phatDonna

It’s inevitable that when I get together with friends and family and the wine starts to flow, talk turns to my life and what my future plans are. Have I started dating? Do I ever think I’ll get married again? Do I want more children?

The simple answer is, I have no idea. I can’t think that big.

I’ve been on one date since I got divorced. While I wouldn’t call it a disaster exactly, neither was it a rousing success. He was a very nice guy but I felt no attraction. He had too many qualities that were similar to The EX, and I made a hasty exit at the end of dinner, and followed up with an “it’s not you, it’s me” text message. Klassy, huh?

In thinking about what I’m even capable of right now, a relationship is probably not in the cards for a while. I am kind of liking my solitude in some ways. I like having my own space. I like just worrying about me and Bridget. I’m not sure that I have it in me to really think too much about the needs of another person. I recognize that there are parts of being in a relationship that I miss, but I’m just not sure I’m ready for all that.

Marriage is a whole other ball of wax. I am a firm believer in never saying never, but I’m leaning toward never. I have significant trust issues. When I got married I meant every word of my wedding vows and I think The EX did too, at the time anyway. But he changed his mind later on. How will I ever be able to believe someone else when they say those vows? On the flip side of that, I’m a romantic at heart and I won’t rule it out. Someone might change my mind one day and make me take the plunge again. If not, I don’t think I’ll live a sad lonely life.

As for kids…. I just don’t know. I’m old now. Not officially too old but old enough that it could be dramatic. I think in the kids department I am better off just counting my blessings in Bridget. I had a dream pregnancy with her, a dream delivery and she was a perfect baby. She may be a handful now, but all kids her age are. Why tempt fate by asking for more? But again I’ll rely on the never say never school of thought.

So to sum up, I have no idea what’s next. I can only focus on today. I’m in no rush to figure anything out. There’s no point in trying to figure it out anyway.

To quote John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Snippet of an IM conversation with Sarah just now:

Her: how’s your PM so far?

Me: well, no one has shoved anything up my vagina in over four hours so it’s going pretty well

Sometimes you just have to focus on the positive.

Bridget’s exuberance and enthusiasm are two of the things I love most about her. When she decides she wants to hug or kiss you, you are going to get a hug or a kiss, dammit. It’s just so pure. I know that she feels it with her whole heart. And how can I not melt at this wee person who loves me so much? But lately, she has been terribly affectionate. All the time. Everywhere.

Tonight we were out to dinner (because I still don’t have air conditioning and it’s too hot to cook in my house) and the child was all up in my grill, wanting to sit on my lap and throwing herself into my arms and saying “I love you, Mommy!” All that is all well and good. But she also kept giving me wet kisses on my arm, and trying to grab my face and pull it down to kiss me. Sweet, no?

No.

I fully expected to hear people at nearby tables hollering “Get a room!” at us at any moment. Honestly, if we had been a couple on a date, it definitely would have made other people around us uncomfortable.

Another thing that makes me uneasy is that she keeps trying to kiss me on the lips. I’m not judging what other people do, but I only kiss my kid on the cheek, not the lips. I know she’s seeing kissing more and more in movies and TV shows, and she’s probably seeing The EX and GF kissing, which is all fine. But I don’t know how to adequately explain to a four year old the difference between family love and romantic love. I barely understand romantic love myself. I’d be hopeless at explaining it to her.

For a while though, I think it’s best if she and I don’t go out to restaurants together.  I’m sure the staff of Chili’s will appreciate that.

Back in November of 2009, when The EX decided he wanted out of our marriage, I felt like my world had ended. I could never have imagined that it would happen to me, and I certainly did not think that I was going to ever feel happy again. All of my friends and family kept telling me I was strong and I would get through it. And while I appreciated their support and love, I wanted to punch the next person who told me I was strong.

The last thing in the world I felt was strong. Strong women don’t spend hours crying on the kitchen floor, hoping their kid won’t see them and ask what’s wrong. Strong women don’t require a prescription for anti-anxiety pills just to be able to breathe normally. And strong women certainly don’t wish with their whole hearts that the man who betrayed them would come back. And I was doing all those things.

It did finally dawn on me a couple of months ago that strength has nothing to do with how you feel, and everything to do with what you do. It doesn’t matter why you do the things that take strength, it only matters that you do them. I wanted to lie in bed all day with the covers pulled up over my head and cry. But I couldn’t. I had  a daughter to take care of. If I didn’t get out of bed to feed her and care for her, I would lose her. So while the thought of just getting out of bed seemed like more than I could handle, the consequences of what would happen if I didn’t get out of bed scared me so much that I had to do it.

