"C"

So I have had a really hard week, last Saturday a really good friend of mine killed himself, life was just too much for him I guess, something pushed him over this ledge that I don't think anyone knew he was even close to and boom, gone. It's horrible and it's sad, and I hate him for it, I hate that he didn't talk to me or anyone else for that matter, that the last time I saw him I didn't tell him how important he was because I didn't realize that he didn't know it, that he as an adult choose this way out of life leaving his wife to deal with their kids, and the rest of us to deal with ours, to try and explain why this person they looked up to and respected would do something that just a few months ago he was saying was bad and selfish. What happened, what caused him to flip his stance and to shake so many people to their cores... I wish I had the answers, but I know I never will, I like to think that if he had been in his right mind then he would never have done such a thing, that it was this split second decision he made randomly when he could see no other way out, but unfortunately it doesn't look like that was the case. It seems that he was thinking about this for a few days at least, that he had to build his courage towards it, I think that makes it worse for me, for those of us who cared for him, because it means that none of us were enough. I know I wasn't, but I shouldn't have had to be, his kids should have been what stopped him, and if the thought of them couldn't, then nothing else would have. 

I am still so in shock, tomorrow is the funeral and I still don't know how this could have happened, how this amazing, kind, smart and compassionate man could do this, I am hoping that after tomorrow, I can start to move on, that the funeral will give me some sort of closure, though I know really it won't, the only person who could explain it to me is dead, so it is just another in a long line of things I am going to have to deal with, I am going to have to accept and move on from, but it is going to be so hard, he was a huge part of my life, there were weeks I saw more of him than I did my husband. All these places just feel empty now...

Anyways, I am just going to share a few of my memories of him here, memories I think are important, memories that I will want to look back on one day, when maybe the pain isn't so fresh.

So I met this guy through scouts, his oldest son and my oldest son were in Cubs together, and at first I didn't really like him, he was rough on his kid, and wanted perfection from me and my den leader partner, and I dealt with him as little as possible, which was not a whole lot until he stepped up and decided to help with things, then you realize that this man knows what he is talking about and that he was all grr because my co den leader was a bitch, and I just sort of got stuck in the middle because I had to deal with her bitch or no, and I think he thought I would take her side, needless to say, it didn't end up that way. His mom died, and his dad got sick, and he needed help with stuff, and I can't stand to see people suffer, and I had time, and no one else was doing anything to help, so I choose to, and what I ended up finding was this awesome person with walls almost as thick as my own. I broke down his walls pretty quickly once I tried, and once I realized that I could just be me with him, which was part of his issue with me anyways, the fact that for whatever reason he could see through my facade, not many people can, or at least not many people care it is there. I got to know him and his wife pretty well, I learned to understand who and what they were and they slowly learned the same about me, we became friends, I don't have many friends, so that is a big thing for me. Anyways, now that we have some background, now onto the moments...

The first moment I want to mention is embarrassing for me, it was last year at a bridging ceremony, it was supposed to be outside, and it was so freaking cold, so I was wearing a random shirt and my jacket, no bra because I was not going to have to take my jacket off. Well, it became so cold they decided to move the ceremony inside, and I got really hot, so I took off my jacket and then wanted to make sure that I was not indecent, so I asked him, he was one of only two people there that I felt comfortable enough with to ask this, but he said nope, can't tell, looks good, so I continued taking photos and doing what I had to do, a little while later he called me over and said, well, you can't tell in the front, but it is obvious in the back, it was a really low shirt in the back, but I just smiled and slugged, I was good with that, the front was what was important...we laughed it off, later that night I went on a date with my husband. We went to watch a movie and decided to eat dinner at Applebee's, someone had left a handmade Tardis out front, so we laughed, took a photo with it and I posted it on FB, so what does C do, he messages me wondering if I had any luck finding my missing bra! It was hilarious. Then I had to explain to my husband why he was asking me about my bra, and later me C and his wife were all laying about my hubby being upset over something so small...

