Things My Mom Didn't Teach Me

When you're a tomboy, and the daughter of a tomboy, there are some inherently female things that just don't come natural to you.
Some things you sorta have to stumble into. Things that other girls learn from exposure or practice with their mother's, aunts, sisters and cousins.
During this time in my life, when my husband and I are actively TTC, and the world around me is insisting that our children will be curly headed, hell on wheels, precocious, trouble making little tomboys, I am struck by the things that I can teach them about being a girl. And the things I can not.
For instance, the love of all things pink. Yeah, thats not gonna happen. My mother and all those involved with raising me will tell you that I have avoided the color pink like a vampire runs from sunshine, wooden stakes and garlic.  I don't really like pastels in general, but pink, in any shade from bright fuchsia to powder puff pale makes me nauseated.  I like camo greens, bright blue, oranges (as long as they don't get pinkish) silver, black and green and I have a love for purple that can only be rivaled by Von Glorious and Prince (you'd be wise to ignore the fact that my finger nails are currently and eye popping shade of bubblegum called Boom Boom). My mom didn't teach me to do my nails, in fact I avoided nail polish like the plague until I was 18 (it happens when you get purple glitter nail polish IN YOUR EYE at age 5...never mind that we were driving in the car and i was trying to see all the sparklies in the bottle)


My mother didn't teach me squat about curling my hair and applying nail polish and make up. For the longest time I wasn't interested. The only thing she did in the bathroom that was fun to me was her nightly Noxzema mask...and that's because i thought she was putting on her monster face to chase me with.  That Noxzema got my ass beat when my grandmother discovered what was bleaching my skin. OH and one time I watched my mother arching her eye brows with a razor blade. I wont tell you what happened because I still believe the large water bug attacked me, (thats my story and i am sticking to it), but i will say it involved missing bangs and elmers school glue.



I learned all I know about make up from my daddy ( WFM), I hit a point where  I didn't want to be the weird little girl in school, so I would secretly slip those little make up  kits in the cart under my hot wheels and model cars.  And on saturday mornings after we'd built my latest model, my dad would patiently sit, with a giant bottle of acetone, a bottle of baby oil and huge bag of cotton balls and watch tv while I piled all my mom's sponge hair rollers onto his head and then painted his face and most of his fingers and toes. I gave up after about a month, I am sure my dad is glad. And though, he didn't speak to me for a month after I cut all my hair off,  it was that or continue paying someone else to do my hair in the mornings before school. ( mom's shift started before we had to be up).


My mom didn't teach me about boys, the one time i had a crush and was brave enough to tell her she said it was just puppy love and I'd get over it.  Then she came back to the room to advice me "it wouldn't be smart to say anything about this boy to your dad or uncle's. Let's just keep this between ma and you." I was 14 when I figured out that the rapidly growing arsenal in our house was to prevent "boys", from acting on the the realization that I was no longer the dusty lil tomboy, that lived on the farm down from them.


My mom did teach me to walk in high heels.  That she started showing me from a very early age...i abandoned it from about 12 until 16 at which point she had to re teach me...much to my dad's dismay, but apparently the enjoyment of the male population in general.


My mom didn't teach me to drive a car...neither did my dad...I'd been driving since the age of five, but was forced to quit when we moved into town. At age 15 when everyone was learning my mom was pulling her hair out trying to teach me. Turns out the problem was that i couldn't drive and automatic.  I could clutch and shift better than most nascar drivers. But knowing what to do with my left foot  and both hands on the wheel was just too confusing to me.


My mom didn't teach me about being a little girl... my mom taught me how to be a woman.
She taught me how to be strong in the face of adversity, she taught me how to work and take care of others, she taught me how to hide my tears and how to throw a killer left hook. She taught me that my high heels were not just high fashion, but self defense mechanisms. You know just about the only thing girlly mom did was crochet, and after fifteen minutes and seven tangled balls of yarn, my mom taught me that its ok to not know how to do something girlly like knitting or crocheting. I also learned how to dodge fast pitch potatoes ( don't ask, lets just say i  know know that those softball/baseball trophies, belonged to my mother NOT my uncles).


So I wonder, what things I will and will not be able to teach a little girl. Will I be able to relate if she wants ballerina shoes instead of a football helmet? Will i understand her obsession with baby dolls instead of marbles and army men? Will she be ok in ratty tshirts and tattered jeans as opposed to frilly dresses and snowflake tights( holy crap i just swooned thinking about those itchy ass tights)?


