*peeks around the corner*

Hey! Hi.  Yes, remember me?

So I haven’t written in a long time.  Duh.  I hit a low. And All I had was the same stuff to cry over.  I really didn’t want to do that.  I didn’t want to expose anyone to that.

I didn’t know what to write different.

And I’m not saying the rough times are over.

I’m just somewhat through them.  That part anyway.

And I’m trying to look at things differently.  Even when it is hard.

And I WANT to write again.  I just need focus.

I started thinking of the past writing challenges.  So I messaged Lori. You read me right? So you have to know who the fuck Lori is. Yes or no, go here and read her too at Oh, Shit. She’s awake. 

Really. Go read her.

By the end of the night, okay, the middle of the night because I found the message the next morning, she had a new list for us.

That is right.  WE’RE BACK!

And then we realized. It was 50 questions.  And we hadn’t written.  Were we ready for that?

And then Lori once again put her brilliant mind to work.  We’d split the questions.  One of us would take evens, and one odds.  And she even knew how to decide.

We both just posted the question “Evens or odds?” to our social media outlets.  You decided. Whoever had the most of one would write for those.

Mine was pretty neck in neck.  I was surprised.  Lori, however had odds by a landslide.  So I’m even… yeah.. we’ll just pretend anyway.

So sit back and read along.  I may be a little rusty, but hey, as the cliché’ goes, there might be a little dust on the bottle… but don’t let it fool you about what’s inside.

Welcome to the new challenge as we pull up our

Blog-Girl Panties

once again.

* And if you’d like to follow along with our challenge, or try yourself, you can find the list right here at TomSlatin(dot)com.

Take a Bow.

I’ve never been so good at looking at the whole positive side of things.  And lately, I’ve never felt more alone and isolated.  A lot of the time it feels like everyone I trusted and have turned to has disappeared.  Or run away.  Or just they are not there now.

But I’m still hanging on.  I’m trying to force myself to be more positive.  And some days I feel that I have lost my footing and fallen down the mountain, instead of gaining ground.  I suppose this is how it works though, right? You have to fall in order to get back up.  Though I’m starting to feel quite broken.

So I push.  I push, push, push that positive thought process.  Even when I’m not feeling it in the slightest bit.

Pretending.  I am a firm believer that if I pretend enough that things are positive, eventually that is all I will see.  Delusional? I don’t think so.  I think it is conditioning.  Conditioning the mind, training your thoughts to ignore the negatives that try to seep in.

I try to condition my mind, the way I condition my body for Goju Ryu.  I am constantly training it.  Though, I’ll admit my body is more willing to take it and shape it than my mind is at this point.

But I keep pretending.

Play Time*

It’s time to pretend

put on a mask again

pull it all inside

they want you to hide.

It’s time to pretend

that’s the face to send

all is rainbows now

no big, dark, grey cloud.

It’s time to pretend

feign you are on the mend

swallow that happy pill

fake the calm and still.

It’s time to pretend

no silent rules can bend

bury your pain in lies

paint on joker smiles.

It’s time to pretend

twisting, never an end

suck it up, happy face

act that scene with grace.

And when that doesn’t work, I drink a lot of coffee and crank the stereo volume to dangerous levels for the small animals around me.

And by the way… I go through about a 10 cup pot of coffee a day, and pretty soon my mouse problem should be not so much a problem anymore.

*Play Time is a poem of my own.  I’m happy to share my words.  But please don’t steal them.  If you’d like to read more of my poetry, you can go here:  From the Mind of a Selfish Heart.

** I have been getting some interesting feedback in the short time since I posted this.  My intention wasn’t to be down.  I was just stating the pushing through the rough.  That I am trying to be positive, even with things are hard. I’m okay. I’m hanging in there.  Still smiling.  And it’s not all pretend smiling.

A little truth.

‎”We are what we believe we are.” – C. S. Lewis

I saw this quote today, and my head has been spinning with it since.  Well, to be honest, my head has been spinning massively for a while now.  At least since Monday, and none of it has been good.

