stuff happens

Oh lord help me be patient. My man has taken my little one to buy some potates for dinner-an hour and a half ago. He called to tell me of the lost car keys. He is stranded at the mall. The only other keys we have don't start the engine-our car being 10 years old and somewhat feeble. My little one is no doubt very hungry so hopefully he will buy her a slice of pizza. He will arrive home tired and pissed off and most likely feeling that he has been the butt of some cosmic joke. Just a blip I will remind him. A blip in time and space. Where the hell did he put those damn keys????

letter to my man..rhetorical

My man thinks I've got an inability to see my role in things a.k.a. how horrible I am. I think if he only knew how much I hold back he'd be shocked senseless! If he only knew how difficult it is to maintain a family in the day-to-day-cooking, cleaning, organizing, helping with homework, scheduling, planning, corresponding, shopping, refereeing and doing it all with a smile because you are trying to present a positive outlook on life. And doing it all whilst keeping the bigger picture front and centre in your mind. When Jon and Kate plus eight broke up I thought that there was a lot of talk about what a Battle Axe she was but I thought "the woman has eight small children! She has to be tough, especially with such a slacker of a husband!" But I digress....
I guess what ticks me off is this notion that not only do I (women in general? moms in general?) have to take care of all this stuff but that I have to do it with a happy smiley voice and butterflies flying around my head. My man expects me to be happy about doing it all EVERYDAY and that if I require assisstance I'm supposed to flitter over to him and in my best Oliver Twist voice ask for some more...well, hell no!
I'm sorry if I offend but this is not a democracy. I am not the Dalai Lama. I am in charge of this family's happiness and peace and well being and you are either with me or you are not. I get that my man is tired from work, I get that the internet is really cool, I get that beer tastes better when you're on the couch but for heaven sakes man...pick up your kid, give your wife a kiss and a hug, grab the broom before she aks you, sit down with the teen and talk about Zach Efron. The rewards will be great and vast...promise.

ps. I just re-read this post. I think I may need a vacation! (or a life)

trying to deal with it

I'm stealing a bit of a day for myself. Mostly what I am trying to do is think loving thoughts about people, especially a certain person who seems hell bent on bringing anger and negativity into my life. I am tired of being accused of stuff by passive-aggressive people who cannot bear to take responsibility for their own shit and who just behave as if they are the only people in the world with stuff to do. It's a drag and it makes me want run run run away from them.
I have been thinking lately that perhaps the reason this person came into my life was to teach me how to deal with anger-not my own-but with other people's. My father was an "angry man" with a terrifying temper and I was petrified of his rages as a child. As a teen I showed bravado, I guess a certain bravery, but I was still quaking in my boots whenever I argued with my dad. The odd thing with my dad was we usually argued politics and sometimes it would get so intense it would come to shove. But I would never back down, even if I thought I was about to get knocked ass over head. Now, I am learning to back down with this person in my life, learning to choose my battles, learning to bite my tongue and look the other way. But I don't know if that is dealing with it. I guess what I mean is that I am trying to learn how to express my own anger, feel someone else's anger and not get up the next day feeling as though my soul has been sucked out of my body.
Today I am filled with a deep sense of remorse over feeling that this someone has too many difficulties in communicating with me to create a positve experience and knowing that this person's capacity to change is limited by his refusal to see his life as a series of choices he makes leaves me feeling somewhat hopeless about the future of my friendship with him.

Frustration

I am going crazy this morning-I am waiting for someone to come and fix my fridge AGAIN and there are people in my backyard installing a fence that I don't even want (city issued) and I do not even have a gate on that fence so I am effectively being locked out of my forest and park by the city who made these rules 40 years ago when some kid fell out of a tree house he had built in the forest. If I can't have a gate, I'll build a staircase up and over.
The most frustrating part is dealing with city bureaucracy over trying to get some changes made to their by-laws. I just wish that rather than having an adversarial relationship with its citizens, a town could take on a partnership relationship. I live next to this forest, so of course I have a vested interest in protecting and maintaining its health and integrity. I also do not think that it is right to expect me to get in my car and drive over one km to the park entrance just so that I can use it-especially when there is a park entrance right outside my back door. This city makes a lot of noise about being a livible city but for me these outdated bylaws make this city LESS livable for me and my family. The city claims that it doesn't want people dumping things into the woodlot, but a 4 ft high chain link fence will not keep anyone from doing that, if anything it will create a barrier that divides the space from "mine" into "not my problem" thuis creating the opposite attitude that it needs to create if it wants the forest and park to continue on in health.
There is always a fight with city officials and the system is set up to create so much frustration that people end up giving up. I do not want to give up this fight so easily.

my favourite show

Has anybody every watched Video on Trial on Much Music???? ohmygod I love that show. I want to be on it. I'm laughing. I can't write I'm laughing too much.

