Wish me luck…

I am in the wind down mode of cleaning now…doing the last of the laundry, loading the dishwasher and finishing up cleaning my craft room.  If it doesn’t get done by tomorrow night, oh well…it just isn’t getting done.

The appraiser is coming late Friday afternoon, so hopefully we get a good appraisal.  Everything else has gone through, so this will be the thing to make or break the refinance…and I really, really, really need that to happen!

On a different note, at least one of my teeth got the death penalty, and will be taking the last train to Clarksville next Thursday.  I will not be sad to bid him adieu…he’s been nothing but trouble and is completely against reform, so he’s got to go.

Keep your fingers crossed (and your toes too, if you can), because I’ll need all the luck I can get!

And now for something a little different…

I miss you guys!  I have been sick six ways from Sunday for the past few weeks, and haven’t been up to blogging (or rolling out of bed for that matter…).  It’s been way too quiet around here!

First, I just had the creeping crud, aka a bad cold.  Then my dumb teeth decided they would try to kill me.  I got two hours of sleep a night for about two and a half weeks because my teeth hurt so bad…you can only function like that for so long…and I reached critical mass.  Anyways, I went to the dentist, finally (I’m stupidly stubborn about not going to any kind of doctor…), and he gave me some deliciously strong drugs and as soon as is possible, I am saying goodbye to at least one tooth and hopefully two…  I’d like to say I’ll miss them, but truthfully, they’ve kind of been jerks, so I really won’t miss them at all…

I am also trying to refinance my house, and the appraiser guy is coming sometime next week, so I have been little miss cleaner/fixer whilst suffering with my teeth/cold.  So cross your fingers for me, because I really need this to go through…

And finally, you may notice that I changed up my theme a little…this is so I could add some widgets in my side bar…and as you’ll notice in my sidebar, I am starting a new blog: remymade.wordpress.com.  I will be posting under both blogs, with ice and sparrow staying my poetry/writing blog.  Remy Made is going to be for posting about art/craft stuff that I make.  I decided to make a new blog instead of just mixing it into this one because I have some followers (are you just as shocked as I was?)  and I don’t know if you guys would like to read about crafty stuff, so I figured I’d keep it separate just for you…  But, if you wanted to go check in on Remy Made from time to time, that would be awesome!  So far, there’s just three posts with some pics of stuff I’ve done in the past, but I plan to add to it very soon and regularly…with some future plans for tutorials if you want to try the things I’ve done…

So, if you have any thoughts, comments or suggestions, as always, please let me know…

Discomfort in three parts

I am a sickly mess.

I need someone to put their arms around me

and say it will be alright.

I feel sad and uncertain.

I need someone to let me lay my head in their lap

and stroke my hair until I fall asleep.

I am tired and afraid.

I need someone to be there for me when I’m

knee deep in all these needs.

But you never notice.

–

You don’t care

that I’m worn out and scared.

You have left me alone

to deal with these problems all on my own.

And most days I don’t mind.

Most days I am just fine.

But tonight I want to curl up in a ball

and cry till I’ve cried all

the tears that I hold inside,

forgetting my pride.

You know I’ve never been good

at letting it out like a normal person should.

I tend to keep pushing and keep on going

till I’ve been driven crazy and I’m overflowing

with all of the bad things and all of the sad things that life throws at me

when I walk, when I sleep, when I move, when I breath.

And I can’t figure out why or how anyone expects

me to carry on calmly when I’m clearly so vexed

by the world and its wicked ways

by the way that I’ve been wasting my days

and by the thoughts I’ve been thinking

and how low I’ve been sinking

and how I try never to let anyone down.

–

A little burning missile

penetrated the membrane,

and I feel it slide down my cheek.

It’s followed closely by a barrage

of its brothers.

Will I ever find the comfort I seek?

