I Know You’re Built To Love, But Broken Now, So Just Try, Yeah I know You’re Chokin’ On Your Fears

So never in my wildest dreams did I expect this to happen. We went to get the mail yesterday and there were a few small packages in it, one for each of the kids and myself. From E. Not gonna lie at first I was like wtf? For a quick instant I was like is it something dangerous? What could it possibly be? Why after all these years, over 6 to be exact, would my ex be mailing something to his kids for the first time ever? So I sat in the front of my car and opened the Little E’s package first before handing it over just in case it was something that was better off handled by me. Is that a federal offence? I’m not 100% sure, but as a mother I’m sure you’d do it to if your ex sent your kids a small package in the mail for the first time ever after being apart for 6 years. I wanted to make sure it was something that would be good for Little E. Not harmful.

Surprise of my year when I looked in a saw a book and a card! I peeked in the card an saw the start of a nice note written to Little E. I opened Z’s package and saw something similar so I handed the packages back to the kids and told them they were from their dad.

I asked them to wait to open them and we called E so he could see their reactions as they opened the small gifts. I figured he had done this small thing for his kids he should at least be able to enjoy it. He picked up as I was pretty sure he would as I know he’s not working and doesn’t leave the house often due to his mental health issues, and watched the kids open their gifts.

I had to read the cards to the kids for them since he had written in cursive, and I will admit he did a really good job. Never in over the dozen years of knowing E has he written me a card, and now these heartfelt cards had words like I’m proud of you and you’re growing into a smart young woman etc. They weren’t just left at the writings that the cards had preprinted inside. It was really nice to see.

Then I opened my envelope and there, for the first time was an ugly ass purple card for Mother’s Day. The first one I’ve ever gotten from the father of my kids. Saying thank you for being a good mom.

And I was speechless. I teared up. Because I have to admit this week I felt like calling E and bitching at him to say I’ve been raising these kids on my own for the last 6 years without so much as a thank you, but I restrained myself One, because I’ve never done that before so why start now, and two because I’ve been really trying hard to control what kind of energy I put into the world, and also because I know he struggles with the reality of other people’s life’s at he is dealing with so much in his own mind. So I didn’t want to put that on him. So I didn’t call.

But when that card came in the mail I felt guilty for putting those thoughts out there. Yes, I needed him to acknowledge that I’ve been doing a great job and that I’ve been doing it alone. But I also need to keep my own mind in check of how I think of other people.

So I just wanted to share that my kids received the first ever gifts from their dad this week. Ones that I didn’t shop for on his behalf, and kind heartfelt written cards that they’ll treasure for a long time. And maybe it doesn’t seem that important to you, because your family is great and your dad does that stuff for you all the time, but just know I’ve been praying for this for a long time. And it’s beautiful to see it happen. And to see my kids hold those books, and get something I couldn’t give them no matter how hard I tried.

Was heart breaking and wonderful at the same time.

-Be Kind/Halsey and Marshmello-

Let’s Go Don’t Wait This Night’s Almost Over

So, in a world filled with COVID-19, I’m going to write my first post in over a month and not mention it at all… well at least not again lol. I’m going to tell all of you who have been checking my site on the daily (yeah I browse my stats, I see y’all, thanks for your dedication. It’s obviously more than I had to my writing this past little while) about my date.

That’s right I said it. I, the previously undateable girl, went on a date. An organic, non-online tinder-esk arranged date. An actual ‘you busy Friday? date. Me.

Hey these are crazy times right? I guess stranger things are happening, so why not this to?

Just as this whole pandemic was starting (I said pandemic not the dreaded C-word) I was headed to a potluck some friends were having with my kids and invited a neighbor and her son to come. She couldn’t make it since her brother had just recently moved in with her and so I offered to take her son anyway to give her and her brother some time to hang out. So sweet of me hey? So I drive to pick up her boy and that’s when I met her brother J.

