Part one

Part one

Seventh grade started with a heat wave to rival any other. The year before the school had discussed putting in air conditioning but hadn’t raised enough money yet. Go figure.

As I took a step on the school bus I could hear the comments coming from the kids I had always went to school with. I went from being pretty over weight when I left for the summer to showing up this week being pretty skinny. Too bad I didn’t get any taller to let that be the excuse I could tell them. There were two other boys on the bus who could blame there weight loss on that, but I was the exact same height as I was three months ago. It didn’t help that one of the girls I wasn’t friends with had been telling people that someone else told her that I wasn’t eating anything. The last thing I needed was for them to catch on that quickly. I spent a few hours the night before on the phone with my best friend talking about how we were going to get that rumor stopped.

I spent a lot of time looking at my body last year not understanding why I was so different then all the other girls in my class. Everyone else could show there belly without being mortified. They could wear tighter shirts that showed off their new boobs and it actually looked good when they did it.

I looked like a beach whale. I had rolls and a muffin top that the boys in my class wasted no time before making constant comments. They would lean in and talk to me like I was one of them and ask me if I seen the new shirt that Robin was wearing. They would wait until I said I had before they asked me why I didn’t stop eating so I could look like her more.

They would laugh and joke in gym class about how much I jiggled as I ran around, so I slowly stopped. Then they commented that I was fat because I was too lazy to even chase after a basketball.

At home I would get out of the shower and pinch areas of my body, turn in every direction and wish I could just take a pair of scissors to them. I could heal from the wound and be happy at least.

The last week of school the boy that I had been crushing on came and sat beside me while we were out at recess. Normally the boys and girls didn’t play together but today we were playing kickball so we needed everyone. He sat so close to me that I could smell the soap he had used that morning. As I sat fighting the urge to take in a deep breath through my nose, he was leaning back and stretching his arms across the back of the bench on either side. He knew the effect he was having on me.

“Damn there is no teachers even paying attention to us over here. If you weren’t so fat we could easily be over here hitting third base before they even noticed we were here.”

My mind blanked as I was appalled at the language he used. Within the minute he snickered, stood up and took off.

Fast forward to the start of seventh grade, multiple pant sizes smaller and enjoying the looks that the boys in class were giving me suddenly. As long as I could keep the girls from pointing out my eating habits, I would be good to go.

More to come.

Little piece of advice

To all beings that are able to read this blog….

Don’t be an asshole!

This doesn’t seem like the hardest thing to accomplish right? Excluding specific experiences that deserve that response of course.

I mean in general. More specifically to what brought me to this topic I will acknowledge that I really mean in a relationship.

When a person has chosen you, and you have chosen them, to build a life with, why would you wreck that by being petty? It’s one thing in the beginning before things get too serious, however years down the road when there is so much invested.

Houses, kids, cars, pets or the simple peice of paper that you both stood up and signed in front of witnesses. Any combination of those listed options works too.

When you can not choose to respect your partner, to CHOOSE your partner every day, in almost any situation then there is a problem.

(Disclaimer before people come at me- I believe in choosing yourself and possibly your children first all of the time. I am in no way speaking of situation that involves people safety, physical or mental.)

I AM however speaking about cheating. If you are unhappy in your relationship, leave. If you are unsatisfied in your relationship, speak with your partner about what could change. If you settled for any reason whatsoever, and you meet The One, and you are sure, leave your relationship.

If you are the one switching from one social media site to another constantly because your partner is catching on, I am speaking to you.

If you are the one deleted texts, calls, DM’s, or changing peoples names in your phone to not get caught, I am talking to you.

If you just can’t help yourself from going to the bar, flirting with people and taking things too far, I am talking to you.

I am sick and tired of having to pick people up mentally, morally and yes sometimes physically because you suck as a human.

You are pathetic and do not deserve the people who dedicated stretches of time to you.

Do better. Be better. Better yet, go the f*** away.

Heavy

I haven’t been writing recently. There really is not a good reason, and yet there are millions of excuses. I don’t often talk about feelings very well unless I am writing. Anytime that I don’t want to stop and think about something heavy happening in my life, I stop writing.

I have always done that. Sometimes I can recognize it fast, other times it takes longer. I’m not super down or dealing with things that are too heavy. No need to send out the men with straight jackets to lock me away.

Things are just heavy enough to keep me quiet.

Politics, COVID, healthcare working, shutdowns, unemployment, homeschooling, choices about sending kids back to school this year, to mask or not to mask… which promptly circles itself directly back to politics.

All things that I am not willing to talk about with people, keyboard or reality. Why do people have to be so mean? So petty when speaking to other human beings? Why is it so hard to accept that everyone has their own opinions? They don’t have to match yours. They SHOULDN’T match yours. They don’t live the same life as you. They haven’t seen the things that you have, not have they learned all of the things that you have. They have seen and learned their own. We can accept that as a difference and use the literal words ‘Embrace your differences’.

However when that becomes put to the test, the claws come out.

I have never seen so much ignorance as 2020 has brought to our lives.

There is no escaping it.

You can’t log onto anything on the internet without seeing it.

You can’t go to the grocery store without being accosted or glared at for whichever side of the mask debate you land on.

You can’t watch television, or speak to half of your friends or family without it coming up.

I understand that they all have purpose, and a good reason for debate. I absolutely see the point.

But DAMNIT this all is heavy.

Never meant for that to happen

Have you ever felt as if the people around you sometimes throw you to wolves?

It has been a long long time since I was made to feel like that. Especially by people that I hold so dear.