Its over whelming to worry about the things I can't teach her, because my mom never taught me.  But I do know I can teach her all the things I did learn from my mom. How to read and get lost in the fantasy of a good book. How to cut down the time on a complicated recipe so you don't miss a minute of your favorite show. How to hold the ones you love close, even if awkwardly, and let the love of your heart fill your arms and flow into them. How to pick a lock and hot wire a car (hypothetically speaking).


And all the rest she'll pick up along the way. I did. (glancing down at my nails) even learned how to paint my nails and not get the color everywhere. Never did learn to like pink though.


D

Regrets

If there is one thing in this life that I regret, besides having something in life to regret, is that I know i've hurt people.
And while I understand that sometimes hurting someone is inevitable, it is also something in my pysche that I don't let go of easily.

Now don't get me wrong I don't regret hurting ALL of the people that I know I've hurt.  I think I may regret that I was in a situation to need to hurt someone, but I don't regret the hurt.

There are some hurts that were calculated, I took pleasure in them. I knew it was going to hurt, I intended for it to hurt and in some cases I stood over the person after warning them repetitively that I was going to hurt them and asked them to explain to me in detail just how BAD it hurt, so that I could relish in it.
In my mind those hurts were warranted, many of the were in retaliation and defense.

I kinda take pride and the fact that I've never purposefully hurt "an innocent bystander". Oh I am fully aware, that I have hurt people unintentionally, and those are the some of the ones I regret.
The ones where you're having a bad day and you forget to smile at the lil' kid running wildly through the store.  I remember being that kid and I remember the way the person I ran up to cut me to the bone. I was trying so hard to impress her, I wanted her to know how pretty I thought she was with her vibrant red hair... and I remember how I bungled the words.  I'm pretty sure I said something like "you look so beautiful for your age" ...and I remember the way this grown woman stood above me in our small town grocery store and tore chunks of my soul from me.  I remember the way she turned form one of the prettiest women I'd thought I'd every known, to one of the evilest.  I know think of her flashing green eyes and crows feet, deep trenches between her brow and around her mouth each time I am in the company of someone who is physically better looking than me and no matter what they are saying, I hear this woman telling me how my hair was oily, my skin too dark, i was stupid and rude and friendless.  I hear her voice each time I add or subtract. Multiply or divide and I am transported back to middle school and my pulse quickens. And I marvel at how, 31 years old, I can still feel like a lost little girl in the 5th grade.
And I regret that. I regret that someone hurt me. So I smile more at little kids and preteens and teenagers and older people--because I don't want to be the one to cause them any more hurt than they already know.
Even when I am casually running my mouth, I wonder "damn I hope so and so doesn't take that wrong," or "i know i shouldn't have laughed about xyz cuz they might see it some day and get hurt"....its the plague of being and em-path.

 Life is about hurt-- thats what I think, so I try my best to minimize the hurt that I cause. I know I am gonna have to hurt people so I internalize it until I find the best way to limit the impact.

But the hurts I regret are the ones that I've caused to people who only wanted to see me happy. They weren't out to hurt me... they just...were there... caught in the cross fire.
Those are the ones I regret.
The curly headed little blonde who could have been me...Britney, Poodle...I regret letting her out of my life and I pray daily that I find her again and tell her that SHE was the BRAVE ONE.

The short pixi...Nicole... PeeWee, Aniece, Tawania, Jacob, Jiame, Julio, Justin, Amy, Concetta, Q, Torrence, Martha.... I can never take back the way I hurt them. And some of them understand that its just me...they live with it...and i live with the way they've hurt me. But I wish it wasn't like that. I wish I never had to hurt them.
Some of them are gone from this world and I hope that were every they are, they know I am sorry and that I love them.

Nope, there isn't a lot that I regret in this world...but somethings...
yeah, there are somethings

Crazy, Just like me.

I hear that a lot. Why, do you blog the way you do? Why do you put things out in the world that way?  I hear why almost as much and as often as I hear that I shouldn't.  I also hear questions of if its all real or all imagination if I am truly crazy.

