I started this bloggery thing back in 2003. And here I am now, in 2019, trying to make a
go of it again. A lot has changed in the
intervening years. So much so that 2019
me barely recognizes 2003 me.
And I mean, I guess that’s true for all of us. Sixteen years, man. SIX TEEN YEARS. I was freshly separated from my children’s
father and in a “relationship” with a man-child, a “professional wrestler” from
Appalachia, a fully grown man who lived with his mother (which in and of itself
isn’t that bad, sometimes circumstances bring you back home and I am not
casting aspersions on anyone, I mean, I was living with my folks at the time
also, since my marriage had ended). I
don’t want to speak too badly of him as he has since passed away (long after we
had lost contact). Suffice to say he
required more babying, more handholding and coddling, than my own children.
And sadly, he got it.
From me. I don’t know who I was
during that time. I had no backbone, no
personality that wasn’t defined in some way through him. I didn’t see it at the time, of course. I was in LURVE. And I’ll be honest, it sickens me just to say
that. I sickens me to look back on how
devoted I was to him, how everything I said and did was to please him. It sickens me that when I look back at my
life and identify the absolute lowest points, the moments when I felt emotional
pain as a physical sensation ripping me apart from the inside, I identify three
discrete moments. The moment I learned
that my son had attempted suicide (and came very close to succeeding). The day I signed my mother into hospice. And the WEEKS after our completely unexpected
(to me at least) break up. And I am
MORTIFIED at how I begged him to come back to me, at how manipulatively I used
every trick in the book to win him back, even while I knew he was carrying on
with other wimmens, living his life without me in far off Kentucky, while I did
nothing but weep on the sofa and drug myself into oblivion (and by “drug” I
mean four Benadryl per night. I’m
hard-core like that)
And then the day came, he called me, he had lost his job and
the wimmen and he wanted me back and did I have a SINGLE SHRED of self
respect? LOL, of course not.
Eventually, after losing two of my closest friends, after my
children started asking me why I loved him more than them, I finally started to
come back to myself. I told him I needed
more from him, that I couldn’t keep pouring all of myself into “us” and getting
nothing in return. So that ended that.
::deep breath::
Okay. This went in a
direction I wasn’t expecting. Shall I
talk next about the Shagging Wars of 2005?
No, probably not. But I did date,
A LOT. And I had fun. And I felt like me. I was sassy and fun and spirited….but I still
let myself be subsumed by the Fling of the Week. But at least these men, the ones I crushed
on, at least THEY were worthy of my time.
I didn’t feel I had to change myself to be with them. And the writing that was born from that time
was pure gold, probably the best I’ve ever written, or ever will write. I kept two blogs during that time and I
referred to them as Pink and Blue (because of the color schemes of each
individual site, of course). Blue was my
general audiences blog with the more mundane day to day observances and
stories. Pink? Pink is where the good stuff was. ALL THE BOYZ.
I’d love to go back and read some of it but I can’t remember how to get
in. It’s all password protected and
stuff. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out.
But then I met someone and settled down and I got boring and
couldn’t write. That was in 2006. The relationship only lasted about two years
but I’ve been unable to get back into writing.
I mean, I’ve TRIED. But once you
start a blog (or at least, once *I* start a blog), there is a sense of
obligation. For example, last week I had
my birthday party at a farm, with farm animals, and a hayride and a bonfire,
and it was a great time and I feel like I SHOULD write about it. But I don’t FEEL like writing about it. So since I don’t want to write about the
thing I feel I should write about, I don’t write at all. OBLIGATION.
So I am trying to shun that and this is why I am here
now. My point when I started writing
this was to draw a comparison between who I was and who I am today, but I
digressed, a LOT. I am a wordy bitch,
please put that on my tombstone.
So this is who I am now, in 2019. I am happy.
I know who I am and I love who I am.
I have interests outside of my husband (who I met in 2013 and married
just this past summer) and he has interests outside of me. We have a life together, but we also have
time apart and we both value that time (even though I spend a good chunk of
that time binge watching Friends and he spends his time in the basement killing
things). He enriches my life, he is not
the entirety of my life. I can stand up
for myself without becoming confrontational.
I’ve learned that a disagreement does not mean the end of the
relationship (whether romantic or platonic – the two closest friends mentioned
above that I lost during the whole man-child fiasco are back in my life now and
I love those LADIEEEEEEZ so very much).
I don’t worry as much as I used to about other people’s opinions of me
(although I do care very much about the feelings of others which is something I
still need to work on. I am always so
afraid of offending someone with an ill chosen word or phrase that I end up
saying nothing when sometimes, SOMETHING needs to be said….but here I am
digressing again.)
Bottom line, I love me.
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