Getting to know Ice And Sparrow…

I realized the other day that I share super personal crap…I mean poetry…with the world, and yet not a lot of actual facts about me. So I thought I would look up some online 50 questions stuff and answer them…for anyone who’s interested…not that anyone is…but, hey, it’s a way to pass the time, right? So here you go…

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

My name is Amy Sarah Wilson. I was named by a family friend, so I honestly have no clue. The man and his wife never had any kids, and so they asked him (she had passed away several years before I was born) if he ever had a child what would they name it. If I was a boy, I would have been Gregory. I never got to meet this man, he died when I was only a few months old, but from what I understand, he was very sweet and so surprised and happy that they named me Amy.

DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
My handwriting looks like a 12 year old boys…so not particularly, but I don’t hate it enough to sit there and practice my penmanship either. I have crap to do, Mom! She has always teased me about my horrible handwriting.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Pastrami!!!

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
No, I can’t have kids because of a medical condition. The doctor’s exact words were “there’s more chance of you winning the lottery”. Wow, that’s sensitive, you douche bag…

IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Uh…I’m pretty funny and gullible, so I think yes…on the other hand, I’m super weird too, so I probably wouldn’t like to spend a lot of alone time with me…

DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
I use it as needed.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
I am not a cereal fan so much, but I will eat Lucky Charms with out milk on them.

DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Yes, until they are sufficiently worn out, then no.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Ice cream should be it’s own food group. I like anything unless it has fruit or marshmallows in it. I think it’s vanilla, but I don’t like the vanilla that has the beans in it…it makes me feel like I am eating tiny bugs or something.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Hands. You can tell a lot about a person by their hands. And if I have to shake hands, and you give me a wimpy hand shake because I am a girl, I will crush every bone in your hand…I HATE wimpy handshakes…they are only to be given to elderly women.

WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?

Leonard. For anyone who’s read the blog from the beginning, he’s the one all the sad poems are about. He committed suicide and I miss him every second of every day.

WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Black slippers that are a three sizes too big. I prefer to be barefoot, but it is stinking cold in my house right now for some reason, so I am rocking the slippers.

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
My music mix on Spotify. Regina Spector right now.

FAVORITE SMELLS?
Smoke from a wood burning stove, and men’s cologne…like Joop or Candies…oh, baby that’s good stuff.

WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My little sister

MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY OR BEACH HOUSE?
Mountains. I used to live at the beach…sand and tourists every where. Ugh.

FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Basketball. I like the Celtics.

HAIR COLOR?

Naturally, my hair is brown with red highlights and I’ve had a few greys since I was eleven. But currently, it’s a weird mousy brown, thanks to a bottle.EYE COLOR?
I used to have dark brown eyes, but they’ve gotten lighter as I’ve gotten older, and now they are more hazel.

FAVORITE FOOD?
Pretty much all of it…

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
I think it was “The Brothers Bloom”. I can’t remember. I am not a big t.v. watcher.

WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Black with accidental blue acrylic paint all over the front…

SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter. The seasons in order of greatness, from best to worst: fall, winter, spring, summer. I HATE to be hot. You can always put more clothes on, you can only take off so many without being obscene.

HUGS OR KISSES?
Not a fan of kissing, so hugs. But it better not be that one armed shit…I want to know I was hugged!

FAVORITE DESSERT?
Ice cream.

COMPUTER OR TELEVISION?
Computer.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
John Connelly’s The Book Of Lost Things.

WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Currently the mouse, a glass of water, and a list of websites I like.

FAVORITE SOUND?
the sound of one hand clapping…or a tree falling in the woods…

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I am super crafty, and am especially good at crocheting.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Lisbon, Ohio, USA. (population: about five people)

WHERE ARE YOU LIVING NOW?
Elizabethton, TN

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR HOUSE?
White with black shutters. Is it weird that I actually had to go look and see what color the shutters were?

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR CAR?
Dark grey

Apple juice or orange juice?
orange juice (NO PULP!)