But I’ll start with the quote.  It triggered something in me.  Maybe a realization, but not an epiphany.  It wasn’t a happy thought.

The truth is,  what I really believe I am,  is what my worst fears of being are.  I fight so hard to not be something, when I think I’m fighting because I can’t stand being it.

Nothing.

In every aspect of the word.  I am nothing.  Okay, fine.  You are going to argue this.  Some of you, and god do I love you, are going to tell me how wrong I am.

But what am I to feel, to believe, when that is all that is really shown to me?

I’ll start small.  Friends.  I have a few.  And I have others that will claim they are as well.  But when push comes to shove, those others aren’t there.  I’m not a thought in their heads unless I am right in front of their faces.  And even then, sometimes they’ve no clue.

I’m alone all the time.  Me and my boys.

Yes, I go to class.  And I love being in around people.  But I get so anxious.  Because when it’s over?  I go home.  And no one is there with us.  No one calls.  No one wants to hang out.

Love.  I finally came to the conclusion that I don’t really think I’ve ever honestly been loved.  I’m sure when things started that is what they thought.  But I have this tendency to get involved with some pretty fucked up people.  And when you are that fucked up, you’ve no idea what love is.  I don’t even think you are capable of feeling it.  Sure, there is the idea of love.  But it is thrown a way in a second.  In another girl walking by that looks inviting.  In the greater appeal of being drunk and high as opposed to being a partner and father.  And in that sudden rage when hurting the other person, beating them down, trying to kill them sounds more rational than just stepping back.

And now, when I try to get close to someone “normal” or “good” I am nothing to them.  I am the person good enough to fuck, and then forget about, or become bored with.  There is nothing more to me.

Maybe I am just unlovable in that sense?

Mom used to call me The Princess Who Believes In Faery Tales.  Which is also the title of a self-help book.  But I’m not so sure I believe anymore.  I want to believe. And I don’t mean in the obvious meaning.  But that love really does exist.  Or that it exists for me.

And family.  I love my family.  And I know that they love me somehow in there too.  But I seem to be the one that is left out.  Avoided.  Forgotten.  And for some, I am the one that is used, abused and controlled.

I don’t understand this.

Actually, I fucking don’t understand any of this.  Because I am not a bad person.  I like so many things, I couldn’t really be boring.  So why do I mean nothing.

Why am I nothing?

If I knew what was wrong with me, I would fix it.  But no one ever says, “Hey Chrissa, you need to do this.”  I get “you are fine, it’s not you.”  And nothing changes.

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just delusional.  Irrational.

I feel not right though.  33 years old.  3 children and I can’t keep us stable.  Weekly shut off notices.  I can’t get my business to do anything, or anyone to come and take my classes.  I sit at home, lonely and hurting.  Trying to put on a show for my kids, so they don’t see, but I know they do.

I’m so exhausted.  My strength is wearing thin.

I don’t know how to fix me.

Get over yourself.

So be prepared.  This is going to be a little of a bitchy mom rant.  And truthfully, the people who have ignited this flame in me, are not going to see it.  Because when it comes to posting my true feeling around people I know off the internet, I have no balls.  Every time I slightly grow a set and voice my opinion, I am ripped to shreds and made to feel like a piece of crap who obviously has something seriously wrong in my head.  Simply because I don’t fall into the standards of the normal rednecks around here.

And that is an entirely different rant.  Back to the issue at hand.

Elementary schools are being closed down in my area, and the kids are being bussed to larger combined buildings.  Sort of like mini high schools.

My son is in first grade.  He goes to the school I went to, rides the bus I rode, and even has the same bus driver.

As of yet, his school is safe.

But our neighboring school district just shut down several of their elementary schools.  And the things I’ve seen parents saying have me wanting to backfist them several good times to the head. (In my opinion, the backfist is the Ninja form of a bitch slap.)

Now, I may not go to school board meetings, or even the PTA.  Which I know believe is called the CTO, and I’ve no idea what that stands for.  Because you know, we can never let well enough alone, and we have to change things to suit every miserable person.

I have a cousin who is a teacher, so I went to her to ask what exactly was going on.  Simple enough, the government cut funding.

