I Think You Left The Shuffle On

One of the ladies from church emailed me Saturday through my campus email, but I just got the email this morning; that was nice of her to reach out. I gave her my .gmail address and told her I'm on Facebook and Twitter. She was talking about the girls in Sunday school. I know they love it. Corvid seems to be feeling better today; may have been allergies, so hopefully we can return to church on Sunday. I would like to go tomorrow night, even, but my kids would be running around as they do. Sometimes, I really don't have a handle on their behaviour. I hate admitting that. I hate feeling vulnerable. I feel a tiny bit of schadenfreude anytime I see another mother struggling with a tantrum in a grocery store or snatching up a sprinting toddler from a parking lot, like, ha ha, it's not just me.

I just got a call from Luna's teacher that she's been hurting other kids at school. I'm not very good at this praying thing. I can do the talking, but the believing that He'll do what he knows is best for our family is hard. I'm sorry for dumping on my work friends through PMs. I know that they have their own concerns in life. I guess the friends I'm used to ranting to about my life aren't very helpful right now since they want to tell me how very unhelpful they think church and religion are. I had a guy friend at my house last night until two in the morning; absolutely nothing happened, but I felt disappointed about that rather than feeling respected that he didn't try anything.

I'm rambling in this post. I suppose the combination of the physical storm that's been raging since yesterday and my emotional storm are too much for me to concentrate on my craft. My broken sleep was punctuated by thunderclaps and haunting dreams, phantoms whispered in my ears and showed me future-scape scenes of unattainable wishes. Caricatures of friendships passing in the night.

I want my children to be safe and happy, all three of them. It would kill me if any of them couldn't be with me, but with Luna's increasingly violent behavior, the therapist discussed intervention programs which could only be implemented if the child were labeled in danger of being removed from the home. I don't want it to go that far or farther. I don't want her to end up like other kids I've known of who were institutionalized. I also, though, don't want to have to worry about Corvid and Freya.

I know I shouldn't hate people, but in the midst of everything that has happened, and today being a date which had ingrained in my memory as something pertaining to the event was supposed to have occurred but has now been postponed, I absolutely feel a fiery rage towards he who I once loved. A decade of my life wasted, three children left fatherless and struggling with complex emotions their ages and stages haven't equipped them to handle. My sister blogs regularly about her struggles with infertility and desperately wanting a child she and her husband can raise and love and here is a man who didn't care about the precious gifts bestowed upon him. I cannot say much more about him right now, but I'm glad that I will never see my awfully wedded again in casual settings, and cannot wait until a finalization of divorce.

I know that my children deserve all of my love and attention right now. I really need to get over my primal desire for adult interaction in the dark of night, especially since no one around to provide that would stick around to provide for us. I need to trust in God as my provider and continue steps to put myself back on the straight and narrow, such as repairing my vehicle, my budget, and my heart.

Uncertain Selfish Asshole

I am called uncertain,

mostly, of course,

a self-engraved label,

spell-checked thrice.

I do not know where I am going.

I am, metaphorically,

driving on the wrong side,

with both blinkers on.

The fuse is faulty;

the phone is dead;

and the GPS was stolen last April

(but at least part of that is true).

I prefer bachelor number one,

and door number three,

but, in either case,

the remainder are equally promising.

I am called selfish.

I want time alone,

to ponder existential crises,

and the price of gasoline.

I would like to--

just once--

shit without an audience

question and answer forum,

a peer review,

and a rating

from self-anointed judges.

I am lonely,

desperate for a companion

who can tie his own shoes

without pissing his britches.

I doll myself up

for imagined paparazzi,

but I will not back down

from a fight

(unless I feel threatened,

which only ever happens

almost every time).

I am called asshole.

I snap at people

offering friendly, well-meant advice

after observing my erratic behavior

and the precipice I am facing.

I like my meat a certain way,

although I am notorious

for insisting I am not picky.

I speak my mind in stages

with fragments and run-ons,

contrary to my chosen profession.

I criticize my favorite critics,

a heretic to skeptical inquirers.

I have been known to haunt spirits

on Sabbath-eve.

Burn Out

Last week I found out I failed one of my graduate courses. The other ended up being a B. I emailed the person in charge if my GA position and turned down the job. I emailed my boss and requested more hours. I emailed my advisor and said I wanted to drop the program. There's already been an issue with my loans, and then to discover I'd failed and know I deserved to...clearly I'm burned out. I've been pushing through college since 2003. I have an associates, a bachelors, and a masters. I don't need this second masters. I need a doctorate next. But I need to hold off on that til Corvid and Freya are in school or I have better childcare.

God has a plan for me and will guide me.

