some noisy thoughts...

inspired by my girl KimmyG...

as the year comes to a close, i find myself with a lot to say about just a few things...normally i just roll with the new year and go about taking my life one day at a time.  i try to be a better person on a daily basis, but sometimes i backslide.  a lot.  here are my thoughts on that noise. and it may be a bit scattered, so hold on loosely - but don't let go.

it's been a year of change.  a beginning of a clearing of the head, so to speak.  well, it's still a work in progress, but i believe that i am finally on the right track after some serious alone time in my head.  i have learned that i have made it a life-long habit to trust others blindly and entirely too quickly.  i have learned that rarely do others think, feel and act as i do, would or will.  i am struggling with this being ok.  i expect people to reciprocate in like, and that, if not completely unrealistic, is definitely unfair.  i project onto them and then become disappointed and hurt when they can't or won't be, say or do what i expect of them. i'm working on that.

the changes i have made - am making - involve a lot of other people, which is odd because i really am a bit of a loner in my natural environment.  there are only a few people who really know me.  like seriously, maybe THREE, not counting my kids.  i have hurt some good people and i have definitely helped some not-so-good people...not the way it's supposed to work by any means, but it is what it is.  i'm still learning.

to quote kim;  "i learned some friendships you just outgrow, and others just weren't meant to be."  to add to that, i believe that all of our relationships serve a purpose.  even (maybe even ESPECIALLY) the toxic ones.  there truly is something beneficial to be found in each and every one of them...no matter how long they last, or how abruptly they end. find out what it is, appreciate it and learn from it.

i've learned that i slide when i fall, i no longer bounce like i used to.  like, i hit the ground and then find that i do stupid shit that makes the pain greater and last longer rather than just jumping up, shaking it off and dancing away until the next time.  yes, the road rash i am currently sporting on the right side of my face as i type is purely symbolic of a much deeper and more important lesson here - i'm talking life lessons - heart lessons - as well as face lessons.

i need to keep this in mind going forward...failing (and yes, falling) has become more painful as i get older and (hopefully) wiser.  i feel the after effects much longer.

i am finally learning to trust based on actions, not words.  i am learning that while words are immediate and soothing, repetition of them may be covering for the lack of sincerity behind them.  i am learning that if the right person tells you something honest and meaningful one time - even if they stumble over it and almost throw up saying it - it might be enough.  assuming, of course, that their actions follow through and support it.  it may not be necessary to hear that thing over and over again. NICE, yes...just not necessarily indicative of the honesty and the validity of the thing.  nuff said.

and so, life goes on...if we are lucky.

hopefully we surround ourselves with people who love us in spite of ourselves. i seem to.

(illegal) conversations while driving...

i was talking on the phone with a friend today who has been having some trouble with her teenagers.  (she says as if this is headline news in ANY dimension).  she was very upset at a pretty serious turn of events of late regarding her kids. very upset.  lots of guilt and embarrassment and feelings of failure. again, typical - i think - for the average mother of teenagers to experience. the little bastards suck the life right out of you.  there is a reason God made us love them so fucking much...but, i digress.

so, back to HER story...she was crying and i was trying to put a positive, if not bright, spin on the situation, asking a few questions and getting a few answers in return.  between us we had established that this new situation was probably, ultimately a pretty good thing to have happened.  timing, location...all of it - seemed really shitty on the surface, but when we broke it down we both realized that it was not as horrible as it had at first seemed.  still not an ideal situation, but far from as bad as it could have been in the grand scheme of things. in fact, parts of it were actually going to work out rather awesomely.

having made her giggle at something stupid - yet visually hysterical, i might add - we were wrapping up our conversation and i said to her "i am such a firm believer that things really do happen for a reason - we don't always get it, but that doesn't mean that we won't some day" and she says to me in her soft, tear-hitchy voice, "i've been praying for answers lately, anything to help me help my kids before it's too late."

this may not seem huge, or revelational (is that a word?) or anything out of the ordinary to you, but i experienced a DUH moment that instant...this situation we had been discussing - this PROBLEM - was the answer to those prayers she had just mentioned as an afterthought.  not how she had imagined they would be answered, to be sure...but damn, i pert-near heard the tabernacle choir belting out a hallelujah right then. i literally got goosebumps.