I'd like to be all altruistic and say " I do it because I know it will help someone else." While that is part of it, Its not the whole of it. I'd be lying if I said it was my only motivation.
I've been honest when I say that the manner in which I blog is simply a release for me. Its a way of getting whats in me out.
Close your eyes for a minute and think of that one thing you do that gives you that rush at the end, not the rush of hard pumping adrenaline where you can't catch your breath, but that rush of peace, security and well being that you feel at the end of the adrenaline dump.
Thats why I do it. Its the way that I find peace in myself. Well, one of the ways.

And a long time a go I recognized that I am not the only one that feels the way I do. I know (from quiet emails) that my words strike cords with many. Some people wish they could say what I say. Some people  wish I'd just shut up.  Some people find themselves in my words and some worry that others will find them hidden in my words.

But there are times when the words are not my reality. They aren't exactly how I am feeling about someone, but how I fear that someone maybe viewing me.  Some times they are a mix of my views and someone elses.

And lots of times they are fantasy... a character steps forward and has this amazing monologue and its beautiful. So I pen it down for them and then they step back. As was the case with "girlfriends".  True, I could so agree with some of what she was saying...I knew a person like that, hell I know a couple of people who probably look at me like that. What she ( the character ) had to say, resonated within me.
It was true for me...and it many ways it was probably universally true for a lot of people.

A lot of people get upset by my blogs. And when I sit back and analyze those closest to me, I realize they are upset because they recognize something in my words about themselves.  See their insecurities parallel with mine. Maybe find accusation hidden between the letters. Something resonates with them and its uncomfortable.

And I know that feeling well, the uncomfortable ache. Your skin is too tight, your breath is too shallow.
How dare you kill me softly? I've seen myself in others words, learned about myself in the pages of a strangers notes. Found myself in rambling wildly.

I remember, when I lost my mind...and yeah I think you're crazy...just like me.

Because Elle Inspired Me

Well that and the release of Magic Mike

unedited copyrighted untitled 2012... don't be a douche and steal it, its going in a wip for tante shara and i'd hate for her to need to hurt anyone.


J'Kori concentrated on the image of himself reflecting back through the tinted windows of his home gym.  The shot gun effect that allowed him to see the mirrored view of his back  bouncing back off the wall of mirrors was one of his favorite reasons for conducting his lil 'dance off's at this time of morning...
the other was that his wife and newborn son  where so occupied with the backs of their eyelids that he could get a good two hour work out in before devoting his day to them.

the mere thought of his wife must have influenced life around him. he image of her smooth velvety skin juxtoposed with the silk of their wight sheets danced in his minds eye. His hips automatically shifted their rhythm to the deep vibration of the slow dubstep.  And J'Kori imagined himself dancing for her.
the muscles in his body  isolated and then released themselves in what he knew was a hyptonic pace and he let the music take him-- closed his eyes and dreamed that he was on stage and she was his audience.

Biting his full lower lip between stark white teeth he moved to the music gyrating his hips then mimicing the smooth way he loved to roll them between her thighs, adding that extra lil thrust just at the end of the glide.

letting his body take over , J'kori raised his the hem of his tank top knowing that his sight of his abs would illicit  a rushed of need from his woman, he felt a bead of sweet start tracking from his neck and he concentrated on rolling his body slowly, making that bead tumble down the caverns of his itched body like a  plinko chip until it settled in his belly button.

It was  then that he lost his groove...
her hands brushed up the front of his thighs...the long nail on her pointer finger dipping slowly into his belly button to retrieve that little bead of sweat, then retrace its path up his body until they reached their favorite play ground---the gaged barbell nipple rings..

J'Kor stopped his dance and waited only the sound of his breathing--his heart beating was louder than the now thunderous bomb of the electronica fusion. He would be waiting a long time.

His wife dipped her head and hid her face, her shoulders shaking, i took a moment for him to realize she was looking over his shoulder's.
Opening his eyes he stared into the mirror and nearly fainted with laughter as their nephews pranced around the dance floor closest to the windows and the door, their movements where jerky and cosmically...and he realized the lil beasts where doing their damnedest to imitate him. Horrible versions of the stinky leg and the dougie mixed with what he could only assume was some kinda plucked chicken dance combined with what might be a new aged charleston.

Their sister stood just inside the door shaking her tiny head in a manner way too grown up , and mature to be coming from a five year old.

"When did they get here?" he asked, hiding his laugh behind a towel.

"About 2O minutes ago, I was coming to get you for breakfast but I guess my brother thought i was taking to long and sent out the cavalry." She giggled as she stretched up on tip toe to kiss his chiseled jaw.

