My Thoughts on Bastards

I asked my 6-year-old to make his bed this morning and I paid him with 10 kisses.  He took 30. Two days ago I was telling Carson and Dylan how handsome they are and that all of the girls are going to want to be their girlfriends one day. Dylan giggled and asked why.  I said “Because you and Carson are blonde and beautiful and have pretty smiles.”  I also told them that girls will like them because they love their mommy and that they are going to open the door for them. I said they are going to listen, never talk down to them, they aren’t going to hit them, and they are going to pay for the movies and never lie to them.  They giggled, but when I asked them if they could do that for me, they said yes.  Of course, I know that that is just the beginning of what my boys need to learn to do because opening the door for a girl means nothing without true respect, love, and admiration for women as a whole.  I want to raise men, not boys.  Real men.  And I want my daughter to know how she deserves to be treated and that she is to respect a real man just as much as she respects herself.    

Just a quick note...this post is not in any way meant to offend men as a whole or to claim that I have not been part of the problem by accepting it, because I have, but it is more so to tell men out there that you are becoming more important to me over the years and that I applaud you.  I am trying to model my boys after you.

I listened to one of my younger friends talk about her “boyfriend” who I am not sure is a boyfriend a few nights ago.  She said he made out with many, many girls in front of her the other night and had the nerve to text her a nice, long apology the next day.  I am angry. This morning I got a series of screenshots from a friend who is feeling like trash right now because all of the men she meets seem to be unavailable in some way, or they send her dick pics, or they immediately jump into discussions about which sexual positions she likes the most rather than ask her on a date.  She has gotten cheated on and lied to in the past, a lot.  I am angry.    One of my friends has recently decided to leave her husband because he has been violent.  I am angry. One of my friends got drunk a few months ago and was taken advantage of.  I was pissed as hell.  The span of The Unlikable Man is very wide to me at this point in my life and the truth is, no matter what the level bastard, we as women shouldn’t be putting up with any of it because we deserve better. I have three boys and I would lock them in their room and strip their life of all things fun if they treated a woman like a commodity.  Why on earth would I allow someone to treat me or my friends like one?

Due to some recent events in my life, I have been thinking about the men in my life; really amazing men.  I have been especially thankful for them lately because I think I have underestimated how many horrible examples I have been given and how many men have walked across my soul and left their muddy footprints like the bastards they are.  How have I underestimated their impact on my life?  It’s simple.  I have assumed I was stronger than the actions of a bastard.  How? I have made excuses.  Being called a cunt has no bearing on me because it is, after all, just a word, right?  I know I am not a cunt.  My boyfriend who swung a baseball bat at my head was an idiot.  Who cares what an idiot says or does anyway, right? Some guys can’t keep it in their pants, right?  So he’s a man.  Men often fear commitment, ok.  Got it.  And I “move on” intellectually, knowing that I am not the problem and I am lucky to be out of that situation and free, but what happens emotionally?  Once upon a time, I was a little girl.  And then I grew.  And parts of me are still a little girl.  And there is no possible way that these things have not impacted me, no matter how tough I am because there is still an innocent part of me that needs to know she is safe.  Needing to feel safe, loved, and special is what makes us girls forever, no matter how strong we are.

Someone told me years ago to protect my heart.  I never gave my heart much thought.  I am a giver by nature, I am forgiving, I love when I want to love, and I have never viewed my heart as something that can’t be repaired.  But the older I get, the more I understand what that woman was saying.  What I heard was “It hurts when your heart breaks” and I thought “So what, I will recover. Love on.”  But I never considered the damage you can do to yourself in the long run by not guarding your body and your heart from the ones who continue to disregard you.  I have believed I am stronger than anything that has been done to me and stronger than the weaknesses of these men, but what if I am wrong?  What if by taking a risk like that, with every hurt, you build up a wall, and another wall, and another wall, and eventually, you can’t even trust the ones who really do just want to love you?  What if you paralyze yourself?

