Your man problem

Someone yesterday jokingly told me that they were going to help me with my “problem”. I asked them, “And what problem is that?”. “Your man problem… ” Since when do I have a man problem?! Ahahahahah

That is the funniest thing to me. I am single because I choose to be so. I was with my kid’s dad for six years. I am GOOD. I don’t need a man to define me as a person, I am quite content being single, and flirting with random guys that I want to flirt with or whatever. If I want to go out and meet guys, I’ll do that. I definitely do not have a problem in that department. But I am definitely not ready to settle down with a guy, so why bother? It’d just be a waste of energy and time on my part. Right now, it feels absolutely wonderful to be my own person, do what the cuss I want to do, when I want to do it, (which mostly consists of me vegging out at home or working out, or taking my kids to random places that their dad would flip out about) and actually having the freedom to figure out who the cuss I am. When you are with someone, you don’t really have your own individuality. A little bit yes, but you always have to have it in your mind that you are the half of another, together you are whole and you have to think about how your decisions affect that other half. Or how they might not like those other decisions. I’m not ready for that. My decisions, how I dress, how I speak, what I do, who I do it with, what music plays through my speakers, or on my television or where I’m headed with my career, or if I want to take a class, etc etc etc, only affects ME and my kids.

That is one thing that I absolutely hated about being in a relationship with the kids dad. He always had something to say about EVERYTHING! Good God, it was aggravating. That is one of the reasons why I stopped liking him. He was so focused on what he was doing, he didn’t like it when I would try to do things for myself. He didn’t like when I told him I wanted to go to school for accounting, in Los Angeles. But he liked those financial aid checks. Then when we moved out here to Texas, he wanted me to put it off even longer and just focus on us. Meaning, focus on his clothing line and music stuff. That’s not the only thing, he’d have something to say about how I dressed, when telling him a story about my day, he’d pick on stuff I told him that I said to other people (REALLY?!?), my friends, parenting (his way was ALWAYS right because he was the man, you know), how much I talked to my mom on the phone, (which wasn’t a lot, but when we did, it’d be for hours at a time, but who TF cares? It’s my mom, who lives in another state), relaxing after a day of work, my cooking and cleaning, etc, etc, etc. Why on earth would I want to deal with this stuff again? Um, no thanks. Being in a relationship takes A LOT of compromise, and I can admit, I’m probably not the easiest person to live with. I mean, I think I’m very laid back, but I cherish my freedom to do what I want and be who I want, and I can not take another controlling person in my life like that.

Since becoming single, I feel like me and the kids have experienced more things and been happier. They probably won’t remember when they are older, but I am happier knowing that they are going to school/daycare and learning something, going outside to play, & making friends rather than being stuck all day in their bedroom because their dad doesn’t want them to interrupt his “hustle” (music). I’m happier knowing that I won’t have to come home one day and wonder what on earth my son could have possibly done at two years old to warrant spanking him with a belt and leaving welts. I’m happier knowing that I won’t have to hear someone freaking out because there is crayon mark on a wall (God forbid), or someone yelling at me to clean up the house after 9 hours at work when they are home all day themselves. We’ve seen more movies in the theater, gone to more parks, seen more animals, painted more pictures, snuggled our kitties, been to more birthday parties, gone to more festivals, and seen more of our town in the last six months that we have the past two years here with him.

So do I want a relationship? Eventually. But not right now. Right now, I am happy being me, and I want to give myself time to figure out who I am. I want to get my life together, my priorities straight and get us on a really good path for our future. Because no one is going to give us a future, we make it ourselves.

Aaaahhhh…. The Sweet Sound of Silence

It is amazingly quiet in here and I love it! Having a 3 and 5 year old is insanely loud at times. My daughter is a crazy chatterbox and I have to shush her a million times before she finally quiets down enough to fall asleep. Her wileing out gets her brother going too. :/ I feel like a broken record most of the time.

Little man woke up at 4 am this morning, coughing, sounding like he was going to vomit. As a parent, once you hear a sound like this, it doesn’t matter what kind of dream land you might be in, you will wake instantly and jump out of bed. I woke up and jumped up so fast that the blood rushed to my head and I had to catch my bearings. I rushed him to the bathroom though and he spit up a little but wanted to go back and lay down so I let him. Then at about 6:30, I was about to get him up and realized that he had just crapped all over himself. FML. Seriously, mammals are friggin’ disgusting. From throw up, to crap, to boogers and lougies. We are some friggin’ sick things. So I just called into work, I really need the hours but I cannot send him to daycare with the runs.

This lasted from about 6 ish to 9 ish. He ate a little cereal, I made him stay in bed until about 10, he vomited a couple other times, once on my bed…. and then finally, things have seemed to calm down. He watched some Elmo and some other cartoons with his sister while I cleaned the kitchen and living room areas, (might as well get something done while I’m stuck home) and both are finally taking a nap.

This is one of those times when I find it a little harder to be a single parent than others. For one, if my kids were ever sick longer than a day, I pray for it to be at the end of the week rather than the beginning because I don’t have anyone I can switch off taking days off work with. Their dad was a “stay at home” dad, so nothing would change unless I was sick or he was sick as well. I really cannot afford to take any days off. No other income to fall back on. No extra person to help clean up stuff or provide comfort to sick babies. Grr. But at least the company I work for is pretty understanding of this fact.

Well, since I’ve been up since 4 am ish, and the kids are napping, I think I’m going to join them. Ciao!

Single is a mindset

Often I catch myself daydreaming about love, being in love, having someone to love. I would do this even when I was with my ex. It took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t really in love with him, (about four years in), and even though I was miserable being in love with him, because it was love un-reciprocated, I was even more miserable knowing that I wasn’t in love with him anymore. Then I was struggling with the idea of leaving and how that would affect my kids… but I’m going off track here.