Strength also entails asking for help and taking help. For me, the help I was offered was most often a shoulder to cry on, or just the presence of someone who loved me. I got fairly good at that part. When I could see myself starting to falter, I would reach out to a girlfriend and ask to meet for lunch, or I’d go to my parents’ house and let them take care of me for a while.

I still stumbled. I still cried in the kitchen or in the garage or in the shower. But I was living my life too. And eventually I was doing more living and less crying. I do have strength after all. Who knew? I guess everyone around me who saw it in me before I knew I had it.

Courage is another matter. I am a huge coward. Or I used to be. I’m trying to embrace a new mantra of “Be Brave!” Being brave is what got me to New Orleans for a conference last week, when no one I knew was going. I’m not exactly a shy person, but I’m also not comfortable with being the odd man out. But it was something I was scared of, and doing it made me feel better. I’m really trying to live my life without fear, but it’s so hard for a recovering control freak.

Of course bravery isn’t the lack of fear. Bravery is being scared of something and doing it anyway. I’ve gotten over a lot of hurdles in the past year and a half, and it’s scared the shit out of me many times. I still have a couple more that I’m staring down the barrel of right now.

Strength and courage are in all of us. They are choices we make. We make them every day, in a million small ways. I’m going to work hard to Be Brave, and I hope that some of you out there will make the choice to do it to.

I have been slow to learn this lesson, and I feel horrible for it. I’m sharing it with all of you fine people so you can pass it on.

In this age of cameras on cell phones and instant uploads to Facebook and such, the polite thing to do is to NOT tag anyone in a photo without their permission.

Say you post a picture of your best friend showing off her good china while doing a keg stand. If you don’t have the proper privacy settings on your account, every person she is friends with will see in their news feed that she was tagged in a picture and will be able to go look at it. Including her mother and her boss. Of course, this leads into the bigger question about why you would take a picture of your best friend’s vagina in the first place and then post it on Facebook to begin with, but that’s between the two of you.  I’m not here to judge.

Personally, if I have ever tagged you in a photo without your permission (and I have done it to some of you, for which I profusely apologize) you can rest somewhat assured that my privacy settings are such that only MY friends (not friends of friends) can see any photo I post. Chances are good that your mom didn’t see that one of you barfing all over your shoes.

So take a moment and think about the consequences. Before you hit upload, ask everyone in the picture if they mind if you put it up, and if they mind being tagged. If you are uploading a bunch of pictures after the fact, post a status update telling your friends the pictures are up and to go tag themselves if they want to. And really, look at a picture and ask your self, “Would I want this picture of me up for all the internet to see?” If not, don’t post it. These days, it’s not just a question of embarrassment. Some pictures could cost someone their job or worse.

You can always email it to them later and use it for blackmail.

I strive daily to do my best not to royally fuck up my kid. I think that’s really the best we can do as parents, although we know that we will in some way fuck them up. I mean, hopefully it’s just small ways like not being able to have their food touch on a plate and not big ways like storing women’s heads in their refrigerators.

One of my biggest hangups (besides the navy blue trench coat and NO DAD, I may never get over it) is public bathrooms. I despise public bathrooms and will go to great lengths to avoid using them. I always have. The idea of a portable bathroom sends chills down my spine and may even cause vomit to rise in my throat sometimes.

When I was a kid, our family traveled a lot by car. Between moves and family vacations, we spent a lot of time on the road. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t hate public bathrooms, especially truck stop bathrooms. Even at the tender age of four, I can remember going to the bathroom in our hotel room before we left for a day in the car, and not going again until we got where we were going that evening. If I could finagle it I would wait outside the bathroom with my dad and brother while my mom went in, but sometimes I was forced to go inside and wait with my mom while she went. I assure you that my princess heiney did not touch porcelain in any of those places. I also remember my plan backfiring on me once. I had to have been around four. We were traveling somewhere desert-y and I must have miscalculated how much liquid I could drink and still not have to pee. Four year olds are very bad at math. I had to go badly but we were in the desert and there was no place to stop. So my dad pulled over and I had to pee on the side of the road. He may have thought he was teaching me a lesson. And he was – peeing on the side of the highway in the desert is much nicer than peeing in a truck stop bathroom that reeks of cigarette smoke, Final Net hairspray, and air freshener. Lesson learned.