Now I’m gonna be completely honest, as I do here on my blog. J’s fine. And I don’t mean fine as in fine like boy he fine, but more of a he’s just ok type of fine. So don’t get your panties up in a bunch when you realize that obviously he’s the dude I’m talking about when I say I went on a date and I’m only using the word fine to describe him. But that’s the best word I have. He’s not amazing. He’s fine. He’s not talk dark and handsome. He’s fine. Actually he’s super tall, but that still only puts him at fine. Sure he was super kind when I met him that night and had a good hand shake (lame that that’s the best redeeming quality I remember) but I’m just really not attracted to him. C? Wtf did you go on a date with him you’re probably thinking? Me too at this point but the past is in the past. This post isn’t about why I did it lol. Just describes the fact that I did. So chill.

Anyway my neighbor did introductions and that was that. A few days later my neighbor texted to say J was BBQing and would the kids and I like to come for dinner? Sure why not. We ended up staying for dinner and then having a bonfire and drinks late into the night, just hanging out. J walked us home and we made out pretty heavily before I sent him home. The next day my neighbor texted saying J was asking for my number was that cool with me? Ok. Here’s where I changed my first opinion of J. Yeah I still think he’s basically fine and definitely not the love of my life. But he’s got gentleman potential. Do I want to be in a long term relationship with him or something/anything? Nope. But I think he’s got something special for some girl. just not me.

Anyway I said sure, I didnt mind he could have my number, and he texted after work that day. He. Is. An. Awful. Texter. He’s also older than me. By a sizeable chunk. Now normally age doesn’t bother me, but when you’re in a whole other generation…. it affects how you interact with the world, so it plays a part. Anyway. He ended coming by the next weekend with my neighbor and her neighbor (who she’s seeing… apparently we like to keep things tight knit over here 😏) to hang out and that’s when on the way out he asked me on the date. Just a quick question on the way out the door. Do you wanna go for dinner Friday night? Yeah I just realized I’ve written all this and haven’t even gotten to the date. So I’ll jump to it.

I said yes, mainly because I was shocked. Because in 32 years I’ve never been asked that, and we all know it’s like a deep dream of mine. Something I’ve always wanted. Also because he was leaning in to kiss me and I really didn’t know what else to think. So I said yes. But as soon as the door shut, I thought, I don’t know if I want to go on a date with that man. I know I don’t like him like that. I made out with him mainly because yep I was drunk and yep because he was there. Call me what you want but that’s the truth. But I don’t want to go down the path that this seemed to somehow be heading in a very fast way.

There were so many thoughts going through my head and I settled on the most important one. Being that I didn’t want my friendship with my neighbor to be ruined if (and when) things broke off if it happened how I thought it would. So I texted her to see if whatever was happening between J and I was ok with her. And she was like ohhh it’s all cool. He smiles and laughs when he texts you. You make him happy. Well obviously it’s cause I’m hilarious, no but for real, now I’m like damn. I don’t wanna hurt his feelings, but I also didn’t want to commit.

Now don’t get me wrong, on Friday night I cleaned up real nice and we went on our date. Kinda. I half-assed it. I didn’t get a babysitter in time. To be honest though I didn’t even ask a single person. So here he is asking if I like lobster and have I been to certain ridiculously fancy restaurants in town and I’m like, I thought this was going to be a casual drinks thing. I don’t want to sit at a quiet chandelier lit dinner with a man I hardly know on our first night together. So I had to explain that to him.

We ended up just going to get drinks at a pub while he had his hands all over me while we waited for our Chinese take out order to be made and then went home and watched a movie.

But then. He stayed the night. It just kind of happened. I didn’t invite him. And he didn’t ask. I would have much preferred he had gone home, but he was pretty drunk so I felt bad. What I felt annoyed about most was how he didn’t give any regard to my kids and how I was going to explain it to them.

I’ve had guys over at night before. And they either left that night or quietly the next morning out my bedroom door. But J? Nope. The next day he walked out my door and loudly says good morning to the kids before I could even react.

They obviously had so many questions after he left. Did J sleep here? Why is he here. And I’m like nope. He just came for a visit this morning. Like fuck J. You didn’t respect me or my life in that moment at all.

So later I explained to him that I think we would be better off as friends. And that I appreciated the date, but I just don’t see us going anywhere.