Another moment I want to talk happened not that long ago, less than a month for sure, we were at a pack event, and C's back hurt really bad so he was laying down in one of the rooms that was dark, his wife and I were going in to check on him and help him up if needed and I don't remember what was said exactly, something about us being worried about him and he commented something about how lucky he was to have to hot women checking up on him, that was an important moment for me because I am not a small women, and my weight is a huge thing for me, I don't find myself attractive at all, so for someone, especially someone so important to me to comment about me like that, it was awesome, he almost made me cry right there, because not even my husband comments like that to me randomly, I know that he thinks I am pretty, i can see it in the way he looks at me and how his body reacts to mine, but I don't understand why, so to have someone just randomly spout it off, it was a wow moment, he gave me more confidence, I have been trying to loose weight for a while now, and I have been succeeding and he has ways been there to make sure I know that he was proud of me for it and that he could tell, I felt like in that sense he was my biggest supporter and I am going to miss that and him so much.

The last thing I want to write currently also happened just two weeks ago, my son had a five mile hike, which we did, and then we had to hang out and be rescued,d well when we were walking it wasn't cold at all, but after sitting for approximately 30 minutes waiting to be "rescued" by the older boys who needed some first aide practice, I was freezing, after we walked back to the parking lot we were just hanging around talking out all the scenarios and stuff and I was leaning on C's side because I was freezing by then, so he took off his jacket and threw it over my shoulders even though he was only wearing a t shirt, it was so warm. I gave it back once I got back up to my normal temperature, but that was just the way he was, it didn't matter that he was going to be cold, just that I currently was so he gave me his jacket, he was truly a good man. 

I am sure this is a subject I will probably need more time to share with, but right now I need to stop and pull myself back together, it was nice to share though, nice to have someplace I could put this, I just wish I didn't need to put anything here, I just wish things were different. Yesterday I made his wife laugh, it was a short laugh but it was something, and it was all I could do, and all I can do for him right now, is be there for her and the kids and make sure they know that I love them and that he loved them even if he was lost and didn't realize it that that time. It's been a bad week, but hopefully it will get better, it has to get better right? 

Anyways, as always thanks for listening, reading, whatever it is that you do. 

Funerals

I hate funerals, I know for many they are a time to relive good memories, to remember, but I have never found joy in those types of situations, in large groups, trying to say goodbye and to share that, which is so, so personal, it is not something that I can do, not comfortably at least.  But today I had to go to a funeral, sorta, you see I could not go to the funeral because I had a super important meeting, but I still had to make sure that the family knew I was thinking of them. It was a person who was once a friend, I had known her and been friends with her from when we were two til sometime in high school, when I fell apart, she left, and I can't blame her. But I think she didn't realize that I had to go her fathers funeral, but not for her, for her mom, because when my dad died, her mom was one of only two people who hunted me out of my hiding place to make sure I knew she was thinking of me, that she was there if I needed her, and that is something that even now means so much to me, the fact that this women who I hadn't seen in years did that, it touched me, so I had to go, I had to go for her.  Sorry, I just had to share that, had to get it off my chest, share it somewhere that it would be around, because it is jot something I do, share well in groups...

Nightfall

So Halloween is my favorite time of year.  And ever since my hubby got back from Africa we have gone, that makes this year, year 6. The first time we went it was literally the same day he got off of the bus from that deployment. We were having issues, I had made some massive mistakes that year, and even before he left our marriage was falling apart around us, that night, we had gone back to the hotel and we just sat and stared at each other, neither of us knew what to say to the other, things were horribly awkward. After around an hour of that, we realized that we needed an out, so we looked to see what was going on and there was Nightfall. That night helped us realize that we were still us, the friendship that had originally brought us together was still there, and the attraction that had seemed gone for so long was also still burning under all of the crap that we had allowed to come between us. Nightfall was where we were finally able to start talking again, about the past and the future, about the pain and mistakes, but most importantly about the love. I remember a few trivial things about that night, the fact that the mine haunted house tripped me co platelets out the first time I went through it because I was pretty tipsy, that the theme behind all of it was pretty awesome, but really what I remember the most about that night is my husband and the love that ended up eating away all of the awkward between us.