What makes a bastard a bastard?  A bastard is selfish and everything he does is based on what makes him the most comfortable at any given time.  When he has an inkling of conscience or feeling, he runs because he is a coward.  He is full of excuses that he knows you need to believe.  Instead of making a decision, he avoids.  He prances around disregarding, even cursing those who love them, cursing them for making him feel anything but blissful ignorance.  He takes what he wants.  He says what he wants.  He does as he wants.  Bastards die a shell of a human who was never brave enough to self reflect. 

Now does that sound like it has anything to do with you?  We have no control over them.  We can't fix them. In fact, it doesn't matter that we can't even understand it.  The only thing we can do is to demand more, from the very beginning.  

When I picture what I want my boys to look like one day, I see men who feel an emotion and attempt to put a word to it, and then an action.  I want them to be brave enough to be honest, gentle enough to hold his wife and strong enough to tell her that she is safe.  I want their wives to ask for ten kisses and he gives her 30. 

Love Just Because

I am a child of divorce.  Not just one divorce, but my siblings and I were put through it more than once.  Without going too deep into how it profoundly affected me because that really isn’t the purpose of this blog, I will say that it sucked.  It sucked being a child who questioned whether or not to grow attached to people and an environment because I never know if “this” was the one I could trust or if “this” would be the one that would be snatched away from me like the last one and worse, finding out that there aren’t any happy endings, just a series of situations that are making me stronger and more guarded.  Then before I knew it, I was an adult trying to shake these feelings and made mistakes while trying to do so.   There are a lot of things that I could say about how my upbringing probably harmed me, like the fact that I felt like pulled taffy all the time, but I don't want to because we all have baggage and mine made me resilient and definitely a person who thinks about my actions first.  It also has made me appreciate the people who love me and don’t have to, which is really what I want to write about today. 

I've been wanting to write about this for a couple of weeks now and haven't found the time. Randomly at 3:00 this morning, I woke up to a Facebook message from a friend who said she's decided to adopt. She wrote a letter to her future child, which had me in tears, and I thought "Ok, I'm writing it. Right now." 

We live in a society that feels safety from placing labels on situations and roles and people and the fact that I bought into all of that when I was a kid is the exact reason I was so lost when I realized that many of them are empty.  Yes, biologically, you should love your children and never leave them. You should take a bullet for your child, but that doesn't always happen and it is not a reflection on you at all if you were stuck with a parent that didn't feel that way about you.  Yes, you should cherish your spouse, but that happens half the time.  It doesn't mean that you weren't deserving of being cherished. Just because people biologically linked to you leave you doesn't mean that everyone will leave you.  Just because someone who vows to love you and lies, doesn't mean everyone will. I didn't always look at it this way because I got wrapped up in the travesty of the situations I had seen, but that's the wrong thing to focus on. If you look around, there are a lot of people who love you "just because" and you'll find yourself asking "What did I do to deserve that?"

Over the years, I have been in awe of the people in my life. The more I understood what TRUE love is, the more I realized that I am completely surrounded by unconditional love and that most of the people around me have no obligation to love me whatsoever. I have friends who love me even when I puke on my shoes because I drink too much, when I have fallen for the wrong person again and again, and who will listen to me analyze my abstract feelings until they are more concrete.  I love them the same way. Just because. 

The more I've learned what TRUE love is, the more I believe in it romantically too.  I have loved giving back rubs without the concern for getting one back. I have known without a doubt that he would always be safe with me, that I would always protect him and be loyal and that I won't get bored because love doesn't have room for that.  I have loved and loved and loved consistently without the thought of what I will get back. I have loved just because. 

Now this is not to say that you don't deserve someone to treat you how you treat them. You should want the same thing, but this particular post is about appreciating those who love you for what seems to be a reason that you cannot grasp, who aren't under any legal or biological obligation, and being aware of the fact that you have been given the best gift God can give. 

