A Little Blasphemy as a Literal (and Figurative) Sign of Progress

 Hello there, it’s been a while, and in true returning from ghosting fashion, I am here to either share something vapid and meaningless, or something raw and deeply personal to justify my lazy pen name.  (Honestly, I think this will be a weird combination of the two, so let’s roll back the way back machine and go for it!)

When I was 2, my mom married the man who became the father of her other children. His disgusting behavior combined with her weak spirit is actually why they got married, but that’s actually a side note in today’s tale. This horrid man was absolutely evil, and from the age of 2 until I was about 11 or 12, he abused and tortured me in every way imaginable and unimaginable (unless you’re also a monster then, kudos I guess?): physically, emotionally, psychologically, and even yes, sexually.

 I legitimately had no childhood to speak of, because when he was done stripping me of my innocence, and finally sent to prison for - you guessed it - being a monster; not only did my mom stay married to him for a while to preserve her reputation, she paraded me around telling anyone who would listen to the horrible things that happened to me (while she stayed clueless) and how helpless and needy she was without her husband. That is of course, when she wasn’t laying in bed feeling sorry for herself and leaving my damaged self to take care of her other children. It’s actually a wonder we don’t all have serious criminal records, thinking about it, so, gold star us.

This monster my mother married, was a special sort of monster by the way. He was a Good Christian Man who believed in the bible and all its teachings. He was a true man who was the head of his household, and his word was law. His wife’s role was to submit to him, because The Bible Said. Never-mind that he was unemployed more than not, he was a man, so he was in charge. And to make sure everyone who came to the prison cell he called his house knew, he painted a large sign the went across the entire top of the garage saying “As For Me and My House, We Will Serve the Lord” 

Even after he was in prison, and I had finally convinced my mom to divorce him, the sign stayed. Staring at me, mocking my pain every time I left and entered the house. It was totally irrelevant that there was only one or two safe places in the building that didn’t scream with the memories of the life he forced upon me, the sign stayed. Years after the divorce I begged her to go through with, I finally was able to convince her to take down the sign, and years after that, long after I moved away, she eventually painted the entire house a brand new color and changed the front porch. 

Fast forward to today, and there is still a couple people in life from my childhood that 1) know me from my disaster child/teen era 2) know the broad strokes of why I was such a train wreck for so long, but for the most part people only know me as the cynically cheerful weirdo I have grown into being. My first ever roommate is one of them, and lives just a few mins away from me so we see each other regularly. She is also one of like 5 people allowed to acknowledge my birthday, but because she loves me, she finds loopholes to make me not cringe. 

A couple of weeks ago she found a kitchen decor sign that she gifted for me, and it is perfect. So perfect and she doesn’t even know exactly how much, since she met me post-sign at my mom’s.This sign reads, and now hangs above my double doors leadings out into my backyard “As for me and my house, we will serve tacos. Salsa 24:7”

The monster is long out of prison, I have a lifetime restraining order against him, and last I heard he’s dying of cancer in a local hospital, so he can no longer hurt anyone else in this lifetime. That doesn’t mean it didn’t take a lot of therapy, drug use, bad decisions and then more therapy to heal from the scars, but he didn’t win. His disgusting religion doesn’t have a chokehold on me, and my child is one of the finest examples of good person you will ever meet, without the fear of damnation for making mistakes or not following the code some dead dudes decided on forever ago. 

So, for me and my house, we’ll serve tacos. ;) 

Another turning point…

 It’s done! The movers have long come and gone, and aside from 2 boxes and an old laundry hamper of /stuff/ I need to figure out what I’m doing with, I’m unpacked. In my home. 

Sure, I now have a dry erase board filled with my “new home to-do list” and I’ll slowly be adding/replacing furniture for the foreseeable future, and throwing up my art, but I’m here. 

The other night I was going to my room for the night, turned around and looked down the hall into my living room, straight through without any boxes in my way, and I just… giggled. 

I moved from my home in elementary school to a house I was stuck in until I was 17 when I moved out on my own. I have moved almost 20 times since then, embracing the hippy gypsy blood in my veins at first, and then eventually getting increasingly tired the more I moved. My son has none of my wandering soul and for the last 8 years every time we’ve had to move I’ve felt increasingly like a failure to him.