That first year we actually ended up going twice, because we went back on Halloween with Lil Man and Kary and Beth. We learned that little Michael really hates haunted houses, that I cannot be hypnotized, and that Halloween makes it so insanely busy that you are lucky to do everything once if that...

The next few years we kept up the tradition, just the two of us going and hanging out together, enjoying getting scared and scaring people in return, we have watched as the haunted houses have changed, the stories have evolved, some building on their predessesors, some starting all new storylines, we have seen things shut down and then reopen for a charge. But we have always done it together. Then a few years ago we started to invite other people to come with us, people who were important to us, because Nightfall is important to us. We had chosen to share it with others, and in some ways that made it better, and in others it has made it worse. Because these people don't necessarily get why this place is important and why we would want to share it with them, to them it is something trivial, but to us it can never be that because it is a new beginning, a place to really look back on and say that is where we started to fix us, so when people you care about, people you want to share this with, blow you off, it hurts, and it annoys, and it makes you question why you invited them to begin with. This year we invited a lot of people, some because we love them and wanted to share something with them, some because they are in a bad place and we wanted to try and share something awesome with them, we wanted to help them in our own way, and some because when you invite others you have an obligation to invite them as well. None of the cheer me up people or thankfully the obligation people choose to come, maybe it is not something that makes them smile, which is cool, everyone is different, but out of the people we love, most of them said yeah, we will be there, and then one after another they each called that day and backed out for various reasons, which is fine, life happens right, I get that, but when one of them has always backed out, I was expecting it, but when the others all got together with another friend the next day, particularly the ones who were too sick or whatnot to come, that just pisses me off and hurts me all at the same time. So today I figured FUCK them, next year I am inviting no one but Jenn, she gets it, that it's important to us, so she will always have an open invitation, but I am done with the rest of them...

Now onto some good memories, no more venting about this... These will be done randomly, as I think about them, just like most of the stuff here, and I don't necessarily know what happened when, just that it happened there...

First I want to tell you about the time Michael and I got our faces painted like zombies, we did it on a whim, the lady was by the carousel, and we figured why not, it was pretty awesome because after that we would freak people out, only on purpose once, the rest was just because we were there. 😄

The once was when we were in a haunted house, it was a zombie apocalypse themed haunted house, so we fit right in, and we were in there with only one other couple, it was set up as a maze, and we had been in it before, so we kept separated and surrounding the couple so at first they assumed we were sticking close because we were freaked out like they were, but then they looked at our faces and thought we were part of the scare, it was a blast, that was also the night that I got to get my picture taken with Pappy!

I guess that means I should tell you about Pappy, as anyone who knows you can tell you, I am not very fond of clowns, and Pappy is a homicidal clown, so you would think that I would hate him, but no, I adore Pappy, he is a great character, as are his roommates in prison in the skits they do, they are just hilarious, something we always look forward to watching.

This year was really special to me because I got to go up on stage twice, which for me is sorta a big deal because I tend to get stage fright quite easily, the first time I volunteered, it was for the Strange Family Circus, which is a sideshow act, which in and of itself was awesome because I have always really enjoyed sideshows and to have the opportunity to see one in person was pretty darn amazing! Anyways I volunteered not knowing what was going to happen, in the end ingot to stand on a half naked man while he was laying on a pile of broken glass, I am so not a lightweight, but it was really a cool experience! The second time I was not volunteering, it was for the magic show and I was just sitting in back enjoying the performance when the magician walked up and asked if I would be willing to go up on stage, of course I said yes even though my nerves were getting  to me badly. The first time there was only five of us in the audience, so it was not a big deal, but for this one there was considerably more people... Needless to say up I went and I got to perform a card trick that involved a gun, it was embarrassing because it was set up to make it seem as though I was consistently missing the shot with anon loaded gun, and that of course made me the brunt of a few jokes. But in the end I got to bow, which I guess I do like a professional because someone came up and asked me if I was planted for the show, and I got an autographed DVD from the guy and his assistant/wife which my boys will love to watch! And I did not hyperventilate on that stage, even though it was close for a moment or two, so yay! 