I remember being very resentful of the men who liked my mom.  I don’t remember exactly why because I was like 6, I just remember specific things that pissed me off.  Like Jim, the asshole who made me sit at the kitchen table until my milk nearly curdled even after telling him that I was lactose intolerant and that I didn’t drink milk.  I remember his stupid boat.  I remember his stupid life vests.  I remember getting aggravated by men in general, like when I was trying to eat breakfast with my mom at a restaurant and some dipshit would start talking to us because you know, we weren’t trying to eat or anything.  Anyway, I remember never warming up to anyone…..

Until one. 

When my sister, brother and I were little, we used to set up shops on the sidewalk in front of our house.  We lived in a duplex on Prospect, which won’t mean anything to you unless you live on the East Side of Milwaukee.  We sold our artwork and Dixie Cups of water, for whatever reason.  Anyway, one afternoon, a man named Greg Jansen came along and bought one of my sister’s pictures, which hung on his refrigerator for years.  It just so happened that this man was also a friend of my mom’s friend, TJ, but they didn’t know each other. Years later, they were at their friend TJ's annual New Year’s Eve party.  I was at the party as well watching Dick Clark on the third floor.  This man came upstairs and talked to me, which I vaguely remember.  Years later, he finally met my mom and married her and realized that while he had missed some years of our lives, he had in fact, met us and talked to us.    This man became my dad, not because I don’t also have another one, but because he has won over my heart and freed it in so many ways by loving me consistently when he had no obligation to do so.  He didn’t get to me through my mom, he got to me through me, and that was a huge difference in letting him in my life and my heart. I love him more than he'll ever know and I'm so thankful that he's never left me. 

There are people who hang on to titles and traditions and labels and "should be's" but those who choose to be there, who choose to love you even when you are the ultimate pain in the ass, and who choose to make you secure in a world where so much is changing, all the time, should be cherished. They are capable of true love, and there is a certain amount of trust I find myself having in someone who doesn't "have to." 

The bad thing about not appreciating or accepting people like this in your life is that you're missing out on something huge. And I'll be the first to admit that it's scary. I have purposely pushed people away and been an extra pain in the ass just to see if they are for real and see if they'll leave, and I've run away sometimes because I'm scared. But if you can get to the point where you can accept that you're lovable, you'll begin to believe it. If you can accept that that person won't abandon you, you will become more secure. And if you can accept unconditional love, you'll begin to love that way too. You'll love just because.

10 Appropriate Hobbies for the Stage 5 Clinger

Stage 5 Clingers make me wonder if I am getting it all wrong.  Maybe doing things like folding my socks and cleaning my hair out of the drain really aren't all that important.  Maybe being productive, having a life, talking to lots of different people and having my concentration on say, the road, really aren't necessary practices and what I should really be doing in life is having my fingers on the keyboard of my phone at all moments of the day prepared to send the next text the second that an irrelevant and boring thought oozes out of my brain.  

But then I realize I like folding socks better than talking to one person every other second of my life.  

Maybe what Stage 5 Clingers really need is a hobby or something to fill up their days.  I have come up with what I find to be a great list for them!

1. Puppetry Arts.  I think getting into the Art of Puppetry is a great idea for a Stage 5 Clinger. Why, you ask?  Because puppets aren't going to get bored or irritated when you tell them that you just put a piece of gum in your mouth or tripped on your own foot....a puppet will listen intently.  Just get one that has a smile sewn into his face and you are good to go!
2. Whittling Wood or Ice Sculpturing.  These hobbies take two hands and I assume 10 fingers.  They also take lots of concentration, or you will lose a finger and we all know you need all ten for texting, right? 
3. Journaling.  A journal isn't judgmental.  You can tell it how dull you are and it won't block you.  
4. Curling. Over-texting is about as useless as this sport, except the Olympics recognize it.  Why not get a medal for your useless activity? 
5. Memorize every line to "The Wizard of Oz."  I did it when I was three.  People thought it was cute. 
6. Pick up a new phobia.  I can't say for sure, but I think phobias are pretty time consuming, especially the ones about germs. 
7. Follow reporters around town.  Apparently this is a thing.  People step in the background of reporters just to get on TV.  I would imagine while being fixated on the news crew and where the camera is pointing, you would be too busy to text a person every 5 seconds.  
8. Collecting Ecstasy pills.  They're kind of like anime.  They're bright, they're all so incredibly different and vibrant.  It's fabulous.  
9. Practicing bubble letters.  Just go old school.  Nothing says obsessed like a 12-year-old girl planning her wedding on notebook paper.  But no one will know you're obsessed....because you aren't texting it.  See where I am going here with this?  
10. Listen to Nickleback.  Someone has to.  May as well be you.  