It’s quite odd for me to be single, because I’ve pretty much never been. I started having serious boyfriends at 15, the first a boy named David. We were together only 6 months more or less, and after him, I got with my second love, Joe. I was a sophomore in High School, he a senior and we had a similar class called Nursery & Landscaping at this Skills Center we had back in Oregon. We didn’t have it together, he had a different period than me, but when I saw him, it was definitely love at first sight. I left him a love note in his plants one day, and it went from there. Yes, I’m pretty much an aggressor, when I see something I want, I go and get it. Anyways, we moved in together when I was 18, (actually, I got my own place and he got kicked out his grams house after she found a weed pipe. His grandpa said the funniest thing, “I’m just concerned that you were going to fall asleep with it in your mouth and burn the house down” Hahaha) I wasn’t a pot smoker, and that was a big issue for me because of the amount of money he would spend on that and other stupid shit, like guns and motor scooters. By age 21, I was bored with the relationship and didn’t really see it going anywhere so we broke up. From 21 to 22, I was single, this was before I had kids, so I was pretty much a party animal. Then I met someone and moved out of state. That relationship didn’t last longer than four months, and this was the moment I met Debon. I don’t know why I fell so hard for him, I guess I was in love with the idea of him, he definitely puts on a good front. Then I’ma chalk it up to pregnancy hormones, I had gotten pregnant very early in our relationship. Lord knows how hard I tried to make it work, and I’ve learned a lot from that relationship. I definitely realized how amazingly patient and forgiving I am, which I think are great traits, but I know I won’t be those things to anyone not deserving of them in the future, that’s for sure.

Anyways, now that I am single, I am finding it funny that I will catch myself in day dream mode about a lover. Is it genetically programmed in us to be in search of a mate? I’m assuming it is because I will realize what I’m doing and then say to myself, “Uh, excuse me? Snap out of it. Now is not the time to daydream about things that don’t exist at the moment.” And I don’t even go into this dream state about anyone in particular, I could see a couple walking in the store and that would trigger it, or be watching a movie and it will come up. I don’t have any crushes, and I really don’t even want to be in a relationship at the moment. I guess we all fantasize about different things, and maybe as time goes on, it will become easier and a less common thing. Maybe not. All I do know is that when God decides He’s going to bring a man in my life, a real man, who is everything I am looking for and need, it will be on His timing, not mine.

Until then, I’m still finding me. :)

You can’t change anyone but yourself.

A major thing that I’ve learned from my relationship with my kid’s dad is that you can’t change anyone. You can change yourself but another person is only going to change their point of view or their actions if they decide to. Even if you present the best defense it is ultimately up to them.

With the kid’s dad, there wasn’t a lot that I was asking of him to change. I wanted him to get a real job, which to me, didn’t seem like a big deal to me. Everyone I know has a job or has worked before. But he flat out refused. He definitely has to be the most stubborn person I know. He wanted to follow his dreams of being a musician/designer and I never once had a problem with that. I loved that he dreamed big and outside of the box. But if those dreams aren’t providing for your family, then you gotta do what you have to do.

The other major thing that I wanted him to change was his attitude towards everything. He was such a major hard ass about everything. Here I am working, going to school and taking care of my household and he’d just want more and more and more. Design this, draft that, help with this. I was so insanely stressed. Not only was he rough on me but also the kids. Mind you, they just turned 3 and 5. I really could not handle the constant bickering, nagging and yelling from this dude anymore and no matter how much I would express that it bothered me, he just didn’t get it.

Now, I’m not saying I’m perfect, no one on this earth is. He had quite a few expectations of me that I just refused to do. One thing is, I’m not a super neat person. I’m not going to come home after 9 hours at work and clean the house. If I was by myself, it would be easy for me to maintain. But seems how I had someone that stayed home ALL day watching kids, why is it my job to do that? I have no problem sharing chores and would try and set some chore lists but they never worked. He also wanted me to be this like super vixen all the time. Excuse me? I have kids and I’m not going to change up my style for anyone. I wear what is comfortable to me and what I feel good in, I can’t wear the same stuff I used to wear before we had kids.

I guess the point that I’m trying to make here is that both of us had things that we didn’t necessarily like about each other and though I wanted him to do things differently and vice versa and we spent 6 years together trying to make things work, eventually one of us had to decide whether it was worth it to keep going. You either chose to put up with the bull crap if it really is worth it to you because you love that person and can’t see yourself without them or you decide that it’s too much of a headache and you don’t want to put up with it anymore, which is what I did.

Late night texts

There is nothing more annoying than a late night text. Okay, okay, there are things far more annoying, and I usually don’t see texts until the morning anyways because I sleep through the notification going off, but seriously. They annoy me.

There are a few different kinds of late night texts that I loathe.

# 1 - drunk texts / texts from boys in the middle of the night that you don’t really like because they are big, fat, jerkoffs that need to make an appointment with my open hand to their faces. Just don’t do it. If you have something to say, call me in the morning and we can meet up to talk about it, k?

# 2 - middle of the night “favor” texts. I have kids and I’m a single parent. Don’t call me or text me in the middle of the night asking for favors unless you are REALLY in a bad place and need me to come to rescue (example - at the hospital or something). I’m not going to wake up two toddlers out of their lollipop & sugarplum dreams to come pick you up. Why? Because I won’t have sugary children, I’ll have two raging, screaming, tear fests on my hands and you aren’t going to help me take care of them/calm them down/get them to go back to sleep after I get you. So just don’t do it.

# 3 - texts in the middle of the night on a weekday. I’m a working mom, I’m in bed by 10 pm at the latest. You will never get a response back from me in the middle of the night so why even bother?

This has been a public service announcement. My rant & rave has commenced. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.