And the way it was looking, if they kept the schools open, then they would have to cut other programs.  Like Music.  Art.  Sports.

You know, important stuff.

But instead of thinking about their children’s futures, I see parents crying their eyes out, throwing verbal temper-tantrums, and bitching a blue streak about how their kids are being destroyed by this move.  When their real issue finally comes out:  they went to that school, they want their kids to go to the same school.

WTF?  It’s not about you, you self-centered morons.  It’s about your child. Your future.  Our future.  Do you want to deny them the things we grew up with because you can’t let go of the past?!

What are you going to say when they reach high school and want to play football?  Or what if they’d like to play the trumpet in the band?  “Oh, I’m sorry son, but at least you got to sit in the same room I did growing up, where I played my clarinet.” “I’m so sorry sweetie, there is no football team.  But you can look at all the pictures of your daddy in his high school varsity jacket.”

I’ve seen parents threatening to rip their kids out of school and home tutor them.  Yeah, that’s just what this world needs.  Sure, there are some parents that are awesome at this.  But I feel for the most part, that an awful lot of people are not equipped to give their child a good education on their own.   I know that I am certainly not, and there is no way I’d do that to my child.

Just recently the school district my friend has her children in voted to cut the music, art and sports programs, instead of raising taxes.  So these morons now do not have to pay any extra money, but the kids will suffer.

Someday these kids will be the people in charge of social security, medicare, welfare and any kid of aid.  And when the parents are old and laying in a bed in need of something, it’ll be the kids deciding to cut their funding to better suit themselves.  And they will have learned it well.

Yes, I am aware that you can pay to get your child involved in sports, art programs, private music lessons, and such.  That is great.  If you are rich.  But if my son suddenly decides that he’d like to learn to play the oboe, he’s shit out of luck.  Because I can’t afford to do that.

Next year if this comes up in our school district, I will be sad.  But I will not fight it.  I will not mouth off about it.

I will embrace whichever direction takes my child to a better place.

And not worry about my own personal feelings.

Maybe I am totally wrong.  Maybe what I’ve read and learned surrounding the school closings is wrong.  But if what I’ve been lead to believe is true, wouldn’t you want to keep your children on the learning path too?

I don’t know.  Being a parent is tough.

Rant done.

This apple is rolling.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

This is a saying that I have grown entirely to hate.  For the simple fact that my mother uses it at every single moment she deems fitting.  And usually it is meant to rub something in my face.

I don’t want to be her.

I am not her.

And I never will be.

Let me point out, before I go any further, or before I start to really let it all out here, that I do love my mother.  It is deep and painful after everything, and I ache for nothing but that love.

I was born 3 weeks after my mom turned 18.  The first 2 weeks of my life were spent in an incubator, because I was 8 weeks early.  I sometimes wonder if it was this, the young age of mom, her in general, or all of this combined that has led to the life that her I have.

Mom has always been quick to leave the responsibility of me on other people, claiming she was off trying to “find a life” for her and I, which usually resulted in her having her own life away from me.  Maybe somewhere in her head she thought she was doing it for us, but I know it was never really about that.  She wanted her own life.  Sans child.  She’d say that my grandmother was just too controlling and would “keep” me.  And I know how my grandmother can get.  But I also know that a real parent knows no boundaries when being with their child.

We always bounced back and forth, from home to home, and usually ending up at my grandparents house each time.  When I was 5, Mom moved to Florida to start a life.  I stayed with my grandparents.  My grandmother put me on the bus my first day of Kindergarten.  She signed all my papers for everything.  She knew my medical history.  I visited my mom twice while she was in Florida, at two different houses, accompanied by family.

Finally, after a year, she moved back to my grandparents with us.  She was there for a few years when she decided to go back to college.  But that first year she also decided it would be better for her to live in the dorms.  She was 27, almost 28, living in the college dormitory.  I was living with my grandparents.