The worst part is that no one seems to feel like they could have prevented the weird set of circumstances that transpired. It was as if it was a perfect storm had all clash together in a brilliant strike that happened to have me dead smack in the middle of it.

It’s hard to even figure out who to be upset with. All I know is that when it happened I suddenly felt so small and insignificant. I was quickly reminded me of what it felt like to be a child between fighting parents who were caught up with their emotions.

Thirty five going on five apparently.

The unanswerable question

So I am not sure when they decided that September was suicide awareness month, but I am having a rough time with it. I am absolutely all for the surge of awareness for prevention, don’t get me wrong.

On a selfish note, the timing sucks.

The beginning of October will mark nineteen years since my life was forever changed. This is one of those weird situations where I feel selfish talking about how it affected me instead of how the family members were affected. I see his mothers posts on social media and it tears my heart apart to imagine what she is going through. As a mother, I fight trying to imagine the life that she has been  forced to live. As much as I love the woman, she makes me think of him too much and I have never been able to handle that. That makes me feel like such a bad human. She has done nothing but been amazing to me, but I get the feeling that I remind her of him as well. How do I fix that?

The boy that I knew deserved more then the life he lived to be cut short. I want to know the battles he faced. I want to go back and be able to talk to him more, have deeper questions and conversations, with a better understanding of mental health. He didn’t deserve to fight that alone. He didn’t deserve to feel like the world would ever be a better place if he weren’t in it. I think that’s what breaks me the most. The idea that this boy I loved, this boy that I considered my best friend, this boy that I was planning my life to revolve around, thought that we would all be better without him.

I know I was super young, and naïve. I know that there was lots of kids in the family so it is hard to get super invested in each kid the way you could if its an only child. I am also aware that teenagers do everything possible to not let parents in. He slipped through the cracks of a otherwise perfect family. Seriously this was the family that I was always jealous of. All the brothers and sisters, the always present parents and grandparents. Don’t get me wrong my family is amazing, but there wasn’t a lot of us and that family seemed like the big happy family that I always thought I wanted.

So how did he get away with committing suicide?

That question never gets easier.

There is never any answers either.

Not to be dramatic

I recently had a close friend of mine leave our workplace. We planned for multiple get togethers and we just knew that we would text each other just as much as we had been.

The first week goes by and we spoke every dang day. Then as the weeks went on it sure became faurther apart that we sent each other cute memes or updates.

It is now a few months since she left and we barely speak.

Adult friendships are hard.

Life’s little tests

Life was brought to a screeching halt here in my world recently as a close family member landed themselves in the hospital. This of course is never a planned thing, so the shock of it sent me for a loop. I wanted to be able to keep my head on straight, to be able to be the rock for my family to lean on since I have some medical experiences.

I work hard to keep my emotions on an even keel these last few years after realizing that I was having a hard time controlling my temper at times. I had gotten so good at this that I was recently wondering if I had turned myself into too cold of a person. Instead of finding a middle ground, I was feeling like I tipped the scales completely. I know that everyone faces different control issues, however I take pride in catching onto my problem area’s so that I can work to make myself a better version of me. I am never prouder of people around me that can notice something that they don’t like about themselves and set to work of improving it to something that they can be proud of instead.

This was the first time in quite some time that I found myself unable to hold it together until I was in a “safe space.” As a matter of fact this time I completely fell apart while at work, caught by a few different co-workers. I am not sure about anyone else, but I get really embarrassed when people see me cry.  I always have. I was never a person to cry growing up. I would get mad, but not cry.

I used to be able to sit in the car and listen to music to force myself to work through my emotions. A few kids ago I would be able to sit and talk with friends alot more and there is nothing better than talk therapy with friends. However over the years with kids, I have gotten busier as have they. The time to sit and hang out has dwindled down tremendously. I need to work on that part.

The situation with my family member started simple, got extremely scary but has luckily taken a turn for the better. I thank my lucky stars for that fact, but it sure has shown me that I still have weaknesses just like every other person.

        As long as I am not crying in front of coworkers, I guess I am ok with that.

 

 

 

 

Which side wins?

The walls are closing in for no reason again. The couch keeps calling my name. The fight to go outside seems to getting harder and harder. I cancel appointments, avoid social outings, and generically find ways to be home, alone.

There isnt a reason. There isnt even an explanation. It just seems to keep happening.

I keep saying I need someone to show up at my door and force me to get back into life, but really I just need me to force myself to do it all.

No one else put me here, so why would I need them to pull me out?

I need to be my own warrior.

All work and no play

Sometimes as I walk around this city of mine I find myself getting lost in everybody elses hustle and bustle.

Dont get me wrong I have a full plate as well, but not compared to some of these folks.

There are people who are so wrapped up in whatever there current assignment is that they dont even take a moment to look around them.

They stare into space like they are mentally still at work. They stay on their phones, or tablets the entire time. They mumble quiet apologies when they bump into someone, but otherwise they are zombies.

Some are on there phones and its refreshing to find one actually chit chatting with a friend instead of yet another work call.

It’s as if there is no such thing as clocking out anymore.

Since when did we have to be a society that forgot how to play?

Closing old doors

I recently had an old friend send me a message telling me that he is very aware of the pain he caused in my life. The constant drama, the pain of lose of friendship by a person I called my best friend for many years.

And I find myself at a loss.

I have forgiven him before after a different seperation of friendship, just to have him do the same thing again.

I know better then to fall for this again.

I felt nothing however and I thought I would.

I felt no relief, no concern, no worry about how he has been.

Have I grown that much that I have figured out how to shut the door permanently on people who have shown constant negativity?