My Quest for Independence

It's been more than a year since I have blogged here.  I have succeeded in my quest for independence in the last 14 months.  Losing my job did not drown me, like I thought it would.  I feared the drama of the struggle and the potential of being homeless again.  I lived in my car when I was in my twenties but now as an adult with a child, that is not an option.  I found my center and gravitated toward the top.  My business is full time now and here it is a year and 2 months after being laid off and my finances are almost better than when I was employed.  This year will be record breaking for me.  I have been working so hard, wearing myself out.  Life is moving again and my head is up.

I'm talking to my dad again.  He was hospitalized last September and was recently discharged. Though I initially resisted visiting him, I realized... this could be the end.  We resolved it all.  I have been helping as much as I can.  

I still don't talk to my brother.  He breaks my heart with his swill.  His corrupt priorities and relentless and irrational anger have forced my hand.  It is what it is.

No longer am I high in the archive, but now I am moving freely in the direction I have dreamt about since I was a wee 17 year old, so many years ago.

Father Issues

Family is complex and confusing.  Am I supposed to be loyal strictly because of my blood?  My father and I have a very complicated relationship that I am hoping to explore more.  I need to start allowing myself to confront the issues that are effecting me, but every time I begin to explore the complicated thoughts and feelings I have about my father (& brother, but that's a whole other story), I shut down.  

As my first attempt to release some of the emotion that is festering, I am going to write one word that comes to mind when I think of my father... Belittle

I have never felt significant in my father's life and lately it has begun to bother me more and more.  He has always said (and showed) his love for me, but has never really shown any interest in me.  So many of the decisions i've made in my life were failed attempts to get his attention.  Being a lifeguard, shooting at targets, riding dirt bikes, tagging along to boy scout meetings, helping build the cabana, joining the navy, getting tattoos, getting arrested, obsessing about college, all of it was in one way or another connected to him and wanting him to actually SEE me.  I honestly believe he does not like me.  

We are from two different worlds, yet I came from him.  I am his blood, his experience, and his life.  I  exist only because he exists.  Without him there would not have been me.  Yet, we are polar opposites in so many ways.  Religiously, politically, emotionally, fundamentally we are different.

Since my mother's death, we haven't been able to connect on a permanent basis.  Our relationship has been strained on every level and communication is hardly there.  It pains me.  I long to have my father in my life and in my son's life.  He seems to prefer a distance between us and would rather take care of my brother and his new wife.  He seems content with where he is and what he has and seems to have zero interest in me.  In 5 years, he hasn't visited me once.  I've gone at least 4-7 times a year to see him.   

I am not easy to understand. I am not a perfect daughter.  I assume he just doesn't like me. 

It just sucks.  

Trying to Stay Upright

Extreme changes have warped my sensibilities.  I am struggling to stay above water right now.  I feel beaten and bruised.  I am now unemployed.  I need to collect my thoughts.  I need to record my struggle.  I need to find motivation to stay functional and not curl up on the couch.  Trying to stay upright!

Morning Light

Every morning on my way to work, I drive by the reservoir.  It had a small island in the middle of it.  The morning light is always gorgeous by this reservoir.  I am always drawn to take pictures of it.  Here are a couple.

Fare Thee Well, Sir Jeff Corwin The Fish

It was a rough and dramatic evening with Dillan fast asleep on the couch, at the ready in case of an emergency trip to the Vet, and I with fish scooper in one hand and google in the other. 

As I googled "Guppies"(thanks Wikipedia), I had to occasionally (every 5 minutes), give Jeff Corwin, The Fish, a nudge, ever so gently, to wake him up from his weird trans. He was going between flipping belly up, to spazzing out and swimming like Michael Phelps. Google and Wikipedia told me that it was most likely something referred to as "The Shimmies".

Believing I could miraculously nurse this fish back to life, I raised the temp of the water slowly all night long and added Marine salt (ok, it was really just sea salt, but it seems to me they might be the same... no?) to try and get it more BRACKISH (yeah, I had to look that up too!).

The endless gentle nudging of Sir Jeff Corwin The Fish, sadly ended this morning. Somewhere between the hours of 3:30(ish)am & 5:45(ish)am (I fell asleep on watch), he gracefully swam to the ocean in the sky (?).

He was a good fish. He was a fine swimmer, a patient pet, and most of all he was as Dillan liked to call him... "A Disco Fish".

Fare thee well Sir Jeff Corwin The Fish. Services will be held in the bathroom at 305 Indian Way, sometime later this evening.

You can make donations in Jeff Corwin, The Fish's name to the Jeff Corwin The Fish Foundation. :) (Also, if anyone has any fish recommendations we would greatly appreciate them... we are definitely trying again)

Morning Coffee

My head is foggy, my back aches, my feet are throbbing, but my coffee sure does taste good.  Sitting and enjoying this first cup as the sleep clears from my eyes and my muscles start to wake up is one of my favorite moments of the day.  Good Morning World!

Alter Ego

"I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg, if there was a draft she sat in it - in short, she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others." Virginia Woolf, Describing her alter-ego.

The PROPER way to eat a strawberry!

When I eat strawberries, I like to squish them between my tongue and the roof of my mouth (it feels good)! Also, Blueberries are much tastier if rolled in a little sugar first! My child is asleep and I am taking a moment to enjoy the little things!

Boobie Traps... THAT'S WHAT I SAID!