💀😈👻🎃

So I guess that is all I have for the moment, thanks for listening/reading whatever! It has helped me to feel a lot better! 

Depression

So I guess this post is not so much about memories. It should probably be on a different blog, but there are memories involved, so it sorta fits here. 

First off I want to warn you that this is probably not going to be like great for some people, it might even be triggering, which I do not want, I just feel the need to share, so yeah, don't read if it might damage you, That would do no one any good.

I guess I feel the need to write this because I am getting depressed again, which is weird, because for a long time it seemed to have gone away, or at least to have not been to bad, but these last few years have been hell, quite literally hell, lots of ups, but way more downs, really really bad downs.  I should probably also preface this with the fact that I am manic depressive, so up and downs are pretty normal for me, but up until a couple years ago I had been mostly enjoying the ups, the downs were few and far between and not very long lasting, it was nice, then last years it reversed, and I have been struggling ever since...

Since this is about memories, I will head back, the first time I can actively remember being depressed was my freshman year of high school. I did not understand what was happening, I just tried really hard to hide it because I did not want to upset my mom, she had enough going on with my dad, I did not need to add to it.  Only a couple of people ever caught it, Joe, he was able to see right through me, and Steven who I let in, I needed someone to talk to, then he betrayed me, not really, but it I was what it felt like at the time, he talked to a counselor who then talked to me which was exactly what he should have done, not his fault it didn't help matters, only made them worse because the I felt as though I had no one to turn to.  I was just so sad, and I felt as though no one got me, which was mostly true back then, I have always been a strikingly unique individual and at that age I did not know how to turn it down, now to fit in as necessary, so it made things hard. Anyways, I just wanted to die, not by my own hand, but if the world had collapsed in on me, I would not have actively tried to save myself.  That is a hard thing to admit, but it is the truth...

Before high school I think I was showing warning signs maybe? Let's just say I wrote very morbid poetry lots of stuff about death, but I had also just lost like half of my close family in a two or three year time frame, so I think most people blamed it on that. 

Yeah so by the end of my freshman year, the guy I totally crushed on for years, Steven, had betrayed me, and I was actively hoping for a meteor to crash into me, and I started to cut, I was never very obvious about it, I cut the bottom of my feet, it took them forever to heal, and walking on them reminded me everyday that I could still feel, even if all I felt at that time was pain both inside and out.  I sent a lot of time trying to find God during this time as well, needless to say that never really helped.  Then one day, it went away, and I was back to my normal happy go lucky self, a little more happy probably then was preferred by most people, but that was normal, right?

This cycle went on all through high school, and really I am still not sure of anyone ever noticed how extreme it was, hell, I didn't even notice it really. I opened up about it to very few people, and never all of it. Like NO ONE knew I cut. Eventually I stopped cutting, but that was after I found drugs. I spent a couple of years smoking as much pot as I could get my hands on, so no not really any heavy drugs, I only ever did pot, and once, just once I tried acid, it was graduation night for the class of 2000, and it was pretty fantastic, but it wasn't my thing. I wanted to be numb, and pot did that for me, it was blissfully awesome how numb I was about everything during that time.  It caused me to do some stupid things, hurt people who I cared about, but I didn't really care enough back then to get that. It also screwed my memory a bit, I went from having an awesome photographic memory, to having only a sorta awesome one. Which I could explain in more detail but I won't. Lol, what it did do was allow me to forget, about feeling, about life, I just sorta floated through that time and it was awesome in its own way.

Then one day my best friend and the love of my life said that enough was enou and we made a pact, he would quit smoking cigarettes if I would quit smoking pot, so I did, and then soon after I got pregnant, and that sealed it for me, no more drugs, not even the low key ones, I would not do that to my kid. It might have been better of I did though...