At last the next year she moved into an apartment, and brought me to live with her.  It was never good after that.  I only wanted to go “home” to my grandparents.  That was all I knew.  I was in a private school on campus with a bunch of little rich assholes.  The only reason I was allowed in the school was because mom was working through work-study on campus.  I was the little girl on welfare among the rich brats.

Once mom graduated we moved back to this area.  She married, for the 3rd time.  We moved into what was probably the 10th home we had lived in.

And for a while, there was stability.

I still went to my grandparents every weekend.

It was like living with a big sister.

There was a year when I was in college where I didn’t contact family a lot.  I got lost into my own little world of madness.  Mild criminal stuff.  Drugs.  A boyfriend.

And when I had no where else to go, where did I go?  Home.  To my grandparents.

I got things together.  I worked hard, but could never get on my feet.  Mom likes to rush in and take over.  Play the role of the parent when it really isn’t needed, and pretend.

And sadly it is still that way.

I’ve always let her control me.  Between her and my grandmother it is all I’ve known.  I’ve ended up in shitty relationships.  Controlling and abusive.

And it never stops.  There is so much more.  Every day.

But things have changed.  I am strong now.

I raise my children.  I don’t dump them on anyone else.  I may need help financially, but as a parent I am stable.

Yet my mother continues to call and tell me what I need to be doing.  She is now a social worker.  Can you believe that she tells others how to be a family?

I have never been involved with that part of the system with my children.  There is no need.  But for some reason my mother seems to feel that she needs to treat me like she treats her clients.  Only worse.  Because she doesn’t call them daily lecturing.

Sometimes I feel like I’m looked at like a child playing house.  But I know that isn’t true.  I know that I am doing it.  And by myself.  My kids know they are my life, and my life is all them.

But now things are getting worse.  She is getting worse.  Delusional.  She calls and tells me how she raised me all on her own.  She tried to tell me that I never lived with my uncle (he lived with my grandparents the entire time I did, and is only 8 years older than me.) and that I’ve spent every holiday with her.  Every milestone.

She tells me this daily now.  It scares me.  I think mostly it scares me because it reminds me of my grandmother and I fear that this insanity is hereditary.

I fear I will do this to my kids someday.

Mom needs control.  And the stronger I get, I think the more it scares her.  And the more insane she gets.

Maybe I’m the crazy one.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this.  Perhaps just venting because my head is spinning.  If she’d ever see this she would lose it on me.  Maybe I’m tempting fate.

She’ll never accept the reality of it though.  She is always right.  She is always IN the right.  She has all the rights.  It’s her way or nothing.

So this apple is rolling as fast as she can.

Or maybe she just threw me and I never had a chance.

Time and Time Again.

I seem to have a real issue with time anymore.  There is either not enough of it, or too much of it.

Boring days drag on.

And the wonderful days go to fast.

I see my timelines fill up with comments such as “Isn’t it Friday, yet?!”  I know that work and school suck.  But we spend all our time wishing all our time away.

And before we know it, we graduating high school and looking for our first college apartment.  Buying a smaller bed, looking for desks, picking out the milk crate bookshelves, and thinking we are so grown up.

Then suddenly college is gone, and here we stand, our first actual step out into the “real” world.  There is work to be done, friends to see, family to visit and a life to live.  But do we really sit and enjoy it?

Now there are children, and school buses once again.  Christmas concerts, sports practices and play dates.

I realize that I suddenly don’t want Friday to hurry up and get here.  Because the weekend goes to fast and we are back to Monday, hoping for a quick week, to get to a quick weekend.

And I’m not quite ready to get to the “sitting in my rocker watching all the grandchildren, while drool seeps out of my mouth and I shake my cane at the crazy teenagers too close to my property” phase.

There is time lost that can never be found again.  I wish for that one last moment with my grandfather.  That one last sitting on the front porch swing with him, during a thunderstorm.

I love watching my boys grow and learn.  But it is so fast.  They aren’t babies now.  I have actual conversations with them.  Sure, it is usually about how many clues Blue has found so far, but they are real conversations.

I’m not quite ready to have the “how much is rent for a small single apartment” conversation yet.

What about you?

Moving on, if even by turning my face that way.