Are you a morning or night person?
either or…as long as I get the same amount of sleep, I’m good either way

What was your favorite childhood television program?
x-men and batman

Are you a collector of anything?
I collect weird, random stuff that catches my eye…currently my favorite thing is a utensil holder that looks like the Swedish chef from The Muppets.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Mind control

What is usually your first thought when you wake up?
Turn off that stupid alarm before I throw it across the room

What do you usually think about right before falling asleep?
Escape plans…and penises. I’m a big fan of those.

What’s your favorite color?
green

What’s your favorite animal?
turtles

Do you believe in extraterrestrials or life on other planets?
Nope…but I have a crazy ridiculous fear of space aliens. I am not afraid of normal crap like snakes and spiders and axe murderers, but I am super freaked out by space alien stuff. I know it’s dumb, but they creep me out so bad.

Do you believe in ghosts?
No, but I wish I did.

Ever been addicted to a video/computer game? Which one(s)?
I went through a stint with Call of Duty Modern Warfare. And Okami was a fun game…

You’re given 1 million dollars, what do you spend it on?
I would get my teeth fixed, they hurt like all damn day…and then pay off all my bills

Have any bad habits?
I chew gum all the time and really loudly.

Which bad habits, if any, drive you crazy?
I hate it when someone asks you a question, but they don’t listen to what you say. If you don’t want to know, don’t ask. That kills me.

List 3 of your best personality traits:
Funny, general niceness, inability to be mean even if the other person deserves it

List 3 of your worst personality traits:
talk way too much, insert random trivia into conversations, inability to be mean even if the other person deserves it

List 1 thing you wish you could change about yourself:
I am really indecisive, and I don’t like that about myself.

Any tattoos or piercings?
Pierced ears (just once in each ear), two tattoos: a turtle on my back and mice around my ankle

What’s the first thing you notice in the opposite sex?
Hands…its a weird thing for me…see above.

What personality traits do you look for in a partner?
Funny, kind, how they talk to old people and kids

What personality traits do you dislike in other people?
Judgmental without cause, quiet talkers and mumblers (I don’t hear that well, and you can only say ‘What?’ so many times before you look like an asshole.), and I hate when you first meet people and they give one word answers to questions that are clearly meant to be a conversation starter…do you want to sit in silence and stare at me for five minutes, because if so, I’m going to stab myself with a fork.

Are you mostly a clean or messy person?
Mostly clean, but refuse to pick up after other adults. That glass will sit on the coffee table till the end of time.

Do you see yourself getting married in the next 5 years?
I am currently married, but would love to be divorced in the next 5 weeks. After that, I would run away with a quickness anytime anyone mentioned marriage. RUN AWAY!

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
I like it in Tennessee, so it could be my home base, and I would just travel all the time.

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Everywhere I could. I like to travel.

Name 1 regret you have:
Not saying I love you and not hugging Leonard the last time I saw him. And not knowing something was wrong.

Name 1 thing you miss about being a kid:
I miss feeling like I had a lot in front of me…all the things in life were still a mystery. I hated that as a kid, but as an adult, I miss it. I feel like a lot of choices have already been made and can’t be taken back.

Name 1 thing you love about being an adult:
sex

What’s your favorite song at the moment?
Restless Farewell by Bob Dylan
Humidity Built the Snowman by John Prine
How by Regina Spector
Kathleen by Josh Ritter
…the list goes on infinitely…

What’s your favorite song of all time?
Impossible to answer…does not compute…error…error…

What’s your favorite thing to do on a Saturday night?
sleep…wow, that’s so lame, yet so true

What’s your favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?
crafty stuff

You’re about to walk the green mile, what do you have as your last meal?
baby back ribs

Which would you rather have, 100 million dollars or true love?
Give me the money…I’ll buy love.

Ever wish you were born the opposite sex? If so, why?
I’m kind of jealous of peeing standing up…I feel like that would be a big time saver.

If you HAD to change your name, what would you change it to?
Sullivan Grey. People would call me Sully. That would be awesome.

Do you believe in the afterlife?
No, but I wish I did.

So any thoughts on this? Got anymore questions for me? Let me know, and I’ll get back to you.

Too good

I stopped at the old gas station

halfway between my house and my sister’s.