As an adult, I still avoid public bathrooms if I can. If I can’t, I have become adept at finding the ones that have the highest probability of cleanliness. If I’m concerned about where I’ll be able to put my princess heiney down to pee, then I will adjust my liquid intake accordingly. Thirty-seven year olds are far better at math than four year olds. Don’t even get me started on hand washing in these places. To me the logic seems sound. If a bathroom is terribly disgusting, then washing your hands in the germ infested sink is doing no good whatsoever. I would rather get out of there and have a Purell shower when I’m back on safe ground. But people look at you like a leper when you don’t wash your hands after you go to the bathroom, and I get it. You don’t know me and my phobia, so you don’t know that I will be sanitizing in a few minutes. I should make a jaunty cap or something that says “going to use hand sanitizer the minute I leave this petri dish.”

But as with most things in life, it all changes when you have kids. When Bridget was an infant and we were all out together, I could usually convince The EX to do the diaper changes in public bathrooms either by using guilt over how I changed most of her diapers all day every day, or with the promise of sexual favors later. Or I would just change her diaper in the backseat of the car or in the back of the Explorer. Now that Bridget is potty trained, it seems she is intent on taking me on the Public Bathroom Tour of America.

I’m really trying not to pass on my hangups about public bathrooms. I know it’s not healthy. But the first time she sat down on the floor in a public bathroom, I almost fainted. I’m not sure how to adequately explain how disgusting that is without turning her into a freak like me. I try everything I can to make her go to the bathroom at home, but like all kids, she says she doesn’t have to go. Then the minute we get somewhere, she starts grabbing her crotch and hopping up and down like her bladder is about to burst. And don’t ask me why, but it seems like every time we go to Chick-fil-A she has to go twice – once to pee and once to poop. I try to be nonchalant and cool about the whole thing, let’s get in and out quickly, touching as few surfaces as possible, wash hands thoroughly and don’t look Mommy in the eye because you’ll see she is two steps away from the nuthouse.

Honestly y’all, the fact that I am not crouched in a corner scrubbing imaginary bugs off my skin while mumbling incoherently to myself is a miracle.

Oh y’all, I am a withering magnolia here. This is miserable. I realize that for some of you, it’s snowing, and this post may make you hate me just a little bit. But I live in Texas and it’s hot eleven months out of the year. I prefer it that way. I do not do well in very cold weather.  That said, I don’t underestimate the necessity of air conditioning in my life. It’s not optional here – it’s mandatory.

So you can imagine my annoyance when last Saturday, after returning from my trip to New York, I discovered that no cool air was coming from the vents. This was the third time since I’ve lived in my condo that this has happened. I called the property manager who pretended that she was going to call repair people, but I don’t believe her for one second because that would have required her to actually do something. No one came to look at anything until Tuesday, when it was decided that the whole system was a goner and needed to be replaced.

Now, I rent my condo from a guy who is an expat somewhere in Asia, which is why he uses a property management company – he can’t be here to do anything. Normally it’s not that big of  a deal. Except this repair required his authorization and it took a while to get that, and get the money from him since he’s halfway around the world. Now that they have all that, the problem has become finding a unit that is the right size for my tiny condo. It’s not all that common and had to be ordered from a distributer. The earliest it will be in is Friday.

Bridget and I have taken up temporary residence in a hotel near our house. We are currently basking in the cool air. Robbie has gone to board, where they have air conditioning and a pool for him to play in. Gracie is at home. I feel bad leaving her in the 90 degree house but she’ll survive. I can go over and check on her every day. Hopefully Friday will be the day the new system gets installed.

I understand that sometimes things happen, but I know for a fact that this could have been solved much earlier if the property manager had done her job when I first called her. So now I have to be a bitch with her, which is something I’m not very good at.

Stop laughing at that.

First, I have been immensely spoiled by staying at the Ritz Carlton. I would never have done it had it not been the conference hotel, but I’m so glad I did. It was gorgeous and the staff was so friendly and attentive. I’m actually sad that I didn’t get to spend more time in that sumptuous bed.

Second, my girlfriends are amazing. They knew Thursday was a weird hard day for me, and sent me a bottle of champagne. So I put on some great music, drank my bubbly and got myself ready for the evening festivities.

Third, I love New Orleans. But I can honestly say that I never want to step foot on Bourbon Street ever again. It is foul and smells horrible.

Fourth? Fuck the Hurricane. What you want is a Monsoon from Port Of Call. You won’t need to drink again for the rest of your life.