So yeah, I know, I haven’t been keeping up with the Question Challenge.  I have to admit, I got a little burnt out, feeling pressured to write every single day, no matter what was going on.  And being told what I had to write about on top of it.   I’m not saying that I’ve totally abandoned it.  I may, and most likely will revisit the challenge here and there.  But I want to write about my stuff too. Because there is usually a shit ton going on in my world.  And I’m not sure I want pressured to write every day.  I like writing. However, there are some nights I am so exhausted after my day that I kind of feel like I’m cheating or rushing through a post to just get it out.

Anyway.  My stuff.

Today is the 3 year anniversary of my death.  Well, what should have been my death, and what became my figurative death.  And a whole new life.  Rewind those last 3 years and right now I’d be sitting in a living room in Carlisle, watching my boys play on the floor, playing solitaire on my phone, and noticing the mood my fiance was drifting into.  That mood I dreaded so much.

This particular night though it went so much further than his normal verbal abuse, past his normal grabbing and tiny bruises.  This night, he planned on killing me.  I know because he told me.  He said “I’ve known what I was going to do for a while now.  If you leave here, I’ll never see you or the boys again.” He wanted me to take “a ride” with him.  I wasn’t coming back from that one.

I’m not going to rehash all that right now.  I wrote about this all before.  1 year ago, to be exact.  The first time I ever really put it all out like that.  If you’d like read that part of the story, you can right here.  Instead, I just want to point out that the story grew even more so after that night.

I don’t have a lot.  Every week there is something being threatened to be shut off.  I can’t buy brand new clothes for my kids, or myself.  We don’t have all the cool gadgets big and bigger kids are playing with now-a-days.

But even at my lowest, I remember I’m not as low as I could be, at 6 feet down.

This has been a strange week for me.  There are only 2 people in this world that can really send me emotionally spiraling out of control.  My ex.  And my dad.

If you read my blog, and I’m assuming you do, because you are here, you know that I don’t have a grand relationship with my father.  Oh fuck it.  I don’t HAVE a relationship period.  And at this point, that is how I want it.  Here is a little bit of the story.  And by little? Yeah, that isn’t even a page’s worth in the history of emotional agony my father has caused me.  And since the night that happened in that story, I’ve done extremely well at keeping my decision to sever that contact for good.  Even at the dojo, I was comfortable with his new family being around, and no one tried to push anything.

And then this past Sunday happened.

I’d had a long day playing outside with my boys and my brothers and nieces. Ziplines.  Burgers.  Hot dogs.  Egg hunts.  And Yuengling.  I was settling in at home, happy to be calm and quiet when I got a friend request on Facebook.  I went to see who it was, and I was sort of shocked to see my dad’s wife.  First response was that I didn’t want her on my page.  I don’t want that connection, and every time I feel guilty and let someone on, it bites me in the ass. (Which is what happened when I let my ex’s “normal” brother on.)  I made my decision.  She needed to go.  And then she messaged me.  With this:

  “Just wanted to let you know that your gram passed away last night around midnight. Your welcome to come the viewing and funeral. Nothing is set on when they will be until tomorrow. We wanted to put you and your boys in the write up in the paper. Could u let us know how you spell their names. Thanks! Our phone number is…”

I will not go into detail here.  But I will say this:  horrible things happen to me at the hands of that woman and a cousin.  That is why I left down there at 3 am on the weekend after my 14th birthday and never looked back.  She put on the porch at 3 am, in the middle of a nasty part of a ghetto town, turned the lights off and left me there to wait for my mom who was in another town, to come and get me.

I’ve had to deal with her at other times in life. This is just the one night that forever scarred me.  And though in my head I know what happened that weekend was not my fault, there is a part of me that will always feel guilty.