After my son was born, my depression came back, not post partem either, just my own brand of hell.  It would come and go, the manic times were great, I could go and do so much with him, it was a blast, but it could not last, eventually the sadness would hit, and I just wanted, no needed to be left alone, and how do you explain that to a little kid, especially when I went from having endless patience one day to none the next and I didn't even know how to explain it to myself. It effected him, the way I would shut down, now could it not, one day he went from being this amazing kid to this mopey sad thing, to a person I no longer recognized, and the sad part is that it seemed like one day to me but it wasn't, it was happening over months and I was so lost in myself that I didn't even notice it until it was too late, I ruined my son, well not exactly, I still have the most awesome kid ever, it's just that he isn't what he was, even now, years later I killed something in him, I made him grow up faster than he should off all because of depression. That is something I will live with for the rest of my life, and it is something I have worked hard to try and fix, and while I know it is not really fixable, I also think that he is somewhere in the middle now, I will never know what he was going to be, but I am so proud of what and who he is. I also have tried exceptionally hard to not let a similar thing happen to my youngest son, and so far I have manged that nicely, I will always regret though that my oldest lost something in him because of me and my issues.

Back to the story, my depression got worse after my husband left to go overseas and I did some drastic things, things I am notyet ready to talk about to find myself again, I had been so lost, and while I will always be thankful to my mom for stepping in a taking care of my son when I couldn't properly, for helping me to see what I had missed, I also wish that she had been able to see me as the flawed human I am and not whatever image it is that she has in her mind. I also really love my Mil, but she made it so much harder than it needed to be, I know that she was trying to help, at least I think she was, but just pointing out people's faults is not necessarily the best thing for them. Needless to say there was a time where I was really fucked up, in a lot of ways, but it got through it and am a better person for all of those things that happened then.  I learned to accept myself and my flaws and my issues, and I learned how to work with them and not succumb to them.  And most importantly I learned how to talk about them to the people I care most about, because then I can be honest and not try and hide it to protect them, it works better now.

After my youngest son was born I rode the most amazing high, my husband and I manged to work our issues which is again a story for another day, and I ran mostly manic, with only a day or two of depression every couple of months... Then sometime last year, I want to say Mayish, a really bad down spell hit me, I seriously was depressed for months, I did not want to do anything, I just wanted to be left alone. I worked though it, I had obligations, but it took everything in me to do that, and some times I snapped, everyone does. It didn't fully fade until January of this year, yes there were good days in there, normal days, and days where I could not sit still because there was so much in me trying to get out, but mostly it was dark. I hated it, but if got through it, but now, months later I can feel that darkness descending on me again, and I really don't want to fall. I enjoy the manic, it lets me do everything that I have to, endless supplies of energy is awesome, sometimes the spontaneousness is not so great, but my husband is good at keeping me grounded for the most part at least. But he is helpless in the darkness, I loose myself in my mind for days at a time just functioning on autopilot but never really being all there and it sucks so much energy from not only me but from those around me, that it really just sucks.

And I feel it coming back, but this has helped some, so maybe I can hold it at bay a while longer.  Anyways, thanks for reading, I hope that I did not bring you down, I just really felt the need to share...

Goodnight

Concerts

So I have not been to that many concerts in life, three that I attended, and two that I got to see from afar.

The first one was Lillithfair in Phx, it was for one of my friends birthdays, and it was July, we were 14, it was brutal, like 110 degrees outside for most of it, and we had like no money for anything, even water.  But we still had a blast, we got to see Sarah Mcgloughlin, Natalie Merchant, and a whole lot of other people, though seeing as it was an outdoor concert, even the performers were having a hard time, I remember one of them actually had to stop in the middle of a song for water at one point and another almost passed out from the heat.  It went from I want to say 4pm till around 9pm.  And the only reason we survived was because the people next to us shared there water, they also shared the smoke from whatever drugs they were smoking, which gave us a bitching headache, but for the water it was worth it.  Also there were no adults with us, just us two, which was freeing and terrifying at the same time, there were well over 1000 people there, so insane! We left the concert about 30 minutes early to head to the meeting point which was like 1/2 a mile away, and ended up waiting there for like an hour because her dap ad got to the gate 15 minutes early to head us off, which obviously didn't work. So we missed out on all the freebies they were handing out, but in the end it was still an awesome experience and a fun concert.

