Saturday, November 20, 2010
Self Control Countdown
Every morning I wake up before my alarm. I count. I count how many minutes till The Yeah Yeah Yeahs will tell me its time to get out of bed, how many minutes it takes to get ready for work, to wake Todd up, to make the coffee. It takes 15 minutes to get to work, five to get there, ten to catch the elevator and clock in five minutes early. I watch the clock all day waiting for breaks, watching the hour run down for lunch, watching how much time I'm on the phone, keeping track of stats, and finally waiting for 7:30 so I can take 2 minutes to walk down the hall, clock out, and go home. I count down my paychecks before I even get them. Averaging my total hours, subtracting taxes, budgeting bills I haven't seen. When I'm at people's houses I am averaging how much time I will spend there depending on the situation. How many hours of sleep I can get away with, how much more I need to put into savings to make the next purchase. Walking through the grocery store I count up everything I put in the cart to make sure I have enough when I get to the register. I am constantly trying to prepare for every second of every day. I think it is my only way of keeping control. Seeing as I have no control over anything else. Oddly I think I did this to myself on purpose. I like Todd because he is predictably unpredictable. He never looks at you the same twice. Sometimes I catch myself realizing he's the same person I met two years ago and I can't make myself believe it. He is ever-changing which is maddening, but if he weren't we would never have been together this long. I think I like that he makes me crazy, that I have no idea how to communicate with his planet sometimes. I think he likes it too. If he didn't I cannot understand why he would continue to be with me. I think people like problems because it is something to solve. It is something to work out, and you can see the product of your efforts, good or bad. I like working things out and molding it into something better, more efficient. Not that it always happens that way, but I think it is a good thing to experience with another person. Maybe I just like being difficult. That is equally as possible. In fact it is probably the truth.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
You People are Fucking Weird...
........ I want to know what goes on in these peoples heads. Like, why would you ever go to a professional photographer, and say hey.. I'm massively pregnant. My bleach blonde boyfriend and I would like to take our shirts off and get tacky ass, faux romantic, over the shoulder pictures taken, so our children can forever regret the day they were born. I feel like they put these up in the house.. or gave them to people. Truly believing that this is a completely sane thing to do. And the hands.... I feel like you are getting ready to loose the rest of your clothes and show everyone how you got to this point in the first place. It creeps me out in so many ways. Or the woman above who thought she would combine her talents of child bearing and ballet for this photo opportunity. Why are you wearing a sports bra...... do you know? Why do you think that people can't grasp that you are pregnant unless you are nude? And if that's not enough you thought you'd throw a chefaun piece of material over your undies and toss a leg up. What are you doing..
Finally this crazy bitch at the top. Why are you in a tree? Why are you naked as well? Why do you have this blissful drunken expression on your face? I know you aren't comfortable. You are about to pop bracing yourself in a fucking palm tree. People are not fond of you. Stop putting awkward pregnancy photos of yourself on the internet... bad.. bad. There is something very wrong with each and everyone of you specifically.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Big Girls Don't Cry..... But Not For Lack of Trying
Reality is becoming something I just want to sleep off. When I start thinking about my life, the future, I become so utterly overwhelmed that I feel like I can't breath. I want out, but "out" doesn't exist anymore.
I'm nearing the 7th month of my pregnancy. The bigger I get the more I realize that this is only the beginning. It is setting in that I am not prepared, that I am a seasonal employee living in a one bedroom with my boyfriend and his two leaching brothers. That I have nothing. I went into a panic yesterday thinking about it. I just don't know how I am going to get through it. The first year especially.
The plan.
