Wordless Wednesday...

Best Friends are the Shiz

Man, I am having a shitty shitty night.

I'm feeling the full weight of this pregnancy for the first time, and working the night shift ain't helping any. I hurt all over and I'm more tired than I've been in months.

Of course, being tired puts me at the mercy of my hormones, which are running wild tonight. Where normally I'm strong, tonight I am weak. Overwhelmed with the enormity of the task before me, feeling lost and lonely and abandoned. And of course, positive that my future holds nothing but an endless string of users, abusers, and straight up losers in the man department.

And I was going to come home and tell y'all all about it. Break my own rule about bemoaning the shitty hand I've been dealt. I just want someone to hear me whine, dammmit!

Lucky for you ( and for me too )  I got on the horn with my best friend in the whole wide world before I sat down to unleash the self pity on my blog. She let me whine and even cry a little, listened as only a best friend can do, and agreed with me on many points.

Then, in the nicest, sweetest possible way, she told me to pull my head out of my ass. 

Yes, she said. You deserve to feel sorry for yourself every once in a while. You've been put through the ringer. That's when you call me. And I will tell you what a dumbass you're being.

You are not weak. You are strong. You are not overwhelmed. You are dealing just fine and you will continue to kick ass and take names, because that is what you've done all the twenty years that I've known you. What you are right now is tired, and hormonal, and in need of a shoulder to cry on. And that's okay.

I'm here for you, and
You will be okay.

Best friends truly are the shiz.

What. Everrrrrr....

Firstly, I should clarify. Those are not boogs hanging out of my son's nose in the header pic, but grains of sand. We were at the beach. Maybe I should have thought of that before putting it up there, but I've become very enamoured of that pic and, well, it's summery. So there.

Now, to the post at hand. If I have any readers at all, they ( or she, as the case may well be ) will have noticed the posts are coming slow and low these days. It's not that I don't have anything to say. More like I have too much to say and not really that much time to edit what comes out.

Adjusting to single parenthood is demanding. On top of the daily struggle to figure out what goes where and what happens next (and where food and rent and gas are coming from), there's also all the ugly emotional shit one has to deal with when it comes to breaking up. It can be a little overwhelming at times, and it's tempting to do nothing but bemoan the shitty hand you've been dealt.  I've thought seriously about shutting this whole blog down. No one wants to hear a bunch of whining, and I sure as shit don't want to write it.

I've found a rather welcome surprise through this whole thing, though. There are a bunch of really positive feelings that come along with single parenthood.  I know, it may sound strange, but there are.  For me, the things that really stand out are the feelings of strength, of self reliance, of groundedness, and most importantly, a sense of freedom and possibilty that wasn't there before.

So, from here on in, this here blog is all about celebrating the awesome side of single parenthood.  I got no time for self pity, and neither do you.

Open Letter To My Son, on The Eve of Our First Mother`s Day

Psst...hey. Captain Chaos. You`re tired. I can see it in your eyes, in your flushed cheeks, in your frustration at the little things.   I know you don`t realize it, but at some point you have to give it up. And that point is now. So let`s put away the toys and the blanket, let`s stop crawling and pulling up, standing and falling. Let`s stop terrorizing the dogs and eating stuff off the carpet when mommy`s not looking. Let`s stop exploring, rolling, squealing, wheeling, ranting, charming, messing, hiding, finding, toppling, breaking, laughing, crying, snacking, napping and waking to do it all over again. Let`s pack in the car rides and the shoulder rides and the stroller rides and the walker rides. We can do all those things plus more tomorrow.

We`ll have a nice warm bath, and you can play with your toys while you cover mommy in bathwater. You can howl in protest when I take you out of the tub. Then we`ll wrestle you into a clean, dry diaper and a clean, dry sleeper. Have a nice nip off the bottle in a dark, quiet room. Then I`ll rock you to sleep and whisper to you. Tell you how great you`re doing. How much I love you. Tell you that you don`t have to grow up too fast - even though I can already see that you are...

When you are asleep, I`ll put you down in your crib and rush back upstairs to finish clearing the wake of destruction you`ve left in your path. Then, a snack, and I`m right behind you on our way to dreamland, and in the morning, we`ll wake up and do it all over again. Tomorrow, though, will be a little special for me. It`s Mother`s Day - the day that I get to celebrate being YOUR mother.

Suburban Homesick Gratitude Blues..( or, How the Hell I Did End Up Here)

Oh man, am I homesick.

Thing is, I'm homesick for a place that no longer exists. I'm beginning to doubt it ever did.

Last night was one of those early spring nights that bring a sense of wonder to even the most jaded of souls. One of the first warm days of the season that melts into a muted sunset and finally fades to a perfect royal blue as soon as the last rays have left the sky. The kind of night that keeps you out drinking on the patio until until your hands are frozen, claw like, around your pint glass and you are wearing your toque and jacket but you will NOT go inside because dammit, it's too nice out. Then at some point someone does convince you to come inside and you realize that you're drunk, and work tomorrow is going to suck balls anyway, so what the hell? Let's go see a show!

One of those nights where you crawl into bed at three a.m. You reek of beer and smoke, and faintly of regret, dreading the day to come. You know that it was all worth it, though, because dammit, you were with your friends, having an awesome time, you saw a great band, and shit; it's only one day. You'll survive.

I'm sure everyone has their own spring fever memories. Many of them likely involve less booze. The point is, that's mine. When I feel that clean, cool evening air for the first time after a long dark winter, that's the place I get taken back to.

This year, though, that wonderful sense of possibility was tinged with a pretty deep melancholy. As I rode through that fresh night on my bike, I felt like a younger version of myself, if only briefly. I felt like I was riding down through my old neighborhood to the local to meet some friends for a patio night.

I remembered that feeling of riding reckless through the city, not a care in the world other than what time the liquor store closed. I remembered living in a place that was large enough to have a band scene. I remembered stoop parties with my friends. I remembered being focused on a career where I showed some talent, and where I loved my work. It all came rushing in on me at once and it hurt. I let it.

What hurt was not so much that all of those things have changed in the past couple of years - although they have, dramatically - as the fact that those memories were quickly becoming fiction even as I was living them. Those nights going to meet friends were becoming fewer and further between, replaced by me, riding to the nearest pub to get drunk. Those stoop parties often just involved myself, a book, and twelve beer. My career? Definitely something there, but how many times can a person miss work because they're hung over?

There was nothing careless about my single life. It just seemed that way on the outside. And I know I wasn't the only one living that way. Many of my friends were in the same boat, sliding quickly from bar star to alcoholic, not noticing the years flying by, not changing. Just running faster, playing harder.

My whole world changed two years ago, the day my mother passed away. I gave up my wandering ways, my career, my whole lifestyle, moved to the flatlands to help my family. Like me, many of them had moved away when they were young. Now those wanderers are also returning home. I am surrounded by the big, messy, loving family that I'd spent so many years running from. It's the best decision I've ever made.

Six months after moving to this tiny town, I met a man. Now I have Captain Chaos - certainly the best thing that's ever happened to me. That little guy fills me with feelings I didn't even know existed before I became a parent.

In the past two years I've given up freedom for responsibility, solitude for family, recklessness for stability, dissolution for sobriety. Sometimes it's overwhelming, to think where I've been and where I am today. So, if one clear calm night, you see me gliding around on a bike and you can't quite place the expression on my face, I'll let you know right now - it's gratitude.