The Girl That I Knew

In My Memory

We were sitting on the floor of his room and listening to the Beatles White Album. We did share a love of good music and we both agreed that Blackbird was the best song on it. If I only knew that one day I would be the blackbird.

I was sixteen. He was tall and sweet and handsome. He was kind and he had this cute laugh that I liked. We were innocent and mostly just really good friends. As I was sitting there on his floor I smelled something kind of musty. I looked over at his bed and saw that it was for sure his sheets. There was a head indention in his pillow and it was gray-grimy. I gave him a hard time about it.

His Mom was a single Mom, a teacher, with three kids . I was a sixteen year old with a stay at home Mom who did all of my laundry and even would iron my sheets.

There really is something to Karma, I am pretty sure of it. Sometimes, I take a peek at my kids sheets if I can’t remember the last time we switched them out.

I was a brat to this boy. A sixteen year old brat. I was entitled and spoiled. He was sweet. And, I am sorry.

Dior Tidwell

Pheromones are Funny

There was a boy I dated a few years ago. He was sweet and friendly and I really liked how kind he was to his Mom. There wasn’t anything wrong with him per se. I enjoyed his company but I just…there was just….something I didn’t like. I didn’t like being picked up and asked where I wanted to go. You know..on a first date please if you’re serious about dating me, make an effort. Make a plan. I just worked all day and rushed home to tidy up downstairs because you were going to see it, or walk in and wait for me to finish getting ready. I had to rush home and shower, hair, make-up, outfit on point……like the works. It isn’t easy at 42 OK! Please. Plan a date.

He did not plan dates.

But also, I realized that he smelled like musty sheets and the smell..just got stronger and stronger every time I went out with this guy until I just couldn’t anymore. It didn’t conjure sweet 16 year old memories. It just smelled bad.

My pheromones just didn’t like his pheromones.

The Blackbird Sings

You know life has been trying lately. So the last few weeks I have done my best to make my home a happy place full of happy memories. Which have been really fun but have left me this Friday night absolutely exhausted.

My children went to their Dads tonight and all I have the energy to do is eat half of a rectangle frozen pizza. I don’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone. I am spent. Just this week alone we went to MC Hammer/ Arizona State Fair, Ward Halloween Party, Neighborhood Frozen Yogurt Night, Sarah Barielles Concert, and Halloween. Friday-Friday. Seven Days. Let’s also throw teaching, and a field trip in there this week. And there’s more.

C-Diff Strikes Again

Monday night the pain started. You can feel your whole intestinal tract, it’s terrible. I just thought please just be the toots. I had made chili with cornbread baked on top of it for dinner Monday night. I had been feeling good so I went for a run. I thought..maybe the run plus the beans was a bad combo. It wasn’t the run. It wasn’t the beans.

The next day C-Diff raised her smelly, nasty head and struck with the force of cannons. In a panic at 1:45 when my class was at Library ….OH and can I tell you how fun it is to try and manage horrible diarrhea…. TEACHING. Yeah. Good Luck with that.

Anyway…1:45….I called the doctor and made an appointment. I cancelled my overdue hair appointment for that afternoon. Sad. OKAY. SAD! This is basically single motherhood in one sentence. Mom desperately needs hair done, saves enough money to get it done, makes the appointment,

NOPE EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA.

What is the point of trying to look pretty when it is SO much effort and never works out anyway.

Dudes. I am begging you. PLAN THE DATE. This is my life. EVERY. DAY.

“You’re going to be living in a van down by the river.”

Over the last month or so while all of this life was happening a man started talking to me on Facebook. He had a very well written intro that was neither creepy nor red flaggy. We had mutual friends. He invited me out to get ice cream sometime. Which was nice but like I said, a lot has been going on over here. Survival mode is the only mode.

We would chit chat here and there and started talking more and more. He kept inviting me out to ice cream or Bahama Bucks..but I honestly just didn’t have the time.

Then I noticed that he and pheromone guy had the same last name. They are brothers and I wondered if he had a musty sheet smell too. He said he didn’t and that he was better looking..which to be honest wasn’t really true. Pheremone guy had a manly, kind of mountain vibe. The brother…was just weird.

He told me that he was really excited about his new house he had bought. He could live anywhere he wanted! It was an RV. Thoughts of Chris Farley immediately entered by head. I did not say anything to him about it because I didn’t want to seem mean. He had told me he had struggled with the dating thing. I asked him why he was divorced and told him I had been single for ten years almost. He told me de didn’t want to get into why he got divorced and said he realized that when he had been talking to girls that he had divulged too much and no one wanted to end up meeting him.

This was Tuesday while I was waiting to see the Dr. I felt bad for the fellow as I thought he is probably going to have a tough time getting any woman to buy into moving into an RV with him. At least, the women I know who all are hard working and successful. Not because we are anything extra-ordinary..we just work our buns off and don’t need another mouth to feed.

Mid-thought about van man I was called back to see my physician. Where I was diagnosed with round two of C-Diff. I ran to Target to get my prescription because I couldn’t miss anymore work, I needed meds. My Dad helped me take Ellie to practice so I could see my doctor and I picked Aydan up and we grabbed some tacos for dinner as I was wiped out from the day. We came home and I rested.

I had totally forgotten about Van Man.

Until.

I received this message Wednesday at work.

And I just.

Was gut punched. Here’s the thing I know all the things we tell ourselves like, this is obviously a reflection of how he feels about himself. It really has nothing to do with me. etc. etc.

But that ten years.

That ten years. Is. Hard. And I often wonder what I have done to contribute to that. Yet, I look at my life and it is so incredibly busy wrapped up in my children and trying to be a good mother to them. It is forgetting myself every. single. day. It is falling into bed exhausted every. single. day. It is working two jobs, and running kids to sports events, and not getting to exercise because when I try..it feels like I get sick because it is all too much. This is my life. These ten years. I wake up and look in the mirror at that girl but her eyes are a bit sunken and her skin is getting more wrinkled. She is tired but she is trying and I think if you could peek in at her heart you would see a safe little nest she has made for her babes and her whole body and soul is working to keep that nest safe. It is being spent, every. single. day.

There is no Knight in Shining armor as much as I wish there was.

That night I came home and lay my head down for an hour because I had purchased tickets for my favorite Sarah Barielles and the show didn’t start until 8. It was the best show I have been to in a long time.

She summed everything up in one song. And I cried.

XOXO- D