By the way, I love the term Stage 5 Clinger, but I also have one huge issue with it.  It was coined by someone who doesn't have a grasp on the Defcon system.  Defcon 5 is used at peacetime; Defcon 1 is used when we are on the highest alert in the most dangerous situations.  So if we were to stage the clinginess of a person, the most dangerous kind of clinger should actually be referred to as "Stage 1 Clinger"....but I didn't write Wedding Crashers, so oh well.  Pop Culture wins again. 

What You're Supposed to Do, Says Who.....

I used that How Old app and I think it knows my daughter better than I do.

Last night I got a text from a guy friend who had read my blog from last week, the one about the List. We ended up talking for a while and he told me that the blog made him reflect on whether or not the reasons on his list in the past were important enough to hold up and stay single.  My thought is that if they were at the time, then they probably were and the only reason he is second-guessing them now is because he himself has changed....that's the thing about hindsight.  Without divulging his personal story, I will be vague and say that he is in his thirties now and has never been married.  He is feeling the clock ticking, like he needs to get started, mainly because people look at him and wonder why he has never been married and they tell him that he had better hurry up and have kids before he gets too old. Then he asked me if I feel like the pressure is off of me because I have been married.  At first I said no, then I thought about it and restated my answer…..

Yes.  When you have 4 kids already, it’s easy not to feel pressured to have any more.  When you have been married and learn about yourself and love and relationships and your quirks and your desires and your faults and what makes you do the things you do, no, you don't feel as forced to dive in and do it again.  Your reasons for doing it again have changed and pressure is not a variable.  BUT, it’s my opinion that no one should feel pressure. 

Don’t you find it odd that the majority of the population finds his or her soul mate immediately out of college?  Isn’t it kind of interesting that everyone goes to 10 weddings a year for about three years in their 20’s?   I think we underestimate how much our bodies tell us to hurry up, settle down, procreate, and then sadly, a large percentage of us wind up thinking “did I actually choose any of this” when we are 35.  My point is not to discredit anyone who has been happily married from high school on, college on, whatever, more power to you….but some of us don’t have that experience, like my friend.   We walk broken or seemingly unlit paths that get us there, and that's ok too.  My friend feeling pressure because we are told we are supposed to graduate, find a spouse, buy a house with a picket fence, have kids, and work until you get that gold watch isn’t right. 

Doing everything “normally” and the way “you’re supposed to” because that’s what society says doesn’t suck because it’s boring, it sucks because it sometimes isn’t authentic and things don’t work unless you are doing things for the right reasons.  We are all different.  We all have different baggage and personalities and don't develop the same ways.  What I have learned over the years is that life is already hard enough when you make your decisions based on logic, feelings, and what you want.  It doesn’t always work out even when you do it authentically, so why add to that “what you are supposed to do?”