There is a lightness in my chest that I have never felt before. I’m grounded, and have found my place to make roots. I’m excited to go into my bathroom cabinets in 5 years and find something I forgot I had. I bought rose bushes yesterday I’m planting in honor of my Umpa that passed a couple years ago. There’s a strip of fencing in my backyard not covered with trees I’m going to plant sunflowers in, and there’s a newer tree that I hope one day I’ll have grandkids climbing when they visit. 

I’m home. 

Pinch Me....

 It's finally happening. 

I'm in escrow. I'm buying a house, a forever home for my son. Which means we're apparently getting a dog as well. A boy and his dog, who am I to deny him his childhood fantasy of playing with his dog in his yard?

It feels like it took forever to get here, and I had some mental hurdles to get over while making this a reality. I have looked at home buying many times over the last handful of years, and one of the last times I was looking I had a boyfriend. It was strange because /I/ was looking to buy a home for my son and I, and the boyfriend was living with us, but it was very clear that it wasn't his home as well. Because he was living with us his input was valued, and having another adult to bounce decisions off of was nice, but we had multiple conversations about how he would pay rent but when/if we broke up there would be no question on who was leaving. 

Obviously, I ended up staying in rentals and he is long gone, and it's not that he wasn't a decent guy, it really boiled down to if we stayed together my dreams would never have a chance to come true since he was hyper focused on his own dreams at the cost of those around him. And I mean, who can blame him? He had a taste of fame, and who would want to stop chasing that level of high from that success and become a math teacher instead? Not many people, that's who. 

So this time around, it was just me and The Monk, going from house to house. Putting in offer after offer, finding a home and then minutes away from sending off my earnest payment that it wasn't eligible for the loan I have, then having to start the process ALL OVER AGAIN. I have put in so many offers I have lost count, but the place I'm buying gave me zings so I'm over the moon. 

When I was waffling over whether or not to try the home buying thing again, I was talking to a couple of my friends about how buying a home alone feels like a nail in the coffin of my romantic life. I've been jokingly calling myself "retired" for the majority of the year, just because I needed a break from the disappointment my dating life has been the last couple of years, but I wasn't really expecting it to be  forever break, just a long enough break to not feel obligated to say yes to every guy who asks. One of my friends took strong offense to calling myself retired and told me I'm not allowed to call myself that unless I really and truly am forever done with dating. 

My other friend pointed out that just because right now I'm not dating anyone that doesn't mean that someday I might find someone who is worth making a change for. Her husband bought a home before they met and after they married they ended up selling it and getting a home together. The Monk is 11. He has 6 years left until he's a high school graduate. That's a lot of life to live, and who knows what'll happen in that time. She seems to think me living my life as it is doesn't shut any doors for the future, and so I'm going to try to hold onto her optimism.

 

My heart is floating, my son is making weird noises of excitement and we're moving into what really feels like my dream home. It's really hard to feel like something is missing when my heart is this full.

 

Ok, so that's a lie. Movers are missing. Just a year ago I moved into my 3 story condo and there is no way in hell I'm doing all these stairs again. Well labeled boxes moved by pros is 100% what I need. 

 

Wish me luck?

Becoming a Lifer

 You know how whenever things seem to be going absolutely terrible and then something small, but amazingly joyful happens and it takes some of the sharp away from all the bad? (Or you know, the exact opposite) 

The fortune cookie response is that how someone handles themself in these moments of extreme distress or blessing shows you just the sort of person someone is. And, I guess that’s true. I mean, it /feels/ true, at least when talking about anyone who isn’t yourself.

Two weekends ago was my best friend’s baby shower in a different state and within 50 miles of being back in town, my car decided that it was done running. Forever. 

I was at work when I found out, and I had 4 coworkers poke and yell at my car with me for almost an hour before a 5th one took me home. The next day, one of the original 4 picked me up for work, and within an hour of my workday, one of my bosses offered me her car for the weekend. 