I always hope to see you there.

I drive the country roads every time,

because they take me past your home.

I always slow down around the curve,

mostly to see if your car is in the drive.

I wonder what it’s like inside,

this place I only imagine.

I see your face every day,

but it never seems to be enough.

You comfort me in ways I can never tell you.

I listen to the words you say,

hanging onto every movement of your lips.

You say meaningless things that mean so much to me.

Or else you show your true colors, and it hurts

because mine complement yours

and you can never know how well.

I wish you could see how I feel about you.

How many times have I caught myself,

stopped my idiotic words in mid-sentence,

because you stupify me and I am terrified to reveal too much?

You can never know how I long for your hand

to cover mine, for your eyes to search mine out.

You can never know the truth.

With every tiny piece of good in my evil heart,

I am protecting you from me,

I swear it.

I will take out my frustrations on lesser men.

I will do all the things I want to do to you,

but without love, without meaning;

Only the motions will be there.

And it’s what they deserve for taking it,

for not being you.

I can never let you know how I wish it was you.

I will never let you know how I feel, my friend.

Because you are so good.

Because you are too good for me.

The best way to end the week

My amazing little sister had her first child Friday night, October 5, at 11:15.  Mom and baby are happy and healthy.  His name in Remington Phoenix, Remy for short.  Of course, the poor little guy will never learn his name, because everybody has different nicknames for him.  My sister and I have called him Buttons since we found out she was pregnant, because we didn’t know what gender he would be at that point…and she got mad because I kept calling her baby “it”…  My other nephew, Michael, who is 11, says he is going to call him Phoenix, because that is (and I quote) “the most awesome name ever!”  My mom is calling him Jellybean, and my sister’s mother-in-law is calling him Baby Doo.  So Remy will pretty much have to answer to every word in the dictionary, because we all call him something different.

He was, if my sleep deprived brain recalls correctly, 7lbs 13.5 oz and 20 3/4 inches long.  He’s just so perfect!  He’s going to be so spoiled!  (But not a brat!)  My family is not that big, but my brother-in-law has a large extended family.  Between all the relatives, the first time that baby’s bottom touches anything but somebody’s arms, he’ll be six years old!

My little sis, Gretchen, had really wanted to have a natural childbirth but unfortunately her body just would not cooperate.  She went for almost 24 hours on pitocin without pain meds, but she wouldn’t dilate.  They did a balloon catheter…still nothing.  Finally she agreed to get an epidoral in hopes that it would make her relax, but she topped out at four cm and wouldn’t dilate any more.  She had to,  after all that effort and time (48 hours in contractions), have the c section.  I am really proud of her because the whole time, even though she was exhausted and in a lot of pain,  her concern was for Remy.  I wish she could have had him naturally, because she wanted it so badly, but I told her she should feel great…she gets a baby as a consolation prize!!!

I have been an aunt since before I was born (there’s a big age difference between me and my oldest siblings), but babies never cease to be a source of wonder in my eyes.  Remy even more than usual because I got to be very involved in Gretchen’s pregnancy.  If it hadn’t been a c section, I would have even gotten to be in the delivery room!

Because of a medical condition, the chances of me having a baby are roughly the same as me winning the powerball lottery…the powerball is actually more likely.  It makes me sad sometimes to know that babies are not in the cards for me.  But my awesome little sis was so great during her pregnancy…she would describe how things felt, talk to me about her joys and fears, and really tried to make me understand what it is all like.  I got to be there for all her appointments and spent every night with her in hospital room while impatiently awaiting Remy’s arrival.  And even though there was a lot of nervousness and stress, it makes me really hope that by some odd stroke of luck maybe one day I’ll get to experience it first hand.