When I was a little girl, I played with dolls constantly.  I used to carry like 12 at a time, so it’s not surprising at all to my mother that I had 4 kids.  I also constantly danced and sang and put on plays for the neighbors and imagined and daydreamed like most children. I wanted to be a writer, a news reporter, a lawyer, an actress, I wanted to travel and I definitely wanted a bunch of children.  I wanted to do everything as a child.  Then I became a teenager. I didn’t have a concept of what I would do when I would grow up because I didn’t think I was ever going to grow up, or I was in denial and didn’t want to.  However, I did see myself as two different people.  I thought I could be the type who could go exploring, travel, write, and be free, but I also saw myself with a husband and a bunch of kids, cooking dinner and staying home to take care of everyone.  I wanted a husband and kids above all else, but there was one problem with the latter…I wasn’t sure I believed in marriage.  I didn’t want to get married because I didn’t want to get divorced and I thought Shania Twain was an idiot for singing “You’re still the one.”  I used to say as a 17-year-old girl “You can’t sing that song until you’re 80 and about to die because you never know if you will get cheated on, get bored, divorced….” Shania Twain’s husband cheated on her with her best friend 10 years later, if you remember, so sadly, I was right about that song, which broke my little heart.  I’m not sure if my parents realized how cynical I was because I had a boyfriend, but the truth is, I always felt smothered and didn’t want to be tied down by anyone.  I think my boyfriends could tell that I was hiding something and then they smothered me even more.  I had a boyfriend because everyone else did, I thought I was supposed to and I thought it would help me scrape out my fears of commitment. By constantly having a boyfriend, I could ignore the fact that I had some serious fears, skip over all of my issues and be normal.  To go even further, I always wound up with controlling guys.  I constantly wonder, and hopefully I am wrong, if it's because I didn't trust myself and that in some way, I thought they could make me stay.  I thought when I was a teenager, surely if I can commit to this asshole, then I don’t have commitment issues, right? No.  In fact, by forcing myself to be “normal” and ignoring the issues I had because of my parents’ multiple divorces and my desire to do whatever I wanted, I landed in situations that were not good.  I also think I was a bit of a free spirit and hated it.  I didn’t understand it at all and I wish I had. I was afraid of myself, of wanting to be free, and I was afraid I would never settle down.  I have never said that out loud.  And my gosh, I was YOUNG!  Wasn't I supposed to want to be free?  

I have consistently done everything backwards in my life, sometimes on accident, sometimes rebelliously or stubbornly, sometimes because fate said otherwise and what I have noticed is that my friends who did everything “the way they were supposed to” ended up learning a lot of the same things or experienced the same things, just in another order.  This is just more proof for me that we all have to be real and true and find our own way.  We will learn if we care.  

I am happy that I had two babies at 20 because they showed me that I can commit and love unconditionally.  I am happy that I have taken leaps of faith, even when I got burned.  I am happy that I am not constantly blaming everyone else for my mistakes and baggage, but seeing where I was also accountable.  No one can make my ghosts and fears go away except God, not even denial, and everything that makes me strong and scared and everything that makes my heart soar and break has a history and a story worth listening to.  It’s been an experience to allow all of that to surface, it's been heavy to feel it and watch myself transform into a person who will from now on only do things that feel right and true. 

My advice to people who feel pressure to do things the way “they are supposed to” is this: the only thing that should guide what you are supposed to do is God and if you trust Him, you will learn everything in his time, see everything in his time, and you will do what you are here to do…..discover who you are, what your purpose is, and meet the people you are destined to meet and teach and learn from. 

One of my favorite quotes is “In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” Buddha. 

Do those three things.  You’ll be fine. Tell anyone pressuring you that you are on the flight behind them and you'll see them later.  

Feel Free

I fell in love with this quote because I say this all the time.  We all deserve to be observed, not conquered.  We deserve to be guided with a loving hand, not forced.  We deserve to feel free, even when we are attached. THAT is true love.  I won't settle for any less ever again.  

I was talking about my last blog with a friend last week and we were talking about what the real reason for divorce is.  In his words, so eloquently put, it's because "people don't leave each other the f*** alone."

Yep.  

That's why when some guy texts me "Where are you," I answer three days later.  

That's all.  Shortest blog ever.  