Of course, while I had her car the tire tread ripped itself to shreds and I had to buy her a new one, but whatev. Stupid Megan luck can’t overshadow her kindness. 

The same day my boss loaned me her car, my other boss (who I refer to as my Big Boss since he could fire me if I sneezed wrong) came to me and started talking to me about a car in his possession that needs to be driven. Presented in a way like /I/ would be doing /him/ a favor by using it while I figure out my long term car plans.

Of course, this conversation happened literal hours after I signed the forms to take a loan out of my 401k so I could put some extra money down towards a new car, but that just means I’m now deciding if I’m paying it off immediately, or I dunno, paying off some bills early or maybe even buying a new kitchen table (my old one was too big so I’ve been sans table since the move). 

I interrupted myself, sorry self.

But that’s 7 people, plus the 2 others who helped me when the tire went stupid on me and I didn’t know what to do at first. Who have absolutely no reason whatsoever to do anything for me except be polite and friendly to me while we’re on the clock, who went out of their way to help me. Like, a ridiculous amount out of their way for a couple of them.

Why? When this all went down I couldn’t get my mom on the phone for a total of 5 minutes over the course of a week, and she kept leaving my text/voice messages unanswered for uncomfortable stretches of time when dealing with someone who can anxiety spiral. 

But, I guess, because of the people I work with, I was never given a chance to stress out, or give the anxiety a chance to show itself. What should have been a major obstacle has been nothing more than a blip. While the miracle vehicle has gone to the shop to get repairs I'm not at liberty to ask about, I’ve been thrown in loaner trucks from the fleet, so, with the exception of the very first night, I have had no issues getting myself and my son around. 

I still don’t understand. Lucky doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. If someone told me that losing my dream business and going to work for someone else would have led me to living a life filled to the brim with this sort of peace, I would have laughed. Hard. 

But here I am. Just over 2 years into this new, career, I guess. Naw. That’s wrong. My job title and responsibilities have morphed so much since I started, and I fully expect that to continue. And I’m gonna keep growing and morphing with it. Because when you land somewhere filled with people who give actual shits, you stay and care right back. 

Passing as a Washing Machine Setting

 You know, "normal". I am neuro-atypical, but am very lucky in the way that unless you are paying attention, you won't notice. At least, nowadays this is the case, for a lot of my life I was constantly struggling with the fact that I was noticeably different from the majority of people around me, and not in a fun way. In a very problematic way. I remember being told may times not to worry about it, because "Normal isn't a real thing, except on a washing machine", and I like my weirdness, mostly, so being normal was not ever the goal, blending in was, and eventually, I learned how to do that.

Today was a day where I spent the entire day with other neuro-atypical brains which means for the first time in a long time, I was able to fully relax without worrying about my  brain doing something "wrong" and "offensive" to the other people because our brains fire differently than most, and than each other, but we know what it looks and feel like so there's no judgment, just love.

So, in that vein of thought, sort of, things aren't real to me, unless I've written them down. Plans, ideas, feelings, they all are jumbled vague things in my brain until I (ideally) put pen to paper, or (less ideal) type them out. To myself, to one of million group chats, social media even, unless it's written down it's not a thing. 

It comes off as stubborn, but that I'm pretty sure I'm just also that. 

For years, I have written no less than 15 drafts in attempt to write a fictionalized version of the dramatization also known as my childhood.  BUT thanks to the amazingly talented brain of my BFF, I'm back on it. Instead of telling a story in a typical start to end format, I'm writing each individual story as a stand alone "short story" and once I have them all accounted for, organize them in some semblance of chronicle order.

Bonus is I don't have to stumble on the parts that I usually get stuck on, and since I'm writing from the narration point of view, the me shaped hole ideally will be clear without the magnifying glass on me. I hate the magnifying glass on myself, it's my least favorite part about trying to become a better person all the time. ;)

 

SO. Now I've "said" it. It's a thing, and I have to finish this draft version before giving up on it.  It's a real thing. /shrug/   :)

My Mother’s Daughters

 Are 3 very different versions of train wrecks. 