All in all it was such a great trip. I got the chance to meet and talk with so many amazing people. I even had my fangirl moment when I met The Bloggess. My squee was such that only dogs could hear it. I spent some quality time with Anissa Mayhew, who is hilarious (don’t you dare call her inspiring or she’ll punch your baby) and warm hearted, and invited me to her house to eat bologna sandwiches, which I plan to do one of these days. I got to get to know Britt better, and meet the wonderful Faiqa in person. Sarah of Sarah and the Goon Squad saved my life by lending me her laptop power cord. She’s also lovely and hilarious. I even had a brief but fantastic chat with Jennifer from Playgroups are No Place for Children. I had seen her on Twitter say she was coming to New Orleans but not until Saturday. I randomly ran into her at the bar where the reading event was held.

On the negative side, I did not pack a single pair of shoes that were comfortable. Thursday night, I ended up walking back BAREFOOT from Bourbon Street. If you just consider how disgusting that is for a second, you might understand how much pain my feet were in. I actually weighed the pros and cons of that decision and decided that I’d rather catch ringworm or whatever assorted and sundry diseases were lurking on the ground than wear those shoes for one second longer. When I got back to the hotel, I spent 30 minutes washing my feet in the bathtub before I got into bed. There may also have been a Purell shower, but I don’t remember. I was still drunk from that Monsoon.

I’m happy to be home. My feet will slowly recover. My liver will recover even more slowly. Now, if someone would just come and FIX MY AIR CONDITIONING and clean my house, life would be perfect.

Ten years ago today, The EX and I got married. It was a perfect day and everything went exactly how it was supposed to go.

Well, all except for that “til death do us part” nonsense.

Back then, when I pictured what April 14, 2011 was going to be like, it was not like today at all. I figured we’d be on a romantic vacation somewhere, probably on that trip to Tahiti we always talked about. Instead I’m getting on a plane to go to New Orleans for a conference by myself. I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton. I’ll put on dresses and heels and fix my makeup and hair and try to make a good impression. On whom, I’m not exactly sure. But at least I won’t be home. There will be activity and small talk to make. Cocktails will be consumed.

All in all, I feel ok so far. No tears, no clandestine visits to the garage to sneak a peak at the wedding album, and I haven’t pulled my wedding gown off the shelf in the closet. I think if I can make it through this April 14, it’s smooth sailing from here on out.

Now. Someone bring me a damn Hurricane.

When you become a parent, I think the tendency is to think of all the things your parents did that you thought were wrong and SWEAR that you will never do them. It’s like a pendulum swinging far one way, then far the other. But until you’ve been a parent for a while, you have no concept of why your parents did the things they did.

My favorite example of this is my hair. I have a lot of hair. Always have. I know it was the bane of my mother’s existence when it was her job to wash, brush and style it. And I am sure I complained a lot about how she went about it. So one day, she took me to get the Dorothy Hamill haircut, and I had boyishly short hair pretty much until I was twelve. I hated it. It was not a flattering look for me. It left me scarred. I can never have hair that short again. As much as I admire women who look gorgeous with short sleek hair styles, the thought of doing it myself gives me heart palpitations.

Fast forward about 30 years. Bridget has a lot of hair. And she complains a lot when I have to comb it or when I try to style it. I get it, Mom. I forgive you. I know now why you did it. But I can’t do it to her. If I got her a pixie cut my life would be so much happier. I just can’t.

On the flip side of that coin are the things that you do just like your parents that you are shocked to see in yourself.

One of my most vivid memories is of this awful London Fog navy blue trench coat that my parents bought me in sixth grade. Now, why they even MAKE navy blue trench coats for eleven year olds is beyond me. I fought against it. I threw a tantrum in the store. I swore I would never wear it. They bought it anyway.

I never wore it. Luckily we lived in Texas where you need a coat maybe three days a year.

I swore I’d never force clothes on Bridget just because I like them. And I didn’t really think I was doing that. She likes everything in her closet and generally is agreeable to whatever I chose for her to wear each day. But one morning she starting crying and asked why I never let her wear what she wanted to wear. That spun me around. I was stifling my baby’s creativity! So we made a deal that as long as what she wanted to wear was clean and weather appropriate, it was alright with me. I also take her shopping with me sometimes and let her pick some things out. Funny thing though, she and I still have similar tastes. I know that in a few years that won’t be the case and I’ll have to veto shirts that show too much skin and jeans that require a bikini wax to wear. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

What sorts of things did your parents do that have affected your parenting? Are you scarred in any way by a particular haircut?

And just a note…. this is not a dig at my parents, or my mom specifically. She knows of my emotional haircut baggage. We are in a place of healing now. She might still be slightly pissed off about the trench coat, though.