If not, that’s ok.  With Remy, I’ll get all the fun parts of parenthood, the only difference being that I get to hand him back for diaper changes and discipline!  Thereby insuring my position as the cool, favorite aunt…

Ever since Gretchen was a little girl, all she wanted to be was a mom.  She used to walk around the house with a blanket on her head and trailing behind her (this was supposed to be her long, flowing hair…all she wanted to be was Rapunzel and a mom…), holding some doll or stuffed animal, feeding it from a make-shift bottle for hours at a time.  If she would see a baby, she would be all smiles from ear to ear!  And she’s always had the amazing ability to calm babies down.  I don’t care if a baby has been screaming and crying for days, hand that baby to Gretchen, and in minutes it’ll be either sleeping or smiling.  Ridiculous!  I am sadly the opposite, you give me the best-natured baby in the world, it’ll start crying as soon as I pick it up…I get nervous.  Once they are about a year old, I can handle it…they are much less fragile looking at that point.  And I am a total hit with the two and over category…I’ll get on the ground and play and act like an idiot for as long as they want…I think kids appreciate the willingness I have to look and act stupid for the sake of them having fun.  Back to the point, it makes me so happy to know that Gretchen gets to fulfill her life’s dream!  Being a mom is the one thing in life she wanted more than anything else, and she gets to be one!  She’s going to be the best mom ever, it’s just a fact.

I can’t wait to get to know this tiny little baby!  Already he is trying to lift his head and look around, if someone speaks he’ll look in that direction…amazing stuff!  I have the feeling he is going to give us all a run for our money.  I bet there won’t be one dull moment now that he’s here.

So welcome Remy!  He’s already got us all in the palm of his teeny little hand…and I, for one, wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.

Good bye, old friend

 

 

I’ve been having a really bad time this week.  I had to make the decision, on very short notice, to put my dog to sleep.  Sunday, she was fine and by ten in the morning Monday she was gone.  In a way, I’m happy that it happened so quickly, because I wouldn’t have wanted to watch her waste away.  But in another, much bigger way, I wish she could have outlived me.

Her name was Dingo, and she just turned nineteen at the beginning of September.  She was with me her whole life, since I was ten years old and since she was a little bitty puppy.  Nineteen years is a really long time, especially for a bigger dog, but still not enough.

Before Dingo, I was a cat person.  I was ten years old and had saved my money, which was very hard to come by, let me tell you, specifically for a cat.  My mom took me to the humane society that day, and all they had was a very grumpy, very old tom cat.  He was not for me.  So she suggested that we go look at the puppies.  I did not want a puppy.  We’re just going to look at them was her response.

While we were in the room where the puppies were, looking at a bunch of normal yipping little brown puppies (insert a ten year old’s eye roll here…), we heard a very loud baying.  We looked around, but didn’t see where this baying came from.  So we went back to looking at annoying, yipping brown puppies.  And we heard it again:  Bowowowowow.  (If you’ve ever heard a hound baying, you know how loud it can be.)  We looked up, and in a small cage by itself, a little black puppy with a white chest and white paws was sitting there calmly looking at us.  And as we were saying that there was no way that big sound came from that tiny puppy, the puppy did it again!  And the conversation, as I recall it, went something to the effect of: “Mom, I want to hold that dog.”  “But you don’t like dogs.”  “I know, I just want to hold it.”  So, we got her out of the cage, (she was the most calm dog I have ever seen, even as a puppy, she always seemed to be in this very enlightened zen state of being…) and she put one paw on my left shoulder, and one paw on my right shoulder, and licked my chin one time.  “Mom, I want this dog.”  “But you don’t like dogs.”  “I like THIS dog.”  And after much finagling, and promises and practically swearing on my sweet innocent soul that I would be the best child in the universe bar none if I could just get this dog, I was granted permission.  For all of the rest of her life, Dingo never once bayed like that again.  She was the dog that was meant for me to love and she knew it from the beginning.

Dingo turned out to be the best dog in the entire world, I don’t care if your dog speaks two languages and rescues old people from fires and helps deliver meals to the homeless on the weekends, my dog still beats yours, hands down.

She was part lab, part blue tick coon hound.