Another Year, Another Lifetime

Happy birthday to my eldest angel, Luna Rayne! She's six! Six! I just really cannot get over that. This past year has been hard on her, far worse than any child should ever have to go through...still she is a blend of smiles and charm and bouncing blonde curls. She is everything I wish I could still be. I am proud of her for working hard to learn to read and overcome other obstacles. We all still have a long road ahead of us, but I know that my strong, brave, proud wonder-child will accomplish great things in the next year and beyond that. I love her more than I love myself. Toward the end of her school day, today, I will take cupcakes to her classroom and be part of her class's snacktime. Evidently she shares this birthday with another schoolmate, so there will be two very happy little girls when their mommies show up at snack time. Luna requested cupcakes with "brown icing" which means chocolate. It's late and I'm tired, so coherent, eloquent writing may escape me. Her birthday is, of course, the most exciting news today, but not the only thing keeping me up at this late hour.

Fight Or Flight

Short of one of those burning bushes or assorted apparitions aglow, how is one to know the will of God?

This was a point of pondering for me this morning, during Corvid's 4a feeding.

In the history of the universe, according to yours truly, there were only two ways of dealing with a problem:

fight

or

flight.

I most often chose flight. My fight response mostly kicks in when I need to be mama grizzly. Otherwise, I'm docile, harmless, moot.

When it comes to questioning and calculating my future endeavors, I move not with the skill of a chess player, rather with the soul of a zebra attempting to escape the pride of lions. If I feel an ounce of threat, I'll exhibit a ton of effort getting as far away from the situation as possible...unless I don't realize the threat until it's too late to run, or I feel as though I deserve the threatened danger. In those cases, I go full turtle, belly up.

One would think I should be happy right now. I have gainful employment. My childcare situation is on the verge of being corrected. My children are safe and healthy. We have plenty of food. Our shelter costs are covered. None of us are without clothing.

Why should I find myself crying often? Why should I want things I cannot have? Why should I miss something that was never mine to begin with? And how do I know that I'm praying for the right things?

I've been contemplating moving again, rather than sticking to my long-term plans. I've been thinking about trying to get into that JD or PhD program I wanted much sooner, and moving closer to a doctoral level graduate school. Or, if nothing that drastic, I've contemplated giving up on the summer job I got, giving up on the GA contract in the fall, dropping out of this grad program, finding a different house of worship...flight response...

Days Of The New--Mistaken beliefs of real life, life. Prepare for the flight. Reward your misguide. Get off your knees, time to fly. I won't be safe again.

Single White Female

My mother told me I need to get laid, get drunk, or get high.

I'm sure she was kidding about at least one of those.

My issue is, I tend to be rather tightly wound. Sometimes, I cannot get a grip on my emotions. I cry too easily. I love too quickly and too deeply. When I met my husband, I was a 17-year-old girl. I did not have enough life experiences behind me to be able to fully understand and appreciate love, marriage, childrearing. I broke up with him before I started college, insisting that I needed the space to pursue my education. However, not long after that I started dating another guy from the job corps, and, my first semester in college, I focused on that individual.

The first semester in college, I actually ended up pregnant, but I had a very early term miscarriage. I also got too wrapped up in having a social life and being caught up in all of the drama that can influence the life of a college freshman. My second semester of college, the man I ended up marrying came by to visit me. We actually had a really good time that first weekend, but he had come as a friend, and the girl that was my roommate at the time said, "Oh, y'all make such a cute couple. Why aren't y'all dating?"

He ended up moving to the town that I went to college in, and getting his own apartment, and getting a job at the local Walmart. That was 2004. But the time I started this blog, he and I had broken up and gotten back together numerous times as well as relocating multiple times. I guess I either had never seen the extent of his emotional and later physical abuse, or I just didn't love and respect myself enough to care.

I will not yet talk about the most recent reason for our relationship ending. Suffice to say that at long last it has finally, truly, really, completely ended. The damage now is irreparable. I find myself at a new crossroads. I am once again a single woman. But the dating world has very much changed. For one thing, I have three children. THREE CHILDREN.

I once looked down my nose at women who dated men while they had children, as if they didn't have a right to date. I guess I just thought that it wouldn't be fair to the children if they were to get attached to some man or woman that wouldn't stay in their life if the relationship went south. The downside, of course, to that assumption is that I limit myself to clandestine affairs, complete and utter celibacy, or waiting until my kids are fully grown to date anyone.

Of course, I could take the approach of introducing every person that I might potentially date to my children as my friend, and that friend could hang out with me my kids doing family-friendly activities, and I can completely avoid any and all physical interaction with that friend. I really have no idea what the right answer is.