now, you may or may not believe in a higher power.  maybe you believe instead in the power of positive thinking or maybe you think that faith is simply misguided desperation.  whatever, for me this was powerful shit.  so powerful that i'm still thinking about it 7 and a half hours later and it fills me with this...this...hope.  it leads me to think that perhaps my life isn't just a badly written soap opera...that maybe there is a path for me and that i just have to pay better attention to where i am being guided.  maybe i need to allow myself to BE guided.  maybe i need to toss aside my preconceived notions of where i think i should be going and what i think i should be doing, and what i think the answers are, effectively ending the constant struggle i have within myself to direct everything towards my idea of the endgame.  what if i just continue to do what i know to be the right things, but allow other things - things i really have no clue about - to just...........happen?
whoa.
is that lame? is that giving up? bending over? CAPITULATION?
i don't know.
i will tell you that it gave me the first ray of hope that i have had in a long while.  i even experienced a split second of clarity.  so that must be a god thing, right?
that was a total typo.  i swear i typed "so that must be a good thing"

so anyway - there's this

and, on that note...i think it's time for mr nyquil to tuck me into bed   :)

toxicity. some people just like to say..."toxicity".

i've been gone for awhile - ventured out to do a few different things, and i've made a lot of serious changes in the last year or so.  i won't burden you with everything, but i will give you the low down on a couple things that i've learned:

1)  i've learned that even when you think your life is ok just the way it is, sometimes it needs to be tweaked.  not because it's the easy thing to do and maybe even more rarely because it's the smart thing to do.  it is necessary because it is the RIGHT thing to do...i did some serious tweaking (as opposed to twerking, although if i did do that - it would be epic-ally serious) about a year ago. hurt some people that i will always love dearly, very badly and i will forever hate that i had to make that choice, but it needed to be done - i think it was the right thing to do. i stand here almost 14 months later and i have never doubted what i had to do.  i hope to eventually right all of my wrongs and revisit the life i left, after i am well.  until then, though.

2)  i learned that it's so important, once you actually take the above leap, to continue looking forward - backwards is fine if you are a fan of Every Chick Ever In a Horror Movie Chase Scene and you feel the strange need to trip and fall and be doomed forever...but me?  that shit just pisses me off.

3)  i have learned - and, oddly enough, this completely unrelated to number 1, totally different category of people - that some of the people that you love the most are the worst people in the world to surround yourself with in your every day life.  these are people that, if you can't bring yourself to rid yourself of them completely, should at the very least be put upon a shelf.  sure, you can take them down occasionally and dust them off as long as you know, without a doubt, that you are strong enough to put them right back up there at the first sign of drama. some family members and all snookie-lovers belong in this category.  sorry:  see number 4.

4) i learned that you can't always protect others from the harshness of the truth. i have spent nearly all of my adult life trying to create a buffer between painful truths and the people that, for whatever reason, i felt needed to hear them.  i realized that sometimes the buffer i created actually worked as a deflector.  it did it's job too well and i'd come to find out that the truth never really reached it's target because i was trying so hard to protect the one that needed to hear it.  so here i am going about the painful process of being honest and trying to, what i believe to be enlightening someone - so desperate to protect their feelings, yet get them to understand - and i was sabotaging my intentions the entire time.  bottom line:  be gentle, but be sure you actually hit your mark.  much less damage this way.  and yes, THIS is totally related to number 1.

5)  i've learned that living in an apartment is the least conducive place for this girl's healthy mental state.  ok, so living in a van by the river might not be so hot either...but, i can only attest to what i actually know, and so far, apartments depress the ever-living SHIT out of me.

6)  i've learned that no matter what i have convinced myself of in the past as far as relationships go, i need to be challenged.  i need to be called on my shit. and yes, i do spew some from time to time.  i have had only a few long-term/serious relationships.  the first one, i was too young and completely clueless - looking back i now know that i did just about everything wrong there.  following that, i became entirely too subservient and controlled...according to that one, i just wasn't good at very much.  thirdly,  i was treated like a queen - i seemed to have bypassed the princess status and went straight to the Grand Dame.  it wasn't that i did nothing wrong here, it's just that even when i did screw up - it was just no big deal.  sweep that shit under the rug and let's eat.  i think that i have learned that all of these were just too extreme for me, not necessarily bad - just not right.  i need in-between in my life.  i need yin and yang; NOT to be confused with conflict.  i do not need that bullshit. i need to be allowed to be me as long as me is decent, kind and patient - and i'm not always.  i need to be checked when i forget that life isn't all about me.  i need to be reminded - nicely, of course - that sometimes shit sucks but it's a part of life. i have learned that i need balance.