When your 5 year old is napping, opening a bag of potato chips & a can of coke without waking him is like working around a boobie trap from The Goonies or Indiana Jones. You have to do it very slowly & carefully and hope that the end result is you sitting on the couch eating chips, instead of making dinner for a cranky 5 year old.

Total Dizzy Spell

Do I think about what to write or do I just write?  That is the question.  

I am approaching this blogging thing as sort of an experiment.  I am thinking of it as an opportunity to explore myself in a therapeutic way without having to go sit and rant to some stuffy therapist who I'm not really going to let in anyway (see, I put up walls).

At least this way I am controlling what I share and to what extent (control issues).  I see it as having 2 possible outcomes. 1) I get more comfortable doing it and start sharing more openly or 2) I get completely and utterly sick of it and give up in a couple days (ugh - quitter).  Either way, I have control, not some overpaid listener.

I am someone who is relatively self aware, but that does NOT mean I make good choices or say the right things.  More often than not, my mouth says what it wants and I feel like a prisoner inside screaming... "NO, DON'T SAY THAT!".

Sorting my life out via blog is probably a ridiculous idea and definitely a little crazy, but I really have a lot to share, and I think that it's time I do.  If someone is supposed to hear my stories, then they will find me and my blog and they will read them.  Ta Da.. the end. 

I have so many crazy life experiences that need to be shared, I need to understand how they have impacted me and made me who I am.  I really just don't know where to start.  There was the time I almost got in a fight with a stripper named Bambi in Tijuana, or the time my best friend and I almost got kicked out of the Navy for making prank phone calls, theres the 20 year battle my mom had with a cancerous brain tumor, oh and then theres the rare disease that my son was born with that prevents him from eating protein, oh and stories from Memphis, Chicago, San Diego, my road trips across the US, my arrest, single parenthood, paranoia, growing up in the 80's and 90's, family, politics, religion, death, UGH... there's just so much.  Where do I start?

Louis CK

I saw this video on Youtube of Louis CK talking about being a father.  It made me sob.  Watch it.  He nailed it.

Louis CK on Fatherhood

Waxing - Letter to an Ex 5/09

I have this folder on my laptop called "Important".  In this folder are things that are... well... important.  Anyway, in this folder is another folder titled "Waxing".  No this is not some fetish thing or anything like that... it has some of the things that I just randomly write (my digital journal, if you will).

So if I am going to blog and I am going to share who I am with random people, then perhaps I should start there. I will share something more recent that the paper journals with tear-stained pages.

"Letter to an Ex" - May 2009

It was so hard sitting next to you in court.  I tried so hard not to cry, not to look weak or fragile.  My focus was on the words I would say and the scenarios that would bring them up.  I struggled to hold my tongue, to control the stutter when it was my turn to talk, and sit up straight with my hands crossed in front of me. I was so nervous, and you seemed so calm.  I really just wanted to run over and hug you. I wanted you to touch my face. I wanted to be closer to you. I wanted to smell you, to kiss your lips and stare into your beautiful blue eyes. Then you spoke. You wouldn’t say my name. You refused to call me by my first name. You kept saying Miss. Miss. Miss. What the hell?  When did I become Miss Nobles.  First of all it’s MS (thank you very much).  And second of all, I spent the last four years of my life with you, shared a child, a home, a car, a life with you.  You can’t call me by my name anymore?  What is going on?  Is this a formality?  Did your lawyer tell you to do this?  

My heart aches for time with you and you antagonize me with spitefulness.  Then as if that were not enough, you turn around and tell me over and over again what a terrible person I am, and how mean I am.  You obviously do not know me, not very well.  This is in part why my heart aches.  The tears I cry for you are not always about what I miss.  Sometimes, most times they are tears for what still lied ahead of us.  The many things we would have done and seen together, the words we could have spoken, the good moments and the bad.  The tears I cry are for the things you are missing; the moments with our son.  Sometimes out of nowhere he will do something incredible and I turn to see if you saw it, but you’re not there.  You’re missing so much, and you haven’t got a clue.  My heart aches for your loss, a loss you won’t even miss.  It’s one that our son will though, and my heart aches for him, as he gets older.

Bloggity Blog Blog Blog

I want to blog, I really do. I used to be a writer... of sorts. I wrote in journals. All the time. I have hundreds of them.... somewhere. I used to write everything, I would write song lyrics, thoughts, ideas, angry rantings, stoned realizations, epiphanies brought on by heartache, frustrations about life and work and family and cancer and death and love. I wrote. I wrote a lot. 

I want to blog. I really do. The part for me that is difficult, is the sharing. Y'see, no one has ever read those journals but me. No one knows my deepest, darkest, most emotional and most intense feelings and secrets. I keep those locked in. I keep a huge wall up. The only thing people who "know" me, really know about me is that I am funny, emotional, passionate, wild, loud, and a little crazy. Yea, I am those things. BUT (& that's a huge BUT- there's a joke in there somewhere)... I AM SO MUCH MORE! 

I am a story teller. I try to tell people about me, but they don't listen. I have tried to show people who I am but they don't see me. I have loved people so deeply and was hurt every time. I, in turn, have closed myself off to them all. Now, I have a role I play. I am the puppet, or am I the puppeteer? Or am I just the poor schmuck who wants to blog, but is afraid to? 

I want to blog. I really do.