his car. He was going to go to his new apartment while I would be going 4 hours away, it might as well have been 4000 hours away--this mama Lost. Her. Mind!

And now, The Ugly Cry.

The Ugly Cry. Quite suddenly your breath catches in your throat and you gasp as all the air in your lungs comes surging out of your body and that knot forms in your stomach like someone has just hit you. And you suddenly make this… sound.  It isn't crying, not yet, its that sound that Emma Thompson’s character, Elinor Dashwood, makes in Sense and Sensibility during the scene in which she discovers Edward is in fact, not married. It's a guttural moan, this emotional vapor- lock, and then the water works start. Your eyes immediately pour out more tears than you thought possible, like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon where the character’s eyes just turn into a water fountain. Your nose starts to leak, your face turns red, your eyes swell up, and your nostrils become so clogged that you just have to adapt to mouth-breathing for a while or give up oxygen entirely.  You finally inhale enough air to fill your lungs back up only to have it rush out again in another unholy sob.  This is not a dainty cry.  This is not a delicate moment. This is the Ugly Cry!

That is what happened when I saw my son drive off. Richy tried his best not to look startled and never once said out loud that he was pretty sure I had just lost my damn mind. It had to have been funny; I think it's funny now, but yeah, I was a wreck that day.

Another change that has made this year really wonderful is being able to live near my brother and his family.  Since neither my brother nor I managed to kill the other as children we have grown up and decided to get along just to spite our mother. I love having him close because that also means I get to see my nephew Gabe, and my nieces, Delia, Paisley, and Hensley.  I get to babysit the youngest of the girls pretty often which makes me remember things like birth control, but still, its all so much fun! Those kids have my heart and I know they know it.  

Adding to the list of changes, my Comcast bill went from $56 to $99 in less than a year. Really. From the end of January after the above mentioned move, when I had it installed, to December, (now), less than twelve months later it has increased over $40. There is no non-dish competition for them in my location, so god bless them, they saw a golden opportunity and bent us right over.  We have now cancelled our service and are sticking it to the man by splitting service with a neighbor.  Personally, I think neighbors should all do this.  Fit as many people as you can onto one modem and everyone splits the bill. I also like to believe racism doesn’t exist and unicorns are real. Let me live in my fantasy world.

No matter what changes this year has brought about, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am very grateful for the direction my life is headed in and for the people that surround me and participate in my world. I have so much love in my life that it would be selfish of me to complain of anything that happened this year, and that is the truth. Nothing was so bad that I couldn't make it through without Richy, or my parents, or my friends!

So, here's to you 2017! Thank you for giving me such love and heart. Thank you for letting the world know that #MeToo proved we were not alone. Thank you for a voice. Thank you for friends who never judge and love me no matter what. Thank you for weird art and the beginnings of self confidence. Thank you for teaching me lessons. Thank you for finding me. 

It's Time for the New Year, New Me Lies

Well, a new year is upon us, and I am ready to start blogging again. I have healed and moved on so now it’s time to make irresponsible jokes and sexual innuendos once again.

Thank the gods, with the year in Hollywood and the Blob of Marmalade in the White House, I have plenty of material.  As you will read, most of my ideas though, come straight out of my absurd life.

For example, just the other day, my boyfriend, Richy, and I were leaning out of the upstairs bedroom window whistling at and talking to two adorable doggos down in the neighbor’s yard next door.  Richy started talking about how he wished he hadn’t missed out on buying that house. He really liked it and he wished had bought it when he had had the chance. Meanwhile, I’m still baby talking to the puppies (yes, even eighty pound dogs are puppies. I have no shame). He started talking about having met them once and he thought maybe his name was Tim, but he can’t remember her name.  Having only paid sportatic attention to my dear Richy, I leaned out the window and whistled at the adorable doggos and yelled down “Here Tim, here boy, come here”!  Richy just stared open mouthed at me for a moment before shaking his head and informing me he was talking about the people. Not the dogs. The dog is NOT, in fact, named Tim.  We assume so anyway.

Do I still love Shemar Moore you may ask? Absolutely as always. I have just decided to add another piece of bread in the form of Jason Mamoa and make myself a beefy man-sandwich.  I became aware of this Hawaiian god while watching Stargate: Atlantis with Richy.  Well, now he is Aqua-Man who I know nothing about except he has muscles twice the size of Atlantis Mamoa and he has this sexy eyebrow scar (yes, some idiot tried to pick a bar fight with this 6’3” moose) not to mention he’s dark and delicious. Oh, and he was Kahl Drago on Game of Thrones.  So yeah… I’m pretty excited about my new man-candy while remaining ever faithful to my original true love.