The next two concerts would be the ones I got to see from afar, I live really close to an Army base, and every summer they do a concert series that runs thru, when I was in high school with all the stuff going on with my dad we could not afford to go, but they were help at the air field, so we would park close by and listen to the music, it was fun, we heard Aerosmith and Jeff Foxworthy and friends, just hangin out dancing around, but with out the loud and the crowds, so it worked. 

The next concert I went to was actually the last day of Country Thunder in Florence, we got to hear so many great bands. Plus some local one, the only band I remember for sure is Trick Pony, though I am pretty sure we also caught Trace Adkins. I more remember the experience, it was hot, but not insane hot like it would have been a few months more into summer, and there were some awesome vendors hanging around I got the best cowboy hat that year, it had roses burned onto it.  I went with my buddy Rich because my hubby did not want to go, he is not a country music fan, and because Rich is one of our best friends, so he is someone that I can do anything with! We had a blast and it is definitely something that is on my to do again list!

The last concert that I got tong onto was just this past May, it was A Great Big World, in Tucson and it was by far my favorite of all of them, there were not a ton of people, so it was quite intimate, it was in one of the coolest historic theaters in the area, the Rialto, and I am just in love with their music. They are most definitely one of my fave bands right now.  It was the perfect loudness and they also brought along a friend of theirs from New York, Greg Holden, and he was fantastic as well, his music really spoke to me. The concert was a birthday present from my hubby, so he had to come, and while they are not his fave band, he appreciates them and also had a decent time if not a great time. There was this guy thoug that was loud and annoying about Say Something,though now we lau because he so made a fool out of his dumb self, yelling the way he was about "his jam." Seriously though,was like the best concert ever! If you have never seen them in person you need to, because they are great on the radio and CDs and such, but they are freaking mind blowing live!!!

Anyways. The reason I decided to write about concerts tonight is because I am trying to figure out how to get to a concert festival in September, there are 4 people/bands I would love to see live, not counting a bunch of great ones that I would not sell my soul for, so here's hoping I will be able to add an addendum to this post at a later date! I guess that's it for now, have a great and musical weekend!

Daddy

So my dad died a long time ago now, after what was a very long drawn out illness.  He had dementia caused by his exposure to Agent Orange while he was stationed in Vietnam. It started out small, he would forget things lying around, his keys, or his wallet, he would forget where he was going while driving, things that you can look the other way about.  This was when I was in fourth, forth grade, so I was quite young, but old enough to realize that something was not right. My mom made him go to the doctors and get checked out, he passed with flying colors like there was any way he wouldn't at that point. He had an IQ of 186, at this point it had probably dropped 10-15 points, he was still a genius. When I was in sixth grade he quit his job, said he was bored with it, he went to work instead as a night stalker at KMart, something he just could not seem to grasp, that was when we realized how much he had lost.  We took him up to Tucson to go and visit a neurologist the same neurologist who had a removed a brain tumor back when I was 2-3 years old, a tumor they never figured out I might add. They ran tests and there was nothing there. By the time I hit 7th grade my dad could no longer hold a job, but he was still getting his Army retirement, and my mom was working at a restaurant, he was going back and fourth to the VA frequently, but we were still keeping him at home. Then over a couple of weeks everything just got worse, he told us he was going to bed, the next thing we know he was driving around in his car, then he didn't come back for over an hour, my mom went to look for him and found him parked around the corner from our house, he had gotten lost while looking for the bedroom. Another morning we had to take one of the animals to the vet, when we came home we walked right into a gun, he was back in Vietnam in his head, luckily he recognized us as his, part if his unit I guess. My mom flipped, confiscated the gun, then had to wait until a friend came over to unload it, she did not know how to do so, something that was soon remedied. At this point my mom was still working I stayed at home with my dad and would call the neighbor if something happened, she would come and help us figure it out, but soon I had to call more often than not, so my mom started to take us all to work with her, her boss was sympathetic, but it wa still something that could not be done over an extended period of time. By the time I finished 7th grade my dad was in a nursing home. 