Before I got pregnant Todd and I were not exactly maturing into successful adults. We barely scraped by really and we were loving it. Just living and being young together, we were entirely free. We made enough money to pay our half of the rent, but besides that we weren't striving to climb the ladder or anything. We just wanted to exist, with a little bit of smoke and maybe a beer. Well, along the road to freedom we ran into a brick wall. I found out I was pregnant in May. I took four pregnancy tests and cried more than I think I ever have in my life. I didn't know how I was going to tell Todd, or my family for that matter. I sat there thinking about how it had all fallen apart. How this little life that I had was smashed to tiny little bits and there was nothing I could do about it. I told Todd that day along with every member of my family... why wait right. I felt like the rush of disappointment would be best as a tidal wave instead of a long steady current. Todd was surprisingly great about it. He held it together and said the right things, and made me M&M blizzards, and tried desperately to get me to stop freaking out four days out of the week. Actually he still does that....
Well anyways, when I found out I was pregnant we figured we had better get some kind of a life together. I got a job here, and Todd said that once it was permanent he would go back to school. He got in touch with some schools and found a 15 month program in Virginia studying auto mechanics. At the time it was perfect. I would work while he was at school and then when he came back they would set him up with an internship and I could go back to school. Then about a month ago I realized how long 15 months really was. That is the the first year of our son's life, and Todd just won't be there. He won't see him walk for the first time, or hear him speak for the first time. He won't know when he gets his first tooth or when he first smiles. Thousands of firsts will happen without him there. He will come up to West Virginia periodically and we will see each other but every time he comes up our son will be a different person. Not to mention that I will be experiencing all of those firsts by myself. I will be working full time and being a mom full time for the first time without any real reliable assistance.
Fuck.
There is no way of really escaping this situation. I have to get it in my head that I am going to have to do this myself. Even if Todd doesn't go to this school, if we find something similar that's closer, I am still going to have to be on my own a lot of the time. The worst part is that I can't be upset. I can't have a break down. I have to figure out what to eat for dinner and get to bed before eleven so I can wake up and get to work on time no matter what. I can't miss work, I can't break down here. I have to do the best that I can, if not more, so I can keep this job. I have to get enough sleep. I have to keep myself at a low stress level so my kid doesn't come out chain smoking. I have to take the dogs out, and feed them. I have to save money. I have to I have to I have to. There is no one to take this from me. There is no way to go back. I just have to make it work.
Currently Todd's two brothers are staying with us. I have a one bedroom apartment with no door to my room, and three dogs. The ratio of space to living beings is highly off kilt. I need to move. Another thing I have to do. These boys are not functioning. They are those people you meet that you know have to have many deep embedded long-lasting emotional problems caused by years of neglect and self medicating. Their parents don't exist, but their addictions do. I come home to David ( a 23 year old schmoozer with a penchant for xanex and an odd obsession with his fantasized "Native American" culture.) sleeping on my couch surrounded by cigarette butts, his beloved cell phone in hand. Seth (a 19 year old, highly immature, introverted computer hack) staring into some intranet fantasy clinging to his prepubescent attitude. Three dogs come bounding in from there designated lounging areas all barking... its intense. The whole situation is intense. No one has done anything or picked up their mounds of soda containers or dirty socks. There is no plan for dinner, and no one.. including myself wants to make any kind of a decision. So my days off consist of nagging duties and trying to get my laundry done so Im not completely overwhelmed by the time I have to go back to work.
Seriously..
Gratitude is something you have to have. If not you just get lost in all of this. I like writing about it. I like getting it out there no matter how pathetic it sounds or how rediculous I am being. But honestly, all and all I like my life. It is hard, but I have been in a lot of worse places with worse people and no hope. At least now I know it isn't the end of the world. I'm not so self consumed that I can't even be thankful for the fact that I'm able to have this child, or this boy that I so randomly met. I'm grateful that I'm not anyone else in the world. Even when I feel like a failure and an already insufficient parent.. I just gotta keep smiling, keep it together, and bitch about it all to you.
I'm nearing the 7th month of my pregnancy. The bigger I get the more I realize that this is only the beginning. It is setting in that I am not prepared, that I am a seasonal employee living in a one bedroom with my boyfriend and his two leaching brothers. That I have nothing. I went into a panic yesterday thinking about it. I just don't know how I am going to get through it. The first year especially.
The plan.