My offspring, Thing 1 and Thing 2, are now grown and out on their own.  My oldest is married and observing her discover her “life as a married woman” is both sweet and hysterically funny.  My youngest, however, is discovering things like paying bills, which he says, and I quote “Sucks”. This shows he has a firm grip on reality, and as a parent, you can’t really ask for more, so I’m pleased.  

Richy is my long suffering partner and significant other. He and I met through a mutual friend.  I often tell her I owe her one… and various other threats.  No, in all actuality, I’m really lucky to have this man in my life. We have been together a little over a year and he has made me so happy and apparently I make him happy, but I think he’s just drunk.  This last month I got sicker than I have ever been.  I got sicker than anyone has ever been and was basically bed bound for 19 days and I’m still so weak most of my day is spent on the sofa. This man has been such a great caregiver and so kind.  He works all day, comes home, cleans, makes a homemade dinner, makes sure im drinking plenty and have my medicines. He has helped me shower and wash my hair while I've been too weak to raise my arms.  He's done all this and only said out loud one time that he hates dishes. He really hates dishes.  He has been a trooper.  

Myself? I’d have strangled me a couple of weeks ago, honestly.  

I suppose that’s about it for today.  Nothing much, I know, just getting back in the habit of writing.  Maybe I will post this one, and maybe I won’t, we will see. If I do, thanks for reading. Tomorrow’s should be better, I hope so anyway.

And remember, banging your head against a wall burns 100 calories an hour. Really.

If you love someone, let them go. If they come back, they are yours. If they don't, they never were.

This is a real downer

Writing this blog used to make me feel brilliant. Not that anything I had to say was particularly smart or witty, but because people chose to read it. I mean, when you think about it, the idea that I had any views at all was spectacular considering there are about 7 billion people on this planet, and many write books and many write blogs and I believe a lot of people write a little bit of something every now and then, and out of all of the things in the world to read a person would choose to take five minutes out of his or her day and read what I had to say. How amazing is that? There are tons of smart, funny, sophisticated writers in the world, but some people thought “Hey, I'm going to see what Theresa has to say today”. The idea of that always astounded me. When I started getting a few thousand page views, I felt like a total celebrity! It's silly, I know, but it always made me feel good. Also, I have met some wonderful people online and have very much enjoyed reading their thoughts and views and recipes and stories. So, why can't I get my act together and write like I used to?

Sometimes, there are things in life that happen, that are so bad, one begins to doubt their own soul. One major catastrophe in my personal life led to another which led to another, which led to yet another. So many bad things happened to my family in a span of about six months that it has made me question my judgment, my sanity, my heart and whether or not I am fit to be around other human beings. I am writing about this because I find it easier to write than to talk.

Talking is exhausting. Friends and family are so eager to talk about everything and every little detail. I don't enjoy talking anyway. I have begun to learn that from childhood on, when I talk, no one listens. I am either considered too stupid to know what I'm talking about or too unsophisticated to have anything worth listening to. It isn't anyone's fault, it's just the way I have always been perceived and probably always will. I'm not a person that jumps into a conversation feet first. I usually sit and listen for a long time before making any remarks, just so I am certain that I know what I'm talking about. I like to get a feel for the tone of the conversation and decide whether or not the group is receptive to new ideas or not. There are many times I have will be challenged in a view or a memory or an opinion. I like this very much unless I know that the person or persons I am speaking with are so firm in their beliefs that it will do me no good to share a different viewpoint. In those conversations I just have to say “Okay, you're right” and let it go at that. I have no idea why I have veered off onto this rabbit trail, I apologize.

My original point was, that talking can be tiresome and frankly, lately, I've been too lazy to put much effort into talking or anything else. Including this blog. I am so sorry to any person who has picked this to read today. I am writing on a Sunday, so I am hoping not very many people will be around to read this self indulgent entry.

I do want to get back to writing this on a daily, or maybe every other day basis to start with. It has brought me so much joy over the time I had faithfully worked on it. I got to laugh at my own ridiculous situations and it gave me something to be proud of.

Maybe that's what the matter is. I just don't feel proud of anything anymore. I feel like I let my family down and especially let my daughter down. I let myself down and I let down people I love more than I love myself. I have taken a positive step and gotten a therapist, and I'm hoping to get better soon. It's odd, I've even stopped looking in mirrors because I don't like what I see. That sounds terribly dramatic like something out of a Victorian novel, and my brain knows it's an absurd behavior, but when I try and look up for a second, I'm repulsed by what I see and I look down again. I plan on covering this in my next therapy session as I can't imagine people will be willing to be seen with me in public much longer, at least not without expecting a bribe.