So there, my friends you have the tale of my first date. The great let down. The time a man took me out. Was going to make reservations until I shot him down. Paid for my night. And I realized that dates are probably not all I worked them up to be. At least not with the wrong person.

Live and learn hey?

– First Date/Blink 182

My Mama Loves, She Loves Me She Gets Down On Her Knees And Hugs Me She Loves Me Like A Rock She Rocks Me Like The Rock Of Ages

*** UPDATE *** I’ve linked my Instagram for pictures. Relevant to the post 😁****

Totally not the topic of my post but I’m at Starbucks writing this morning, since I’m meeting with a friend. Normally when I come and write here, I order my drink in a porcelain cup, you know to save the environment and not use a plastic cup and lid. So I order as per usual, and the barista says they aren’t serving in to-stay cups because of the corona virus. Like what? How will me not a WASHABLE MUG, that should be sanitized thoroughly with hot water and soap be helpful? Sure you don’t want to touch my germs (that I don’t have, since I’m not carrying the virus), but I would place the mug in a wash bucket/bin for you and you use gloves to put it in the dishwasher…. I truly fail to see the benefit of not serving drinks in them during this time other than adding to our pollution.

However, lol. That’s not the point of my blog today. Just a thought I have while writing. Another thought, was I figured out how to edit/make new paragraphs on Little E’s IPad, so I’m moving up in the world. Lol. What’s actually on my mind today, is the facts that we as a family went to the dentist a little while ago. While we were there the hygienist, who is of Asian decent (not normally a factor but plays into the story in a minor way, as a minority in our town plus with her accent) made a comment to me. She’s a very kind woman, maybe late twenties, early thirties with no kids of her own. We’ve been to the dentist a couple times now since moving so we’ve been chatting a bit, I mean as much as you can while your mouth is stuck open while your teeth are being cleaned. So this time, as I was on my way out she said, word for word as it made such and impact on me: “So you adopted your two kids” With such a sweet smile and an air of, oh what a kind thing I’d done to adopt two siblings of colour who must have been from a foreign country and probably are so much better off with me. I must be such a good lady, to have saved them from whatever war zone or something like that. Like I’d rescued them. That sort of tone/look on her face. So I figured if she was going to push the boundaries and make such a statement that was so inconsiderate, and thoughtless, then well… 🤯 I responded with: “No, they’re mine, I grew them in my belly and pushed them out my own vagina. Thanks for asking.” She was so red, rightfully so. And rushed to say it was because they don’t look like me. Ok. Ok, ok okaaaay. I know my kids aren’t like spitting images of me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to be considered or thought of as much their mom as other parents who are moms and dads of kids who aren’t mixed race, or look more similar to their children. Or that obtuse people can judge my kids heritage and make them feel like they don’t belong. In fact, I may be more involved in my kids lives than many other parents who look more like their kids than I do. Looking the same as someone doesn’t automatically make you more a parental figure than me. Parenting takes time and effort. It takes imparting wisdom and listening to their deepest fears and helping the kids work through them. It takes years of hard work, trying to figure out how to pay for extra curricular activities on a single mom budget and nights crying alone in bed worrying about their future. It takes hours praying for them, hoping they will make good choices for their own lives, while knowing you can’t protect them from everything, but wishing you could. It takes prepping three meals a day, seven days a week and about a zillion snacks for years, which I’m sure continues even after they move out. It takes holding your tongue when they bring home friends you don’t agree with, then having conversations with them later about being an influential figure not the one influenced. It’s about wiping tears and giving hugs even if your hurting to. It’s about helping with homework even if they teach math stupidly now. It’s about 7:00 am Saturday morning hockey games and Sunday afternoon dance recitals. It’s about showing them love and connection. Its about teaching personal hygiene and sexual education and loving others as well as personal boundaries. It’s helping little humans self discover who they are and teaching them it’s ok to change, or not know. It’s explaining to them when to say sorry, and when to stand your ground. It’s helping them learn about emotion and safe ways to express them. It’s about creating a home environment where they feel safe to come home to when nowhere else in the world is listening to them. The list goes on, and for me, it’s about doing it all by myself. So, yes these are my biological kids, but I think being a parent can be for anyone who has consistently put in that effort, time and love into a child who needs it. So was I offended when the hygienist said that? Not so much offended as shocked. I just figured that in this day in age people wouldn’t be out making statements about others life’s so blatantly, without and background information or invite. Do I blame here for thinking that? Not necessarily, since she’s not far from the truth. My kids and I don’t look a ton alike. What I would do though, is caution her from making those comments so haphazardly in the future again. Other individuals may not take her tactless comments so lightly. I am basically the only parent my children have known, and I will teach them that looks now, and in the future will never matter. Because it is 100% on the inside what matters. -Loves Me Like A Rock/Paul Simon-