7)  i have learned that i need to write.  it cleanses me. it gives me clarity.   i've learned that i cannot survive without clarity - it provides me with silence.  not literal silence - that is a rarity  - but a mental quieting.  my brain is a strange place - but it's fun and mostly cluttered.  we're talking CONSTANT chatter.  i need to step back on occasion and do something to make it just shut the fuck up...getting the noise out of my head and onto paper gives me this silence...followed by sweet, sweet clarity.  it is a good thing.

8)  i've learned that i believe we all invite toxic thoughts, situations and people into our personal bubbles. usually unintentionally, although, there are one or two people i know who simply must thrive on the drama of fucked up situations and relationships, as they do absolutely nothing to rid themselves of all of this crap in their lives, and actually seem to continue to pile it on day after day, year after year.  personally,  i'm learning that this cycle can be broken.  i'm learning to break free from myself.

:)

i live. sorta.

been working on bringing this back into my life.  been a dry spell and i have only recently realized how therapeutic writing is for me.  problem is i tend to share too much and people get hurt.  or judgmental.

i'm getting over it :)

be back soon...pinky-swear.

i DO teach them respect...

believe it or not, i teach my kids to respect authority.  i really do and i'm sincere about it. but, i also teach my kids that just because they are kids doesn't mean that any person of  "authority" can make them their bitch.  two way street, respect.  you give respect and you earn it.   my kids have made, and will more than likely continue to make, stupid decisions on occasion.  hello...K-I-D-S.   sure, i can forewarn them and help guide them...but bottom line rule number one in Shawna's Handbook of Stellar Parenting is Pick Your Fucking Battles.

my kids have been raised to follow the rules set for them.  if a particular rule seems to have no real meaning other than, "because i said so", or the reason is plumb-fuck stupid, bring it to me, we'll discuss it.  present your case, if it's done well, the odds are that you'll get a revised rule.  not always, but generally speaking.  of course, if mama's in the middle of a nap or busy gettin' her drink on you might want to wait a bit...but hey, that's rare.

the toughest part for me has been teaching my kids that sometimes you have to bite the ass's ass and just conform.  if you have no real reason to balk at a rule, you just find yourself feeling a little itchy and want to tell someone to fuck off...maybe you should look twice at, and probably follow, the rule.  some "grown-ups" have never learned that the fastest way to get a kid to understand something is to EXPLAIN your reasons for asking them to do something in particular.  concept.  now, don't get me wrong - there have been plenty of times that the words "BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!" have spewed from my lips.  usually this is after i've tried explaining my reasoning and seem to have hit a brick wall of smelly, defiant teen angst.

over the last 10 years, i've gone head to head with certain levels of administration in this school district.  depending on the issue, i've stepped up at the request of my kids or because i was personally unhappy with something that had come to my attention.  i've dealt with issues ranging from male-child hair actually touching (GASP!) eyelashes to a suspension stemming from a child jay-walking 25 minutes after, and two blocks away from, school.  seriously ridiculous shit. safe to say i've made no friends in this school system and have probably set my daughter up for a rough road based strictly upon her surname.  regardless, i think my kids have learned some valuable lessons from my stand-offs.

i'm sure there are many (did i mention, MANY?) people that wonder how i've escaped losing my children to the state based upon my continual parental performances. what i would like to say to those people is that, surprisingly enough, my children really are very well balanced.  i'm not in denial, i swear to you.  i have amazingly open relationships with my kids.  they respect me - we do give each other a lot of shit, but when they hear the specific tone or see the specific look from across the room, they pay attention.  my kids have learned to trust me and most of my decisions.  they trust that, for the most part, if i stick to something it's because i have a good reason.  i do, as a result, have to put up with a fuckton of back and forth explaining...but if it gets our points across to each other, i'm cool with that.

i remember very clearly the frustration of being told that i couldn't do something that i believed from the bottom of my soul i should be able to do. i remember screaming in my bedroom about the unfairness of being to do something that i believed with all my mind that i shouldn't be forced to do. i also remember, very clearly, The Curse of  "i hope you have kids just like you someday... you'll see."

and i do.  and i do.