What I mean to say is this: my next several posts are likely to be soppy and self absorbed and whiny and even angry. I have avoided writing because I wanted to avoid any posts like that. It's too hard for me to pop up with a cute post as if nothing were the matter and try to make myself laugh when I really am not laughing at all right now. I wrote on this blog everyday for so long, I feel like I was sharing my life with whoever reads this. I know I don't have to share everything in a public forum, but this blog has been a natural extenuation of my thoughts. So instead of stuffing my thoughts, I am going to write them out-loud, and share them and not worry about whether anyone is reading this or not. Eventually, I will get better and I'll find funny things again once I start leaving the house so that funny things can happen to me, and I'll share those things. And eventually I'll remember that life is really just a bunch of weird random snapshots that are generally silly and fun if you look at it the right way. I'll remember that and I'll laugh until I do that horrid snort that sometimes pops out. That will feel so good. I haven't snorty-laughed in so long that I don't remember the last time I did it. Until then, bear with me and if you continue to read, thank you for sharing this journey with me.

-T

Grand Re-Opening!

Hello everyone! I have been out since February, because the heart had been burned out of me for a while by someone who I'd trusted for a decade of my life and my children's lives. I won't go into detail. I have been thinking so much about writing this blog lately though, and realized it brought me so much joy. I will not let that joy be removed from my life, so I am coming out of my half year of depression and anger to begin again. I have removed this Tiberius (see Suetonius' Life of Tiberius, in his Lives of the Caesars) from my life and it's high time I remove him from my brain. So, that being said, I hope you will bear with me through a few messy blogs until I get back in the habit of writing the less messy blogs you all seemed to like!

One thing I am excited to report is my not so new now, but new, apartment! I really love this place! It has beautiful nine foot ceilings, hard wood floors throughout except the hallway and is so much bigger than my old house! It's one of those giant homes they built in the early 1920's (I think) and it was converted into 4 apartments. I don't know that it would have qualified as a mansion back then, but if it was still one home, I have no idea what I would do with the other ¾ of the house. I suppose though, if I could afford this as one home, I could afford to fill it with all sorts of lovely antiques and stuff from Restoration Hardware. I know the bathroom is a funny thing to really like in a house, but I do love my bathroom! It still has the tiles from the '20's tiling the floor. It is that really small tile, maybe 1” x1” in white and bright blue, laid tile by tiny tile in there. It has 9 rooms and I have had a lot of fun decorating just as I please in it.

Yesterday I bought an older Crown Vic car from a taxi stand that is going out of business. I kind of hope they leave the taxi light on. I feel like Phoebe from Friends, driving around in a big taxi. Unfortunately it isn't yellow, but with the decals and the light, it should still be fun! I suppose if they take the light off, I'll have to remove the decals and go with the undercover cop car look. It'll be fun to freak out people on the interstate! Either way, it works great and I'm very happy to have paid cash for it and not have a car payment.

As a bonus, my wonderful best friend, Kandi, came in last night and gave me an impromptu early birthday party! I got balloons, cheese cake with candles, the strangest assortment of gifts ever, and she brought the best props! We put on fake mustaches and took pictures (she looks like Charlie Chaplin)! We had chalkboard signs and wrote weird messages on them and took pictures of each other; at one point we smeared our eye makeup down our faces and wrote Why Me in a thought bubble above our heads. We watched the Betty White show, the old black and white one, about a day in the life of Elizabeth! That was just genius! We had a lovely dinner from a place called Fatz, and I think the waitress was the best part of it, really. We stayed up until 5:30 this morning doing this stuff, acting like we were 15 years old again! It was great, though I realized I am getting too old for this all night party stuff!

Think of Waldo's parent's, they must be worried sick.  

How to Lose a Life

Yes, I know I said I would go back to being an irresponsible, sarcastic goober after I wrote Conversations with Myself, but I find that I must have one more serious discussion. This week I have no doubt used all of the days I might have had off over the weekends for NaBloPoMo. Who knows, maybe this month won't even count, and I'm okay with that.

Two days after I had a long talk with the young lady that inspired the above post, I got a frantic call from her grandmother (who she lives with) around 9pm. This girl wanted to take her own life. This wasn't screaming, raging, attention-getting teenage behavior; this girl was calm and quiet and had actually asked her grandmother to call me. She knew she needed help and she was scared. She also called her mother who lives nearby.

On my way there I made a fast call to my friend who helps with suicide prevention and got advise from him and he helped to calm me down. He assured me her calling for help was a positive thing. She was fighting against dying. She wanted to live and she knew she could trust me. I was relieved and quickly made it to her house.