Now lets backtrack a little bit, first of my dad was a pretty big man, I already told you how amazingly smart he was, but he had also just done so much in his life.  He spoke 6 languages fluently, and another 2-3 marginally well, maybe not conversationally, but well enough to be understood and to understand in turn. He spent 6 years stationed in German and another 6 stationed in Japan, while there he was a Sumo wrestler. The Army wanted him for his mind, they were not to picky on his build. When he met and decided to marry my mom he decided it was also time to get out of the Army, he did not beleive that the military and family mixed. He got out with something like 27 years under his belt, bought the house I still live in today and settled down, soon though they were told that my mom was not going to be able to have children, she has some sort of issue with her uterus, I was their little miracle baby, 3 years after they got married and 2 after they were told kids were not going to happen, as you may imagine I was pretty spoiled. My dad's nickname for me was Sprout. And I was for sure his princess, he had wanted a boy, but was really quite happy with me because I am one hell of a tomboy! There is not a tree on our property that I have not climbed, and I used to go from tree to roof and play up there all of the time when I was younger. Every year during spring break my dad and I would go to the Sonoran Desert Museum, and sometimes we would also go to Colassal Caves, sometimes my mom would come, sometimes she wouldn't, it was our thing. We also always ate at Whataburger that day, it was his favorite fast food restaurant and he was known to randomly drive the 11/2 hours necessary to get to the closest one from our house when he craved them. One time my mom got jury duty for someone like a month, she was gone forever it felt like, but it was awesome because we ate out every night at one of two restaurants, both Oriental, it was super yummy...

Now back to some of the harder stuff again, my dad spent the rest of his life in nursing homes after he went. First he started off with one here in town, but they were just not equipped to deal with him, even though he was in a locked ward, he kept breaking the door codes, which of course was something that he had done in the Army. So he was moved to Tucson, into the VA, where he stayed for a couple of years. He shifted between wards, at first we were allowed to take him out and go to the cafe or to the courtyard, which was nice for me because even in 8th grade I was pretty active and being stuck inside for numerous hours a day did not sit well with me, even with my love of reading I preferred to do so outside, plus it was never easy to spend a lot of time with someone who did not remember you.  One of my most painful and yet relieving memories of him is this one time, I don't remember where my mom was, but he was telling be about his daughter, she was 2, and he really missed her, but he hoped that she would grow into a beauty like me, and someone who was kind enough to sit and listen to strangers go on about things they cared about.  It was bittersweet, it hurt so much, but it was nice to know I was in there somewhere, because at that point he hadn't mentioned or remembered me and my mom for quite a few months at that point, and also because because as weird as it seems there was approval there, if he wanted his daughter to grow up and be like how I was, that meant if he was who he was supposed to be he would have approved of me, he would have liked me.