Stay With Me Let’s Just Breathe / Did I Say That I Need You? Did I Say That I Want You?

My, oh my. Work this week was… interesting to say the very least. So to give some context (not that it makes what happened better, but you’ll understand more) I work in a small office. A very small office. Just myself, my coworker J, and my boss A. A’s wife comes in maybe once a week for a few hours to help out with filing etc which is important for the story. A himself? Works random hours at best. Which as a whole I couldn’t care less about, since J and I have literally everything else in the office handled between the two of us. So he basically comes in spends a few hours on Facebook, maybe makes a call or two, goes to yoga at lunch and heads out by 1. Not a problem. The problem started arising last week when J was on vacation. When I started at this company (3 years ago this month) A and J did the same job and slowly A’s been giving all of that over to J to handle. I don’t deal with any of that aspect. He only jumps in when there’s to much for her or, like last week when she’s away. Me? I’ve never done that job. I was hired for a completely different position and although I know what they do, because I’m in the office all day with J, I’ve never done it, A has.

So jump to last week. J’s on holidays all week and A is in office to cover her position…. supposedly. But the thing is he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on with anything, since he’s been practically AWOL since we moved to Kelowna. He had a two hour meeting with Janet before she left to go over all the details and review everything that needed to be done (by him) and said he was good to go, but when it got down to brass tacks, he was clueless. So EVERY situation that comes up he’s asking me how to deal with it. Where to find this, how to solve this, what’s the answer to this. Everything. And it was getting tense since he had the audacity to get frustrated, because I didn’t know things I wasn’t required to know, and it made him look like an idiot when dealing with our clients. But we made it through the week.

Cut to this week. J’s back, we’re all here, everything should be fine. Well there’s another situation where A asked me to handle something (this time it was within my job description) and I needed to log in to the CRA. I asked J for her login information (A and J have more logins than me since they’ve been working there longer, so I just use theirs for business things instead of us setting up more) and so she comes to my computer to try and login, no questions asked but it’s not working. So I ask A if he could come to my computer to login for CRA purposes. He messages me saying that doesn’t make sense to him and to come to his office. So I get frustrated. How can it not make sense? It makes sense to me! It made sense to J no issue, and I explained it to both of them exactly the same way. And so now I was just annoyed at how nothing in the WHOLE DAMN OFFICE MADE SENSE TO MR BIG BOSS MAN!!!! How can you claim to be the owner of a business, making the big bucks and you have no idea how literally nothing is working? It was my breaking point. I was so frustrated after almost two weeks of dealing with having to explain everything to him but in a way that had to be super respectful so I don’t get fired, to a man who was oblivious, but should know, and claims to know the most. Why is the world like this? Why do people who have no clue, continue to earn top dollar when their contribution is less than stellar? These were my thoughts as I walked to his office. Annoyed that I had to go to his office for one, since my very simple request was for him to come to my computer and login there. And if ANYTHING, once I explained it to his very simple man mind, he would have to be situated at my computer to sign in.

So I walk down the hall, thinking all these thoughts, and get to his office to explain why in detail I need to complete the request he originally asked me to do anyways, and he’s like I sense your agitated (or some other word I can’t remember now) either way he then proceeded to say “why don’t you take a breath and calm down“. WHAT THE FUCK. No. Nope nooooooo. So I said, A, (and now for the part I’m embarrassed about) I’m having a bad day (because in our society you can’t just be mad at your boss without risking your job, so I prefaced it with something else having to be wrong not just him being an ass, when in reality my day had been perfectly fine apart from him, but anyways moving on) A you cannot talk to me like that (that part I’m proud of) and then I walked outta his office saying we could discuss the work thing later, behind my shoulder on my way down the hall. I heard him say “your right” about him not being able to talk to me like that which I was very glad about.