She answered the door when I got there and I immediately dropped my purse and cane and held her in my arms. She welled over with tears and buried her face in my chest as I stroked her hair and kissed her head. I told her over and over that I love her and that I would help her. Everything would be okay. Then a scrawny woman in pajamas, sporting a mullet and a fever blister the size of a dime walked by us and looked at us with contempt. She was smoking a strong cigarette in this house where no one smokes. She kept sticking a tissue up alternating nostrils. The young lady sighed and said “That's my mom. She came in and just sighed when she walked by me. It surprised me when you hugged me”. I tried to reserve judgment despite what I'd heard about this woman and I continued to hold (I'm going to start calling this young lady Jane) – I continued to hold Jane.

Her mother walked by a second time and shuffled into the entryway we were standing in and sniffed and looked at no one in particular and said “I dunno why she's doin' this... Actin' this way”. I felt my face flush and I said more sternly than I meant to “Because sometimes sixteen year olds have real problems and they need help!” It makes me angry now to recall it. She shuffled back out of the room and lit another cigarette. Just a note: Jane has asthma, but her mother “Just has to smoke. She can't help it”. Alrighty then.

We got Jane to the hospital. Her mother only wanted to take her to the local one – which misdiagnosed my stroke, left my lying in my own vomit another time and nearly killed me on a third visit. Most people won't go there even if they have lost a major body part. I insisted we take her to the one in the next town and her mother tried to say she didn't have gas, she didn't know if her car would make it, etc... I finally told her to get into my car, she could ride with me. I told her she couldn't smoke in it though. Suddenly her car was able to make it just fine. Jane and her grandmother rode with me. The mother rode with one of her two boyfriends.

When they called Jane back they would only let her choose one of us to go. She chose me, which was an honor, but frankly awkward as hell. I stayed back there with her and listened to her tell the doctor everything. This baby was cutting herself, had planned on just swallowing all of her medicine including a whole bottle of sleep medicine. She cried and the hurt in her pervaded the room. The doctor was so kind and understanding. He wasn't judgmental in the least and promised to help her. He said they would send her to a place for a few days to get help and Jane agreed to this. I held her as she cried and unloaded more of her life on me. I knew a good deal of it anyway, but it helped her to talk about it.

Her mother came back just as the doctor was finishing his consult and the doctor kindly told her mother that Jane had been cutting herself since third grade and the last time was two weeks ago on the insides of her thighs. Her mother got so angry. She looked at Jane and said “Why didn't you tell me you was doin' that shit? I swear doctor, I didn't know she was doin' none of it”. Jane grimaced at her mother and said “Mom, it's not something I'd show you. It's not like I'd stand around and go, 'look what I did last night'”. When the doctor left he told the mother she would have to stay and sign some papers. It would be a while as they had to contact the on-call psyche doctor.

Her mother waited until the doctor left and then right in front of me said “I can't BELIEVE you told them that stuff, Jane. What the hell? I wanna go home. Now I'm gonna have to stay here even longer. If you hadn't told them all that crap we could go home now. You didn't need to tell them all that cutting stuff. Good God, Jane!” I thanked providence that I was on the other side of the hospital bed. Jane looked at her mother and laughed and said clearly keeping secrets had done wonders for her so far. That woman walked in and out of that room all night long and griped about wanting to leave. At 2am, she said she'd had it, she was going. The doctor told her she couldn't she'd have to sign admission papers. That's when I heard that mother say she didn't want Jane. She wished she could just get rid of her. I was shocked into silence. When I found my voice all I could do was look at her and quietly say “well, you almost got what you wanted tonight”.

The mother did end up and leave. She wouldn't go with Jane to admit her to the new hospital which is just over an hour away. I stayed with her until that morning when they finally took her, followed the ambulance down and saw that she was settled in. On the way back I called the grandmother and informed her that the mom HAD to go down and sign, I was coming to get her. The grandmother called me twice during that ride saying the mom wouldn't go, but I told her she would go, or I'd pick her up and put her in the trunk and take her. I got there and the mother said her car wouldn't make it. I said I knew, which was why I was there. To come get her. At this point I'd already picked up my mom on the way back because I was too exhausted to drive. Finally, since she couldn't smoke, the mother ended up getting in her own car and driving the hour anyway. I was so angry. Why was I even there? It didn't matter at that point. I had her follow me back to the hospital that was an hour away, she signed some stuff, and then I had her follow me back home. I was close to collapse at this point and now that Jane was safe, I just wanted to sleep. Special thanks to my mom for doing those last two trips.