 She liked to dig, and she could dig a hole straight down into the ground so far that all you could see was her back legs and her tail…I have literally had to pull her out of one of her holes because she dug such a deep and narrow hole that she couldn’t get back out again…

She hated being wet…if it was raining and you let her out to go to the bathroom, she would look at the rain, look at you, sigh deeply in disgust and high step a few feet into the yard and when she was done, all you saw was a black streak running for the door while shaking water off at the same time.

When she was a puppy, she went to the bathroom in the house one time.  From that one time on, she would go to the door, walk back to you, and using her nose, jab you in the leg as hard as she could…as she got older, I consistently had bruises on my thigh and at this point, probably calluses from being told that she had to pee.  And she would never go to the bathroom if she thought you were looking at her…she was a lady.

One time, she ate an entire bag of Hershey Kisses that had been left on the coffee table by the genius I live with.  So we rushed her to the vet.  What the vet does, if something like this happens to your dog in the future, is to put hydrogen peroxide in a syringe (without the needle on it), and force the dog to drink it.  (It tastes gross, by the way, they really DO NOT want to drink it…)  When the peroxide hits the dog’s stomach, it instantly starts to foam up and all that expanding makes the dog throw up.  That being said, we force fed Dingo almost two bottles of peroxide…and waited…for about fifteen minutes…and nothing.  The vet said just to take her home and watch her, and so we started walking to the car.  As soon as her back foot was off of the vet clinic porch, she threw up everywhere!  Oh, so much barf…so much sparkly, tin foil filled barf.  She had held it in!  She refused to barf inside!  She was a lady.

Dingo never really did anything bad, with one exception.  When Dingo felt I had left her alone for too long, say I went to spend the night at a friend’s house as a kid, or had to work overtime as an adult, she would find a pair of my shoes, and chew ONE shoe…to the point that it was not recognizable as a shoe any longer.  Always my shoe…always only one shoe…it was as if she was saying “see that, you used to have two of those…but you chose poorly, and now there’s only one…perhaps you’ll remember that next time…”  She was a vindictive lady.

I would like to say that I taught Dingo a few tricks, but really I think Dingo taught herself and did them at my request to make me feel good about myself.  She could lay down, sit, “sit pretty” (sit on her back legs with her front legs in the air…I think other people call it begging…Dingo was a lady…she would never beg…she would only “sit pretty”) and stand up on her back legs.  She  would also shake paws, and if you said “other paw” she would offer you her other paw…as many times as you said “other paw”, she would give you the other paw.  She was a patient lady.

She was also, in my brother’s affectionate words, a food whore.  Not selfish, or greedy, or snatchy…but a food whore, never-the-less.  My brother would smile at reading that.  Dingo was a lady…and food whore.

Growing up, I didn’t have a good childhood, I didn’t have a lot of friends, I didn’t have a lot of anything, but Dingo was always there for me.  When I had was sick or sad or cold, she would jump up in my bed and lay right beside me with her head on my pillow and only get up when I did.  When I was happy, she would wag her tail and be happy too.  When I was nineteen and had my gull bladder out, she laid beside my bed and watched me and would whine just a little when I was hurting.

I brought Dingo home, and buried her in my yard next to the woods she loved to sniff in.  I buried one of my shoes with her, because I don’t know how long we’ll be in different places, and she might need that shoe to let me know it was too long.

Any goodness or kindness or compassion that I have in my heart, I truly believe I learned it from Dingo.

She was my best and dearest friend.  I love her more than many things, most humans included,  in this world.

In honor of Dingo, please give your dogs or cat or whatever pet you may have…even if it’s just your dumb spouse/significant other…a big hug, and as many treats as they want tonight.  I will leave you with the words of Marty Hale and the knowledge that your pet and/or significant other will never be quite as good or near as special as my Dingo was:

A Boy and His Dog

By Marty Hale

I want my boy to have a dog
Or maybe two or three.
He’ll learn from them much easier
Than he will learn from me.

A dog will teach him how to love
And bear no grudge or hate,
I’m not so good at that myself
But a dog will do it straight.