The List

I was in traffic last week and I looked over and saw a couple fighting on I-75.  I immediately looked forward and thought “I am so glad that’s not me. That sucks.”  Then I started thinking about all of the little, stupid stuff that I used to fight with my old boyfriends about and it wasn’t a very long thought because honestly, I really couldn’t remember anything.  I know there had to be little things that we fought about, so why can’t I remember now?  

What I do remember is the really big stuff.  The big issues.  The deal breakers.  I suppose that is a good thing.  For example, I remember a high school boyfriend screaming at me because his friend looked at my boobs and I remember replying that I didn’t live in Saudi Arabia and if I wanted to, I would move there.  That didn’t make it any better; I remember the fight being really long and horrible and thinking before putting a shirt on from that point on.  Ass.  Anyway, I remember every one of those instances that changed who I was and made me feel like less of a person, and in my mind, they all have a big exclamation point on the end of them and they are highlighted in bold.  But I don’t remember fights about what we were watching on TV or what we were having for dinner.  I also don’t remember old boyfriends’ smells, I don’t remember how they snuggled, I don’t remember the annoying or cute things that they did to drive me insane, and the day of their birth passes without a thought from me every year that passes by.  It’s as if they existed purely for the experience and that’s all I really took away when it was over.  They’re just ghosts. 

Then I started thinking about how odd it is that if I can’t even remember the little stuff from prior relationships, then why is it the little stuff exactly that makes me shudder when I think about being in a relationship again?  This might sound stupid to someone else, but I like that I get to hold the remote control.  And I don't even watch TV.  I like that I can have a million pillows on my bed without someone telling me it’s stupid.  I like that I can plan my whole weekend according to what I want to do or what the kids are doing.  I like that I don’t have to touch red meat anymore because it’s nasty mashing flesh in a bowl with my hands.  I like to be alone sometimes.  Then I remember....you don’t care about the remote control when you love someone.  You throw your stupid pillows off the bed just to make room for them.  You don’t want to do it your way all the time.  You even want to cook nasty flesh in a bowl for someone you love.  The list goes up in the air and comes right down for someone you love.  

What list?  

All being single really is is this: You have one list of things you don’t want to give up and then you hold that up to the person in front of you.  When the list wins, you are single. When someone chooses their list over you, you move on.  End of story.  It is about compromise and what people are willing to do for you and what you are willing to live with and that's really as simple as it is.  What I wasn't prepared for is that the list just gets longer and longer the older I get and the more comfortable and happy I am alone.  My list includes things like the "I want to hold the remote control" but also things like "he can't yell at me if his friend stares at my boobs" and "must be willing to be adventurous."   Next year it will be even longer, I am sure, which is really frustrating because it would be awesome if I could give up the list simply for one thing...protection in the middle of the night when I hear a loud noise, and trust me, when I hear a noise in the middle of the night, I would THROW the remote control at a man and let him watch whatever stupid show he wants to watch.  But I am rambling now.  

Could it really that simple?  Could it all boil down to this one thing?  Yes.  And it doesn't change when you are IN a relationship, hence the reason for fighting.  

Relationships are a contract.  Marriage is a contract.  People negotiate all the time, whether they are on a first date or fighting about chores after 10 years of marriage.  Good relationships and connections are a blessing and people need to realize that.  The person you are with held up their piece of paper and chose you.  And every day that you both are making it work and your significant other is making you happy, they are choosing you still.  

Remember this, for me, the single gal....the reason all of the little stuff dies when you get out of a relationship, including memories of the stupid fights, is because it’s the little stuff, good and bad, that make you you, that make you a couple.  The inside jokes, how you feel when you are together, the little annoying and adorable things that make you crazy, it's all the little stuff that happens when it's just the two of you.  All of that is important and it's what dies when it's over.  It takes a long time to trust someone, to get to know someone, to really love someone.  It takes a long time to figure out someone’s moods and quirks and baggage and if you have found someone who is willing to dance with you, you are lucky.  It takes time to develop those things.  In my opinion, that’s lovely and I can only hope that I am willing to put the list down again, one day. 

That's what I would have told that couple fighting on I-75.