Her oldest is a divorced single mom who keeps finding men who want to be taken care of instead of doing the taking care of and ends up bleeding herself dry trying to take care of everyone around her, even at the cost of her own well-being. She doesn’t know how to take a break, mainly because every time she relaxes another thing falls apart and she has to race around and exhaust herself to keep everything in some semblance of order. 

Her middle is a self centered, cruel person who has spent her entire life using her many disabilities as excuses and crutches for being plain awful to people. She is completely dependent on her mother, and multiple different agencies, always talking about how independent she is, while never once having actually been independent in her entire life.

Her youngest is a single mother of 4, also divorced, but not to either fathers of her children. Mostly raised by the oldest sister, her experiences of the world were very discolored and slanted. All she has ever wanted is a happy home with someone to build a family with. She also finds herself in relationships with people who want to be taken care of, but unlike the oldest, she has enough hope in the world to believe their pretty lies. 

And how did we all become such flawed humans? Was it the various forms of abuse and torture we went through as children? Or the fact that our mother cared more about making sure she looked good to outside forces than about our actual wellbeing? Or how about the fact that she straight up gave up on us for most of our childhoods?

I don’t really know why, and at this point, I’m not even really sure I care anymore. All I know is that I am sick and tired of constantly being dragged into my past and expected to clean up the mess other people are making. I have done all the things you’re supposed to do to not have your past define your future, but here I am again, buried neck deep in the mistakes of the people I love, working to unbury us all.

It’s what I do. We all have roles to play in each other’s lives, and mine is the fixer. Minus the cool mob outfits. With as often as I have a headache, I should def get cool outfits. Or at least, the apocalypse of 2020 (now 2021) should end so I can take a real vacation. Mhm. That’s what I need. One where no catastrophes are waiting for me when I get back.

Please and thank you?

Life as a Cautionary Tale

 Every time I come here to write something, I check the visitor stats. And every time I question them. There’s always new views, sometimes a small handful, sometimes a ridiculous number that screams bots. But it’s never the same. Which is something. I wonder who actually comes here, is it people who stumbled across one of the many articles I’ve written over the years about a lot of nothing (and the one about a lot of everything)? Is it old friends who remember about this existing every so often? Or is it some unknown variable I can’t guess? My money is on the bots though. ;) 

But that’s also what I tell myself on purpose. I write under a lazy pen name for a reason, and that reason is to ease the stress of censoring my thoughts out of consideration of the people I love. Vague nicknames and broad strokes to talk about the people who make my life the adventure it always seems to be.

And with that GIANT disclaimer, I happily write: someone close to me is pregnant, and I am over the moon about it!! We spent like 3 hours on the phone this last weekend, laughing and giggling and having her ask me questions about being pregnant. At one point, I said something along the lines of “You’ll be glad to hear all these stories when you’re 7 months pregnant, your husband falls asleep with his foot touching you, and he’s breathing too loud and the only thing keeping you from smothering him with a pillow is you knowing just how lucky you are to have him with you during this”

Because my pregnancy was terrible. Uncontrollable health issues aside, being pregnant was one of the most alone times of my life. Which seems silly, since I was married at the time, but it’s really not at all silly. Actually, I take it back, my uncontrollable health issues made my loneliness multiply into something that forever changed the shape of my heart.

BUT, it makes for a good cautionary tale. 

Beware of picking the wrong person to attempt to build a life with or you’ll end up having to start from scratch and claw your way back to stable for many years after your entire life comes crashing down. 

Beware of starting your own business if all you have is your student supplies, a ridiculous amount of stubbornness and an unhealthy caffeine addiction.

Beware of having people that depend on you and need you at the drop of a hat because your other relationships will suffer, and you’ll likely not find someone who understands that while number one is already taken, second or third most important is still pretty damn special.

And I’m not complaining! Please realize, I have come to understand, what’s the point of being halfway clever with your words if you can’t turn the stories you live through into lessons for other people to try to learn from. I’m not gonna lie to you either though, sometimes it’s exhausting feeling like your existence is just so others can make less mistakes. 

And I really look forward to some stories of mine where no one is learning anything except the difference between my laughing out of acceptance and my laughing out of pure enjoyment.