There never yet has been a dog
That learned to double-cross,
Not catered to you when you won
Then dropped you when you lost.

I want my boy to have a dog
To be his pal and friend,
So he will learn that friendship
Is faithful to the end.

Picking my poison

There won’t be any poems tonight…just a rant…just to warn you.

 It was a long day at my job, and I am so tired.  My usual day to day work is all computer related, but they are having inventory this weekend, and today I was on my feet counting and lifting and counting…it was a brain drain.  And instead of eight normal people hours, I got to work twelve…I feel super puny right now.

Added to the long work day, I have been dealing with a big decision lately, one that has a lot of stress to go along with it.

I am not usually one to get stressed out.  I can handle a great deal of things and not freak out, but that being said, when I do get stressed, I DO NOT handle it well.  I love me some food, but when I get upset, even the thought of it makes me nauseous.  And all I want to do is sleep…sleep, and punch unsuspecting people in the face.  And that’s no good at all.

The stupid thing is, for my big decision, I know what I want to do.  It’s the doing it that’s hard.  Because there will be emotional confrontation.  I hate confrontation…I suck at it.  I have the annoying habit of people pleasing.  They must all like me!!!  And that’s just crazy.  When you people please, you know who never ends up pleased?  YOU.  And that blows chunks.  But I do it, I always have.

I grew up in a house with a meek mother and a father who was not a very nice person.  There was a lot of walking on eggshells.  Confrontation means yelling, yelling means I am getting hit.  My father left when I was 16, and I am now going on 29.  I haven’t been hit since my father left, but in my head, yelling will always mean violence.

And then emotion…ugh.  I can write it all day long, but to speak it out loud…that’s a whole different kettle of fish.  Emotion gets you punished.  I never cry.  Well, that’s not true.  I have cried a lot.  Usually in my house, locked in the bathroom with the shower running, just in case…but not in front of people, not since I was very small.  If you cry in front of someone, they will know your weakness, and weaknesses will be exploited.  The same is true if you have strong opinions…in my house, conviction meant that you would be beaten into submission.  Great lesson from my childhood, and I am a quick study.

And so here I am, almost 30 years old, afraid of disagreements, afraid of emotion, and afraid of standing up for anything.  And that is ridiculous.  I can’t live like that.  I don’t want to live like that.

Like I said, my father left when I was 16, and a few years ago he died.  And until the day he died, I was always afraid he would show up at my house.  I don’t know why.  My uncles had a funeral service for him, and I went.  They had pictures of him, much more recent than when I had seen him last. And you know what?  He was a frail old man…if he would have shown up at my house, physically, I could have kicked his old man ass.  He couldn’t have hurt me anymore…in the end, I guess he couldn’t even get out of his bed.

My mom once told me that my father’s biggest fear was being alone.  And when he died, he had no one.  No one believed his lies anymore.  No one could be bullied into submission anymore.  And the sickest part of it all, the part that makes me pity him now (it’s taken a long time to get to that point) was that it could have been different for him.  He had a wife and children who wanted to love him and he pushed it all away.  He wasted his life, and ruined a big part of my life and that of my brothers and sisters.  To this day, things that blasted old fart did have an affect on my life.

I don’t want to waste my life because I am afraid to stand up for it anymore.  I’m just scared.  What if I make the wrong choice?  What if I am being a fool?  What if the one time I get to be selfish ends up being the biggest mistake of my life?

I read somewhere: “I’d rather have a life of ‘oh wells’ than a life of ‘what ifs’.  But how sound is that logic?  Leap before you look?

The thing is this:  I don’t want my fear to stop me from living life how I choose, because after all, we just get one go round and we have to make it count.  But what if I choose wrong?  What if I hurt people who care about me, just because I desire something different and in the end don’t get what I really want from it anyway?

Do you live your life pleasing other people?  Do you do what you want and tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself?  Because at this point, I feel like those are my only options, there is no happy medium in this situation.  There is only the same as it’s always been or doing something I’ve never done…  I guess I am just having trouble picking my poison.