J'Kori smiled down at his wife..." they are definitely your nephews, they have no rhythm."

"you weren't complaining about my rhythm last night."

J'Kori didn't even flinch as his wife strode past him, gathering the boys as she went...for a moment he just stared after them then he stepped forward and grabbed his niece's hand and followed them form the studio...

"Unca J, " the pintsized lil' diva looked up at him.

J'kori stopped and listened to his small companion,  wondering what wisdom the tiny person would bestow on him this time...

"Yes pumpkin?"

"those three ain't got no rhythm."

"oh and you do ?" He raised an eyebrow in askance.

""yup", she nodded her curly little head mater factly.

"well lets see your moves pipsqueak"

his niece took that challenge and ran back into the studio. J'kori smiled as she pushed play on the tiny boom box and restarted the song he'd been dancing too...his jaw hit the floor had his little angel began and intricate series of isolations, where had his  five year old prince learned to tut, c-walk any of that...it was the most amazing robotic precision he'd ever seen. each move hitting in perfect syncopation with the music...t
when she stopped J'Kori  just stood in silence waiting for her to move...slowly like a mechanic toy she turned her head towards him and then a tiny robot smile appeared and a wink...
once she broke character she ran to him...and said
"I got skills uncle J and you got served" as she skipped past him and  down the hall.
J"kori followed slowly in a daze...
it would be hours before he could get his mouth to stay closed and swallow is pride enough to ask his niece to teach him .

on the verge of progression or regression

Its  funny how when we are on the cusp of something…greatness perhaps—is when life is at its hardest.

When you know you're one step away from starting the next great chapter of your life, your loathed to turn the page.

Its fear pure and simple, what happens on that next page, is the evil villain of the past lurking around the corner? Will the heroine run from the frying pan into the fire? Is the success she’s long dreamed of really waiting or is there just more  of the past waiting. The same insecurities the same failures all dressed up  in different scenery?

Has she finally shed the dull grey cocooning and grown butterfly wings…and do those wings work. Will they catch air? Can she fly?

And what of those she holds dear.  Even though the very blood in her is racing to go forward, her heart whispers that she still needs the acceptance she was searching for to begin with, even though she knows its illogical. How can she express a sense of feeling outgrown, or perhaps replaced, in a life she didn't orchestrate, but hoped would play out to at least not damage her any more than the life she had to transition from before? That in a quest for acceptance she felt alienated and pushed aside. At war with whom she wanted to be and that which is within her.  The wisdom that everyone thinks she possesses tells her that even though she moves forward and grows from the lesson of her past, her past is still there and in as much as it exists so will to will the longing she’s always known.

All the success in the world will not fill that which is empty now.

So “should she give up or should she just keep chasing pavements, even if they lead nowhere…or would it be a waste even if she knew her place should she leave it there…”

And what of those who are reading along with her, waiting on baited breath for her to leap?

How is she to tell them that her feet are leaden, that even if one of them were to race up and shove her from behind her knees would wobble and bend but she doubted she could go over the edge? That if the very earth crumbled beneath her she claw and the shallow and long dead roots and tumbling stone, clinging to what was behind, eyes clinched in fear afraid to see what lay a head.

What  words can she give those whom she has viewed  less passionately, though faithful and steadfast in their loyalty, they aren’t the balm she seeks.  Its true, she’s loved them too. But she aches because she didn't love them the same. Has she disregarded their love? Has she truly honored their friendship, been a good steward of their faith? For some she was the one to give that might round house to the back. Watched as they hid away from the sun. Spied them climbing the letters of the page with a grappling hook and sheer determination.  Watched them stick the pages together so they could not be turned. Turn out the lights so the readers of their own stories could not see. Waited patiently by when they dropped in to nowhere.

How can she express anger at their lack of patients for her own growing pains? Disdain for what feels like hypocrisy? Annoyance at their concern? Aggravation at her weakness in needing them so? Anger because she shouldn't need anyone...need causes confusion and pain. Need..she doesn't want to need. Need is an emotion and she doesn't want to feel. Feelings leave fear. Fear because she doesn’t know? It doesn’t matter the question, the answer is simply, “I don’t know.”

How can she explain that before this most momentous leap, she must actually regress.  Shed the façade that is so recognizable that even she’d become to believe? She must be re-immersed in her true self…wallow if you will in all those old insecurities, drowned, mired or baptized by them.