Obviously growing up not without a father, but taking care of and watching your father just disappear, was not an easy thing to do. I was always a bit strange anyways, hard not to be with how I was raised, my dad always told me to be myself, not to change for anyone, and that I could do anything, absolutely anything I put my mind to. And of course I was raised to respect my elders to an extreme point with my aunt and grandmothers. So it was always such and extreme and yet interesting duality. When out with the family I was wonderfully behaved, and I got to experience so much because of it, at home I ruled and I knew it. In school it was really difficult to find my place, I had to listen to the teacher, they were the ones in charge, I had to not compromise myself with the other kids which of course did mot make me popular, I was the teachers pet, and I did not bend really well, and most importantly I was bored out of my mind. By the time I was in 5th grade my dad had taught me how to do Algebra and Statistics, I was helping one of my uncles study to become a doctor, and my teachers disliked the way I wrote because I used words they did mot understand. I was reading well beyond my school level, and during the Stanford 9's I tested post high school level I. Every subject but English, I was running a 9th grade level there. School pretty much sucked. So my dad came up with a plan, he found a school for me in Atlanta, I would graduate high school somewhere between ages 14 and 16, and then we would travel Germany until I hit 18 and the I would come home for college, U of A of course.  Obviously that did not happen, middle school was hell, high school was not as bad, I finally found people who got me, people who were not willing to change any more than I was. It was great, but I was still bored so I stopped going to class, and I started getting depressed, I started cutting, not obviously, but frequently, the bottom of my feet, I could feel it so long there, then I fell into drugs, and daddy just got worst, he stopped being able to get out of bed, no more talking, he was gone. I lost myself for a while, I stopped visiting him, it was just too much. I graduated high school, even with my less than stellar attendance record I still graduated in the top 25% of my class! I wonder what would happen if I had tried, if I had cared, I didn't really care about anything for a long time, then I met Michael, we became friends and fell in love, we had a baby, at 18, and I managed to get one picture of him with my dad, who died in May of that year. It was a relieve, he would never have wanted to live like that, nor would he have wanted to put us through all that he did. But it also sucked, I mean my dad was gone that was hard and I sort of just kept moving. I did not participate with the family at the funeral or wake, I just played cards in the back of the room with my hubby, I really did not want anyone's pity or their memories, I just wanted it all to be over.

All of this though, everything that happened help  to shape me into who I am, which I am good with, I like me, and I like where I am in life. Do I wish that I would have cared more, or that the trip to Germany would have happened, heck yeah, but then I would not have met my husband, I would not have the two most amazing kids ever, and I cannot imagine my life without them. I have the most amazing step father, he helped to make me who I am as much as my father did, I am truly blessed and after all that I have been through I know how lucky I am, so I know not to take advantage of it. 

Dancing

Hi y'all,

So I used to dance, I do not remember for how long, but I want to say somewhere between 6 and 8 years.  I started out with Jazz and tap, then later on added on clogging and Polynesian, though if only did the Polynesian for a couple of months, I did jazz for all but one year, tap for two or three and clogging from my second year on through my final, it was my favorite, it was fast paced just fun.  Jazz was ok, but I wanted to do like Bbop stuff, but there was not anything like that available here at that time, so I did what I could.  My 4th or 5th year there my jazz class had the dance of the year, the one everyone wanted to be in, Michael Jackson's BAD!!! It was a great dance, we all learned to moonwalk, it was probably one of the ones that I remember best as well! 

I don't think I was ever like the best dancer ever, I think I was probably mediocre at best, but if enjoyed it for the most part.  I quit because I wanted to play sports in middle school, and my dance teacher refused to allow me to do both, so I quit.  I think she thought I would stay if given an ultimatum, but that has never worked for me, if told not to do something, it is usually the first thing I will do! Within reason of course.  But I missed it, and wanted to back, but by then my dad had gotten sick, and we couldn't afford it anymore, so no more dance.  When I was in high school they had a dance class/team, but by then I had sorta given up on it, hell I had pretty much given up on everything, just making it through each day was hell, without having to worry about a ton if extra stuff to do...

It's funny though, because I had never wanted to dance in the beginning, I had wanted to do gymnastics, but I was to tall, and to big boned, so it was not something that my parents would allow me to do, they did not want my confidence to be upset.  But now as an adult I really wish I had stuck with it, I miss it, having that control over my body, and I also miss the fitness level it drive me to strive towards.  But one thing even after many years of public performances I do not miss is the stage fright, I could have been the best in the class, but I always had to start in back because all those people would freeze me, I to this day do not remember how I managed to not run off the stage at every performance, but actually do the dance. I would just desert to my head and let me body do what it had practiced I guess, but you would think after all the years of dance I did I would overcome it, yet I never have, even now when I have to get up and talk to a crowd I freeze up, or just read from a paper so I don't, but that is bad speaking skills, so I freeze up for a second and just hope I do it when a break is necessary, or cover it well, one day maybe.  I hope though that I can go back to dance, it is a part of me in a way I never would have guessed when I was younger, and I want to find it again, I'm tired of missing it!