What I am

Running the other day, it occurred to me that I wasn't a runner. Runners are athletes and I am not one of them. I am not co-ordinated, not strong and flexible enough to be an athlete. Besides, I only run about 35-40 minutes through the woods admiring squirrels and trees and shadows. When I am finished running I do some light weights then about 30 minutes of yoga to stretch and cool down. I do that about 5 days a week-the other 2 being days that have slipped away too quickly to fit in a run.
As I ran I thought about that idea-the idea of me not being a runner-and I realized that I have always felt like an onlooker, an outsider-not a participant. I am an imposter, they are the real thing. They, being anyone else. I began to expand that idea and I then realized that throughout my entire life, I have placed these truths in my mind and heart and body. I became acccustomed to them and accepted them and they have usually proven true because I let them guide my choices and identity.
Some of the"nots" are as follows: I am not pretty or attractive and certainly not sexy, especially to members of the opposite sex.
I am not interesting.
I am not athletic or co-ordinated.
I do not stand out.
I do not belong.
I am not capable of wealth, that is for others.
I am not visible, or valuable enough to notice.
I am not the mothering type.
My body is not attractive or normal.
I am not good at math or science and I should therefore not pursue any dreams or goals that may require me to do so (basically all my childhood dreams of being a vet or an archtiect!!)
I do not belong in University-that is for ""other"people (rich? handsome? driven? I can't remember now).
I am not good with computers (this one is ,alas, true.)
I am not loved or worthy of love.

I need to start getting back to separating the truth from the fiction in my life so I can start defining myself in terms of what I am.

Freedom coming

From my relatively quiet post I observe the goings on around me. Reading emails but not responding, taking a few choices away from myself to make life easier, not getting into the drama. I am glad for the week's sunny warm days and the promise of a getaway. Not a getaway from the kids, from whom I rarely feel the need to escape, but from the monotonous rythm of my relationship with R which many days leaves me feeling a bit drained and somewhat hopeless. Not always. I am always the secret cheerleader, the hallway monitor, the guidance counsellor and I recieve little recognition or thanks or response to my work. Just like a grown up! I am looking forward to the happy chatty female energy, the laughing at rude joks, the freedom of not having to coax someone into conversation, the freedom to go back to bed! (the margaritas I will savour).

Shiny Happy People

I know this name sucks but I can't think of a different one. The only thing that comes to mind is Permanently Pissed Off and that's just not very friendly.
I'm not really permanently pissed off but I do have several moments throughout the day and night when the thought comes into my head that there are a lot of assholes in the world, and that pisses me off-even if they have nothing to do with me. It only really bothers me when they get into my trajectory. R makes fun of me when I am being "tough" but he really doesn't know that I am just scratching the surface. If I was a comedian, I'd be the Dennis Leary sort, except with more swearing.
For many years I really wanted to be the kind of person who called themselves something sweet and feminine like Morningstar Butterfly.. (retching)..but when I finally realized that that was not my particular brand of personality I relaxed into my edginess, embraced it in a way. Still, hope springs eternal, even for me, and everyday is an active exercise in positivity and loving acceptance-words and concepts that are the hot topics right now in our culture as if that is all it's gonna take to make things better. I guess it can't hurt which is why I am slowly but surely becoming a happy morningstar butterfly type of gal. If only those happy people didn't piss me off so much .

September

Back to making lists and getting things done and watching the clock.
Back to getting up early and being productive.
Being home for me, home with the girls is a choice but is also a circumstance. I try to make the most of it but I do admit to being lazy in the summer especially. Unfocused.
My natural way is to procrastinate the big stuff. Piddle around all day with the small unimportant stuff. Wasting.
Now it's back to reality as it were.

I fight the urge to label myself as a waster of life and time and money. I try to convince myself that it's worth it, that my choices are choices freely made. I try to believe that the best is yet to come, that life is long and good and gracious. That the feeling of a successful, well-lived life is not as elusive as it sometimes seems.

I'VE GOT THE BACK-TO -SCHOOL BLUES

I suck..hehe

Everyone is on vacation 'cept me.
I blew a load of cash at the CNE-totally worth it.
I had rebellious thoughts about the "schedule" that it to say, my daughter's rotation of homes. She's only been home a few days and now she must leave again, just when we were getting comfortable. I can't stand that schedule. I hate it and wish it into oblivion with a burning intensity that worries me. I resist the urge to try to convince her to choose sides . I barely succeed.
I'm out of milk.