Before I got pregnant Todd and I were not exactly maturing into successful adults. We barely scraped by really and we were loving it. Just living and being young together, we were entirely free. We made enough money to pay our half of the rent, but besides that we weren't striving to climb the ladder or anything. We just wanted to exist, with a little bit of smoke and maybe a beer. Well, along the road to freedom we ran into a brick wall. I found out I was pregnant in May. I took four pregnancy tests and cried more than I think I ever have in my life. I didn't know how I was going to tell Todd, or my family for that matter. I sat there thinking about how it had all fallen apart. How this little life that I had was smashed to tiny little bits and there was nothing I could do about it. I told Todd that day along with every member of my family... why wait right. I felt like the rush of disappointment would be best as a tidal wave instead of a long steady current. Todd was surprisingly great about it. He held it together and said the right things, and made me M&M blizzards, and tried desperately to get me to stop freaking out four days out of the week. Actually he still does that....
Well anyways, when I found out I was pregnant we figured we had better get some kind of a life together. I got a job here, and Todd said that once it was permanent he would go back to school. He got in touch with some schools and found a 15 month program in Virginia studying auto mechanics. At the time it was perfect. I would work while he was at school and then when he came back they would set him up with an internship and I could go back to school. Then about a month ago I realized how long 15 months really was. That is the the first year of our son's life, and Todd just won't be there. He won't see him walk for the first time, or hear him speak for the first time. He won't know when he gets his first tooth or when he first smiles. Thousands of firsts will happen without him there. He will come up to West Virginia periodically and we will see each other but every time he comes up our son will be a different person. Not to mention that I will be experiencing all of those firsts by myself. I will be working full time and being a mom full time for the first time without any real reliable assistance.
Fuck.
There is no way of really escaping this situation. I have to get it in my head that I am going to have to do this myself. Even if Todd doesn't go to this school, if we find something similar that's closer, I am still going to have to be on my own a lot of the time. The worst part is that I can't be upset. I can't have a break down. I have to figure out what to eat for dinner and get to bed before eleven so I can wake up and get to work on time no matter what. I can't miss work, I can't break down here. I have to do the best that I can, if not more, so I can keep this job. I have to get enough sleep. I have to keep myself at a low stress level so my kid doesn't come out chain smoking. I have to take the dogs out, and feed them. I have to save money. I have to I have to I have to. There is no one to take this from me. There is no way to go back. I just have to make it work.
Currently Todd's two brothers are staying with us. I have a one bedroom apartment with no door to my room, and three dogs. The ratio of space to living beings is highly off kilt. I need to move. Another thing I have to do. These boys are not functioning. They are those people you meet that you know have to have many deep embedded long-lasting emotional problems caused by years of neglect and self medicating. Their parents don't exist, but their addictions do. I come home to David ( a 23 year old schmoozer with a penchant for xanex and an odd obsession with his fantasized "Native American" culture.) sleeping on my couch surrounded by cigarette butts, his beloved cell phone in hand. Seth (a 19 year old, highly immature, introverted computer hack) staring into some intranet fantasy clinging to his prepubescent attitude. Three dogs come bounding in from there designated lounging areas all barking... its intense. The whole situation is intense. No one has done anything or picked up their mounds of soda containers or dirty socks. There is no plan for dinner, and no one.. including myself wants to make any kind of a decision. So my days off consist of nagging duties and trying to get my laundry done so Im not completely overwhelmed by the time I have to go back to work.
Seriously..
Gratitude is something you have to have. If not you just get lost in all of this. I like writing about it. I like getting it out there no matter how pathetic it sounds or how rediculous I am being. But honestly, all and all I like my life. It is hard, but I have been in a lot of worse places with worse people and no hope. At least now I know it isn't the end of the world. I'm not so self consumed that I can't even be thankful for the fact that I'm able to have this child, or this boy that I so randomly met. I'm grateful that I'm not anyone else in the world. Even when I feel like a failure and an already insufficient parent.. I just gotta keep smiling, keep it together, and bitch about it all to you.
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