I think he’d become to at home in the office with his wife being there and J who just rolls over at everything he says, that no one stands up to him. So I walked back to my desk and worked on something else for a while. About 45 minutes later he messaged me saying we’d have to discuss the work issue when I was ready, but sooner rather than later. I was fine by then. So I finished up what I was doing, since I was no in no rush to deal with him, and went to his office where we discussed purely work and I could tell he was being VERY careful with his wording, pausing every now and then to catch himself and think and there was no mention of the situation. We handled work and that was that for the day. Albeit a very tense day, there was no talk of what had transpired.

The next day he was very kind, asking all about how things are going, hows the family, hows Benjamin (my cat) my parents, what are the kids up to etc. Of course he obviously thinks something is super wrong in my personal life since I’m usually extremely calm and collected at work and have never lost my cool, or talked to him, or anyone in the office like that. But I’m just like let him sweat it out for a while. He also invited us all out for sushi that next day for lunch and was all chatty and nice. Obviously I noticed, but I know it won’t change how much work he maintains in the office. One, because I was to scared to actually tell him what the issue was. Two because people are who the are, and they act that way because they think it’s the best for them, and even if someone else tells them what their doing is wrong, they most likely won’t change unless they decide for themselves it’s and issue.

Does him being all friendly now change what happened? No, but I think it was good for me to let out that frustration. Could I have done it in a healthier way? Probably. But I’m new to this whole sharing my feelings thing. At least I was aware of what the issue was on how he was making me feel. We were able to move on, no one was fired, and maybe he’ll think twice about telling me how to breathe 😡😤. But do I think he will change how much work he does in the office because of it? Obviously not because I never told him that was the issue. Do I feel better about saying he couldn’t talk to me that way? 100%. Because even though nothing will change as far as work load and his incompetency, he will know there has to be boundaries in what he can, and cannot say to me in the very least.

And I count that as a win.

Even if he is still an idiot, he will be an idiot who won’t tell me when to breathe.

-Just Breathe / Pearl Jam-

It’s A Beautiful Day And The World Is Bright ‘Cause You Took Me Away From The Longest Night What Can I Do But Give All I Have To You

So I read one more article on Kundalini this week after my awakening experience (link here) https://sahajayoga.dk/2017/09/the-three-channels-pastfuture-and-present/

It related exactly to everything I was trying to explain. How my mind seemingly split into three channels .and what each one felt like. While the article details that it can happen instantaneously, and yes it did, the flow and healing my body and mind experienced, lasted closer to 20-30 seconds before I felt I was swirled back into my individual self again.

I know it seems like I talk about this a lot now, but to be honest, my mind is always considering it now. I think that is the main focus of the awakening. To create a self that is always aware of more from that point on.

Yes, I go to work and care for my kids in the same manner as before, but in a sense it is new and fresh and I am different. I am now aware of a new connection and have a deeper knowledge. Not only am I aware of it, but it’s continually allowing me to learn the fact that my knowledge of it will forever more be growing. Learning more of the expanse of God and the creator and the presence that is always with us and connecting us. Not only am I able to know more, but it allows me to fear less. As I know have the knowledge of understanding that God leads the way. This beautiful birth of love has been created from within the depths of the soul and is constantly flourishing in a new and healthier way with each breathe I take.

It’s a beautiful way to live.

And I’m thankful each moment. Especially as someone who was prepared to die. No I was not suicidal, but it was as if life had begun to lose it’s luster. I had to dig so deep to find a purpose and a meaning and a reason. And now to see that my meaning and reason could be just to heal and feel this freedom. To feel each breath and each heartbeat. Knowing that? Knowing I’ve been sent to feel love in its fullness?

It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

And it’s perfect.

-Everything / Delirious-