I hate that family.  I want no part of it.  I sent Lori a message in panic.  I sent Chris a message in panic.  Chris wrote back first.  I asked him if I was a bad person for not feeling anything towards her death.  I didn’t feel sad.  I didn’t feel happy.  No relief.  Just apathy.  He pretty much said hell no.  And he continued to talk to me for a very long time that night.  Longer than he should have been up, because he had to leave for the field the next morning rather early (Army.) Shortly after Chris had been texting me, Lori wrote me back.  And she continued to write to me.  And then call me, while I made my move on what to do.  Which was me sending this message:

I don’t want to get into a lot of things, or even sound harsh. But please, I don’t want involved. I have spent years trying to get past a lot of things. And I’m at a point where I just need to move on with my life. And I hope for the best for everyone and my sympathies.”

Followed by a blocking of her account on Facebook.

I cannot let this back into my life.  I have nothing against my dad’s wife, or her family.  I like them on a dojo level.  But I cannot have the rest of that family a part of my world.

I sort of feel like I spent yesterday sweeping up the ashes of bridges they burned.

And I realized that I have reasons that I don’t look back anymore. I once heard the phrase “tear the rear view mirror off” and that is what I have done. I can’t even afford one little glimpse at this point in my life. What and who are here now and in the future is all that matters. The past certainly has created me, but I can’t let it chain me.

Will life ever give me a fucking break on the emotional train wreck it seems to be?

Happiness is a… (Question 16)

How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?

Wouldn’t we be a little boring, if we all liked the same things.  I mean, everything would be the same.

And if everything was the same, we wouldn’t have the things we didn’t like to complain about.

Or the people who like them.

And if everything was the same, would we really like it?

Would we like anything?

Most people I know in person think that I am pretty odd.  I like geeky things.  I play video games.  I watch all kinds of strange movies.  I could care less what point buck someone has on their wall.  In fact, if I walk into your house and see that, I’m probably making fun of you in my head.  Don’t think wrong of me.  I had an over obsessive hunter ex.  So obsessive when we accidentally got pregnant he was mad at me because I was due in the middle of one of his many hunting seasons.  As if he didn’t hunt when it wasn’t a season anyway.

What? Oh sorry. Yeah. Happiness.

Happiness is sitting on a front porch swing, during a thunderstorm, with my boys.  Because that is what I grew up doing with my Pappy.

What do you think?

The 50 Question Challenge is being brought to by myself and the stellar Lori over at Oh, shit. She’s awake.  Go check out her story too.  The idea is based on a list of 50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind,  that you can also find at the blog Mark and Angel Hack Life.  Join us, if you’d like.

A different drummer. (Question 15)

What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

I am pretty sure that I have entirely my own strange way of thinking and processing information.

Yeah, sure, I’m sure some aspects are similar to one person’s while something else resembles someone else.  But I can’t ever seem to be able to completely show what is going on in my head.

And maybe that is where I’m different.  It seems to me that most people know what they can, should and should have said in a lot of situations.  Most of the time for me though, I feel like I don’t have a right to be thinking what I am.

I guess in a way, I’m getting a little better at this.  Though I still feel entirely lost in a lot of conversations.  Some things people say just go straight over my head, in a chat that it should have just come out naturally.

Or, maybe I’m just crazy.  Who knows.

Not me.

The 50 Question Challenge is being brought to by myself and the stellar Lori over at Oh, shit. She’s awake.  Go check out her story too.  The idea is based on a list of 50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind,  that you can also find at the blog Mark and Angel Hack Life.  Join us, if you’d like.

Entirely Bonkers. (Question 14)

Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?

Absolutely every single day of my life.  How is that for an answer?

I was once told that those who question their sanity, are in fact the sanest of all.  I have held onto this with everything I have over the years.  Because if this is true, I have to be the most sane person that will ever exist.

I also think that the most creative people will forever teeter on that ledge of insanity.

At least that is how I hope it is.  Because sometimes I feel like I’m about to crash on the less favorable of those sides.

And some days?  I’m not even sure which is the more favorable side.

Maybe there is comfort in insanity.

And how much more insane and creative can you get than this?!

The 50 Question Challenge is being brought to by myself and the stellar Lori over at Oh, shit. She’s awake.  Go check out her story too.  The idea is based on a list of 50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind,  that you can also find at the blog Mark and Angel Hack Life.  Join us, if you’d like.