squishisms.com

Sometimes, I don’t even know why I am angry.  I just know that I am; that everyone sucks but me and they all need to stfu and getouttamyfaceandpersonalspace.  Later I will calm down and able to articulate that traffic sucked, or my feelings were hurt because blahblahblah… but in the moment – I have no idea why I am so angry.

I don’t think I should have to.  I don’t think I should have to explain to anyone why I am feeling the way I am in any particular moment.  I DO think that how I feel in any given moment should be acknowledged and respected.  I will do the same.  You will never have to tell me why you are not okay and need someone to go get ice cream with – just that you are not okay and need someone to go get ice cream with.  I’m a bad ‘fixer’ anyway.  I never know what to do or say when strong emotions are involved, and who the emotions belong to doesn’t matter.  But I can be there.

That is all I want out of the people in my life.  That is exactly what I want out of the people in my life.  Just to be there.  To understand that I am upset, unable to articulate why exactly I am upset, and go with me to get ice cream.  Or, as the case may be, make me a cheeseburger on skinny little lowcarb-whole-wheat-bread-things-that-aren’t-quite-buns-but-aren’t-bread-either and watch American Idol with me.

Yesterday was a good day, mostly.  I was (and still am) exhausted, but I got good news at work (the best really, but that is another blog for another place ifyaknowwhatimean) had date night with Teridactyl, loved the cheesy movie we watched… yada yada yada.  But then I sat in the tail end of rush hour traffic to get home after the movie.  And was cut off multiple times, flipped off and screamed at for simply being polite and merging when I found an opening, rather than zooming all the way up –as far as I could, and FORCING the other lane to stop to let me merge in.  Asshats.  I am angry all over again just thinking of it.  ugh.    And the longer I sat in traffic and the more I got honked at, the more I thought about everything else that I am currently not okay with in my life…

So by the time I got home, I was pissy.  My house is a wreck.  I still don’t have everything unpacked or put together – because when since the moment we moved in I have had this, that or the other to do every fucking day and the TWO days I have had to stay home, I just wanted to chill – because I hadn’t had a chance to do so since Christmas.  And the dogs wanted to crawl up inside my ass and hibernate.  And Robbie wanted to watch 24 because he missed it the night before because I was at the UT game.  And my Farmville crops were about to wither.  And I needed to shave.  And the boys wanted to talk about shows and festivals we cannot afford to go to.  And then give me advice on how I should spend my vacation time every year for the next twenty.

dinosaurs make me happy. dinosaurs in space?!? my week, she is made.

There were a lot of deep breaths taken.

And then Robbie realized I was pissy.

And he made me a cheeseburger.  And brought me a coke.  And went to get my pills when I sat down on the couch and realized I’d forgotten them in the computer room.  And then just sat with me and watched TV.

And that is why I’m marrying him.

Any 8 year can tell you what it means, if you aren’t sure.

*ahem*

Xamine Your Zipper.

Now, bear with me for a minute while we skinny dip in a sea of metaphor.

Wow.  That was just mean.  I apologize.  I couldn’t help myself though.  Stay with me.  It IS game day and I might have had some vodka.  I’m getting somewhere though, I promise.

*ahem*

Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  I have spent these last twenty-five days reflecting on my life.  Examining the last year in minute detail as I strove to find things to be grateful for that began with certain letters.  I found, as mentioned in the S blog, that there was much more than I expected.

Some days though, it was a struggle – and I let all my ugly bits hang out for the world to see.  One day, in particular, I neglected to ‘Xamine {my} Zipper.’  And instead just spewed ugly in your eyes.

Yeah, I went there.

I told you – a SEA of metaphor here today ladies and gents.

A zipper holds back, hides, the ’shameful’ parts of us.  The parts society says should be kept private.  That society has insisted are Private for long, that it became a euphemism.  Parts of us that, frankly, no one else wants to see without advanced warning, and then may still put the kibosh on the idea of letting all that hang out in the breeze…

My biggest lesson in the last year has been to examine that line.  As I’ve quit smoking and re-learned to manage my emotions.  As I got in trouble for blogging at work because my words hurt someone’s feelings (again.)  My lesson has been learning when to share…and when to simply sit quietly.  To think about WHY I want to say something, and try to do so before saying it.  To determine if I SHOULD unzip… in that moment…that situation.  To evaluate if the good it does me outweighs the harm it could cause another.  And then to act accordingly.

I have learned that when I do this – I find my Xanadu.  I am the ruler of my little slice of life, with a pretty palace near a sacred river.  But it is every bit as fleeting as Coleridge’s Opium-induced vision…  For though I am older than I was, I am not yet wise – and I find myself grateful for my follies – because I truly believe they are what is keeping me Young (at heart.)

And I am grateful for the Zipper that separates it all.

Ah. Life.  That awesome, beautiful, FUN thing that always seems to get in the way of my blogging now.

It happens.

Today is, first, for T.

And T is for Teridactyl.

I stole the nickname from DeAnne.

Teri is my rock.  My family away from my family.  She adopted me.  And let her mom adopt me too.  Until I met Robbie and we made our own little family – Teri’s family WAS my family.  I went to her Aunt&Uncle’s house for holidays.  I was around so often her entire extended family were convinced we were dating – and well enough liked that her Grandmother told them all to shut it – and that it didn’t matter if she was.

My own family wouldn’t accept me if I were gay, but Teri’s did.

Teri is Tacky with me.  We are hateful, evil, malicious little bitches when we are Together – and it makes me happy.  She is my cohort for all things horrible-horror-movie related.  She is my Mistress of Bubbles, even though it means she has to wear a dress and have her picture taken.  She will be the first person I go to to help decide if I can pull off this bikini thing I have planned or not when the time to actually order an outfit comes around.

She tells me when I need to calm down and lower my voice, and is one of only three people I will listen to when they say it.

She bought me butter cookies.

…and an animatronic Triceratops.  <3

She stays in North West Austin once a week, driving all the way home to South Central Austin – even though she has her own cable now and doesn’t NEED me to watch So You Think You Can Dance.

She loves my dogs and doesn’t mind that one smells bad and the other drools.

She has drug my drunk ass out to her car, and driven my incoherent, rambling self wherever I needed to be to crash, and let me borrow a shirt to sleep in more times than I remember.  And brought me aspirin at least twice before I passed out.  AND I think she actually, physically, changed my clothes for me once.  I don’t have words for how much it means to me that she stuck around despite all that.

Teridactyl’s are the bestest best friend that ever best-friended…  and she somehow maintains TWO of us.  (Side note:  Sarah gets an honorary mention for sharing her Teridactyl with me.)  And her hectic family life/responsibilities as well.

And she lets me lick her when there are cameras around.  Is there really anything else to say after that?