And then when the two converge, become one…the past and the present , then maybe the driving bass of dubstep can thrill the blood in her veins and with glee she can fall over the edge of the cliffs of greatness and sail. The sultry beat, pulsing with life and freedom.  Finally, freedom. And Inner peace because the war is not with her past, or with the person turning the page. The angst is all imagined, all with in her own head and she controls it all..controls the ever revolving record of melancholy and woe. She controls the turning of the page. maybe not the adventures, but if she'd just turn that damn page, 

Just 

turn

that

Damn 

PAGE....

and fly.

sometimes the voices in my head demand to speak

and i they don't have any more of a story to tell, the just need to ramble like i do....so i take dictation and then when they've said their piece we can go our separate ways again...them to do what ever it is they do when they don't feel the need to harass the shit out of me and me to sit and wonder who's next and when they will feel like hounding me and what craziness they will have to express.

After this one i need a shot of something strong and made by the light of the moon in the back woods of someplace where they don't wear shoes or graduate passed the fourth grade.

unedited-Girlfriends- copyrighted 2012

i suppose you think i've stopped loving you but that couldn't be further from the truth. I just understand that loving you and being your friend don't actually have to coincide. I've found a point were I can not be that source of support, not because I don't believe in you , but because you need to believe in yourself...I can't do these things for you...I can't live this life for you and I can't wait for you to see me, here in the back ground loving you... I can't continue to be the three am designated driver, leaving my bed to brave the cold dark night only to find you've gone home with a booty call or luck of all lucks gotten a cab and never bothered to call. I can't keep washing your snot from the sleeves of my shirt just to find a place to dry my own tears. I can't ignore the life around me with in me that is faltering, wilting, dying because your issues, your drama, your grass must be tended to while mine is left to burn and die in the scorching Texas sun.  I can't be continue to watch you trip merrily, dangerously, manically through life destroying hearts and dreams and goals with reckless abandon. Or I could, but I'd hate myself in the morning. you think I am so loving and "the best friend with the purest heart" as i stand over you trying desperately not to puke on your head as you vomit from a night of too much booze and too little restraint. And i used to be that person...the person that cared and i scared myself today when i caught a glimpse of myself in the streaked mirror over the sink, the sounds of your retching sending chills up my spine: I could shove your head in the toilet and flush repeatedly and you'd never remember it in the morning.  I could leave you to nearly drowned in the tub, or maybe let you just slip and fall in the shower, the impact so jarring that your forced into a startled moment of sobriety, clarity rushing at you so fast that you run for the liquor cabinet and down shot after shot in an effort to regain the distilled fog that hides your hideousness from yourself. Scared you with that thought didn't I? Actually, it scared me too, but then again- it turned me on and that scared me more. 

My nipples got kinda hard thinking about how it would feel to listen to you calling out for me, longing for my company the way I've longed for yours. A trickle of sensual electricity raced over my skin thinking of the way you'd call and leave pitiful messages on my machine, needing a ride home from the bar or some strangers bed, but i'd instead just turn the volume up on the radio and flip to the next page. OR maybe I'd answer the phone in a breathless rush as my lover plowed into me, his strokes hitting all those spots that make tears come to my eyes and you'd know that "i can't talk right now" wouldn't be followed by "i'll be right there".   A smile creeps over my lips and I look back down at you, you're snoring now and its reverberating off the porcelain and water, sounding rather obnoxious. You're bleached hair is darkened with sweat and probably some biological fluids not entirely your own and I sigh.  I kick your thigh gently before bending to drag you, my arms getting coated in the booze laden sweat that's pooling in arm pits of the dress you borrowed with out asking two years ago and I am thinking..."we'll fuck if i want that back now".  I pull and tug until I've dumped you face down head hanging over the edge of the rumpled bed.  And instead of taking your shoes off and settling on the sofa to be their when the sunlight burns your eyes, I pilfer your jewelry box and steal all my shit back, I rifle through your wallet and take back the mileage card i loaned you for emergencies that has undoubtedly been used to finance this latest binge and i text that guy that i liked, but you swore he was just a poser looking to hook up with you... I tell him,"yeah i know my friend said i wasn't  interested but i really am"  and as i stroll out of your down town loft and head for my own quiet house, in the burbs I am lighter.  I am not your friend. I love you, just as you have always loved me. We just can't be friends.