If I kept everyone that I like in the friend zone, then maybe I could remain friends with them long enough, that we would develop a strong bond, and, at some point, maybe it could turn into a real relationship. I still struggle with differentiating between friendship and a budding relationship. I don't know how to have a guy in my house that I'm alone in a room with without letting my baser instincts nearly take over. The one guy friend that I had over at my house just one time, I did not jump him or anything like that. I did however flirt far too heavily with him. The guy friend that I have gone out to McDonald's with couple of times I have also flirted far too heavily with. But again, no physical activity occurred.

I know that if I just wanted to go out and "get laid" there are plenty of men in my life who would gladly take me up on that. I also know that it is no longer what it want or need in my life. I really, really, really, really do miss having sex. I am not even going to try to lie about that. It has been since mid December. I am only accustomed to going maybe three weeks. Well, except for that whole time in my travels around the country where I did go longer, but even then it was more for just being really busy and everything rather than not having it as an option. I guess it is easy to remain completely celibate for a very long time if I'm not thinking about it.

Issue of course, is that I'm quite often thinking about it. I'm not sure how to turn that part of me off. My life is not as hectic and busy as it was in Arizona or New York. And in Arizona and New York I had no moral reason not to date. I dated two guys in Arizona, although I think I told the blog readers at the time that I was not dating, which was of course to protect me from the wrath of my husband, whom I was separated from at the time. In New York, I didn't date so much as spend time with a number of guy friends when I could get away from the house, because my roommates were watching my children. In all cases, sexual activity was able to occur, because I was not worried about how the relationships might affect my children. My children mostly did not meet any of those men. When they did Metomen it was in passing, like we happened to be at the city park, and my friends over here just showed up.

One of the guys that a dated in Arizona happened to be a coworker. We were able to remain professional at work, and the fact that we dated was not obvious or noticeable to anyone at work. I had him at my house one time for a barbecue, but I had also invited other people, and he was the only one that ended up showing up. My mother had stopped by for a short while, but she had gathered items on her plate and left, assuming that I wanted to be alone with my friend.

Of course, in Arizona, I worked in retail. In New York, I also worked in retail. I now work in academia. It would be nice if I were to meet someone in academia. It would be nice if I could find someone with an IQ similar to mine or at least with a drive a passion similar to mine. It would be nice if I could find someone who had similar goals. I feel as though I no longer need to be looking at the same demographic of man as I had been the past.

Whereas in the past, I would've been looking for men who were just very sexual, in this new version of me that I am trying to create, I feel as though I need a man who is more inclined to be pursuing educational goals or career goals. I feel as though I need someone who understands that my children are always going to be more important to me than that person. I feel as though I need someone who understands that the religious values I am trying to now build around myself and my children are going to be important and need to be important to them as well. I feel as though I need someone who is able to not only walked down the same path I'm walking down but occasionally lead.

However, I do not want someone who is going to be abusive in any way shape or form. I do not need someone who is going to control me. I vehemently refuse to be in another relationship where my partner has power over me over our finances and over our decisions.

I need someone who is going to respect me as a person and I need someone who is going to understand where I'm coming from. Looks are not everything and I certainly have no right to be shallow and superficial. I want someone has a beautiful heart so I know that beautiful heart will shine through in a person and they will carry themselves accordingly.

I know that the sage advice that I have been given is that I cannot be sure if I really truly am forming emotional bonds at this juncture and I should therefore not make that attempt. I know that I am being encouraged to simply pursue my other goals and pray for the outcome that God wants in my life.

Of course I am doing that; of course I pray that God will bring the right person into my life at the right time in my life. I know that I cannot know when that time is supposed to be. The stubborn bull in me is wishing that the time is right now. The stubborn bullheaded individual that I am or that I have been in the past would prefer if the person that I am meant to be with would come knocking on my door, Perhaps even literally.

I guess I just feel alone and lonely and even though I'm trying to hope and pray I'm having difficulties reconciling my new desire to seek faith and salvation and peace with my former baser instincts to go out there and grab the proverbial bull by the proverbial horns and do whatever the heck I want.

I do not know how to go in peace. As I pray and read my Bible tonight and then go to church tomorrow morning I hope that God will either bring peace to my heart and my mind or that he will choose to find that person that he wants me to end up with and put the message in that person's head and heart that they need to come Be part of my life as soon as possible.

This post is starting to sound more like a match.com profile and with that in mind I will probally stop playing with the voice recorder and do the editing Or maybe just post the entry without any editing. And then I'll probably go to bed because continuing to be reading the Gospel according to Luke with heavy eyelids is probably not going to help me understand it.

Amanda Perez--God send me an angel from the heavens above
Send me an angel to heal my broken heart from being in love