Folks, I've just never seen a mother so cold and cruel. A woman who is more worried about herself than her child. She kept saying “I guess I'm going to have to cancel my doctor appointment tomorrow so's I can sleep all day”. Well, actually, no. You don't have to. As it turned out, I had an appointment too. I made it. I had to drive an hour back to the city and back the next day to bring Jane's things to her. I went to a friend's home where I got a hug, breakfast and a nap and I paced their living room and ranted, then I had to leave again. Yesterday we went to see her to take her a plastic plug for her nose-ring hole. That mom didn't bother to go.

If you can't handle kids, if you are so cold that you don't have a particle of love to give a child and you are more enamored of your pet chinchilla than you are of your own kid, don't have that kid. Okay, just don't. Give it up for adoption, or (this will get me hate mail), just have an abortion. After all, we do have that right. Don't wait to let that kid get into this world, purposefully mess it's head up so bad it wants to die anyway, and tell it you don't want it. Don't hurt someone that way. You have just set someone loose in the world that has no role model of love, kindness, empathy or compassion. You have perpetuated yourself. To that mother: I hope you sleep well at night, knowing that a woman who has known your daughter for two years has the honor of being called her mommy. She calls you by your first name, much like one calls a dog.

My New Year Cometh

I have started my new year off in February. I know this breaks some cosmic rule that all resolutions must begin January first; mine simply couldn't. Also, it makes me look better. Those of you that are already backsliding in your vows to be better, healthier, more productive people can look at me in February and think “Wow, she's really sticking with it”!

I have spent the last few days signing up for NaBloPoMo, getting my finances in order, resolving to finish my book, figuring out an exercise plan and I went to the grocery store last night and stocked up on several days worth of organic produce swearing to myself that “if it doesn't grow, I'm not eating it”. I am trying to avoid processed foods and I have the best intentions in the world right now. I am already aware that there will come a certain time each month when I will want to consume tater tots and suck Hershey's syrup straight from the bottle, I have a plan for that.

There are a few exceptions to my rules on nutrition. Diet Coke is the first exception to all the rules. I am trying to limit my intake to two cans of Diet Coke per day, but I will never kid myself into thinking I can just set it aside. I don't drink coffee because for me it tastes like something people have washed socks in. I love iced tea, but there is never any left first thing in the morning. I don't know why this is, but it is an inevitable fact that I can go to bed with a pitcher of sweet iced tea waiting for me in the fridge and by the time I get to it in the morning, it is sitting empty – still in the fridge, mind you – and I have to make a fresh pot before I can wake up. This is disastrous as making tea involves using the stove and and some level of awareness. I cannot do this without caffeine. There is no caffeine. You see the problem. So, Diet Coke stays.

I also must eat processed chocolate squares. These come in the form of Ghirardelli 72% dark chocolate squares. Technically I am within the bounds of things that grow. After all, chocolate does come from a bean, I just like my bean to be mixed with sugar and have been handled by Swiss chocolatiers before I get hold of it.

As I said, I have a plan for each month that mother nature lets me know I am not pregnant. I will devour everything in sight. No. Bad plan. I have found that salted, toasted pumpkin seeds can almost satisfy me like a potato chip. They are quite salty enough and they crunch very well. If I'm desperate for grease I suppose I can dip them in olive oil before I eat them. Maybe not. I always crave Sonic tater tots during this time. Oh dear buds of greasy, potato-ey goodness, fried golden and served warm and comforting. I have a plan for these too. They simply don't count. That's right; for one week per month, these are a free food. They have no calories and they are counted as good for me. That's the plan.

I am already working to make this blog post show up sometime before midnight tonight, and so far I'm halfway there. I a little concerned about my computer's willingness to participate in this though. My internet thingy, you know the little symbol of lines in the bottom right corner of your screen that stays lit up to tell you it is connected to the internet? Well, that thingy continues to flip flop between being lit up and being unlit with a big red X through it. Last night when I was online my screen would get all choppy and parts of it would turn black, a bit like when you are trying to watch satellite TV in a bad thunderstorm. I'm not sure what is going on with this, and since I am one of those bizarre people who kill electronics, I dare not go check on the internet box thing. Not that I would have a clue what to check anyway, but I would feel more productive if I could go “take a look”.

So even though my new years resolutions are beginning in February, I feel pretty good about them. I feel a sort of conquering attitude emanating from me and can see success in my future. I already see myself thirty-five pounds thinner with glowing healthy skin and a national best-selling novel moving off of shelves faster than they can print them. I also see Johnny Depp and Shemar Moore wrestling naked in the mud over who gets to marry me. No one ever accused me of having perfect vision.

Until tomorrow!

Don't forget that Ancient Egyptian tombs are decorated with pictures of watermelons.