On being a mom of four

Are there any other black professional moms in the District with four fucking kids?

fuck you and everyone else too

Rejection. Disrespect. Dislike. Not cool. Not fake enough. Awkward. Too real. Bitchy. High expectations. Knows too much. Reads too much. Into people. Understands them too much. Sick of it. Sick of not being understood. To love me is to know me. To know me is to understand me. Not very many people do, and I’m tired of being fucking underappreciated. I am not living up to my full potential and don’t know what the fuck it will take for me to get there. I’m fucking sick of this shit. Sick of it. I’m fucking thirty years old. No, I’m fucking thirty one, and I’ll be thirty two next month. What the fuck? When will I be respected for anything? Do I have to be a fucking asshole to get anything done or a total fucking obnoxious whore? I hate this shit. I really do. Fuck it all to hell. Fuck !!!!!!!!!!!!!

shitty eyes

Loneliness is non-negotiable. It is the mark of independence. and bravery. It is also the positive chemical reaction between alcohol, when my brain tells me to drink more. It is the feeling of feigned happiness. Alcohol, that is.

It is the feeling of actual happiness. It comes and it goes. It disappears during a rare, random, and unplanned moment. I recognize it in the look that is not fleeting. It is interested, but not sexual or lustful. It is non-judgmental. It is engagement for the sake of engagement. I recognize it, because I savor those moments. And realize that all other moments are moments in which I am lonely.

There times when I have not felt lonely.

Like meeting my husband for the first time in a nightclub, finding out that we smoked the same cigarettes, and talking with him for hours, while music played, people got drunk, our friends went away, and life went on.

In the car, when my daughter seeks my advice about the deeper meaning of the more mundane and less-contemplated conundrums, irritations, and pleasures of everyday life.

In the car, when my son or daughter recognizes something I do, or at home, when they possessively claim something that is mine, or protect me in an argumene with my husband, and call me Mommy. I do not feel lonely when my children call me Mommy.

Talking to my mother or father about things I wouldn't tell my friends and things I wouldn't have told my mother or father ten years ago. Feeling good, and loved,almost euphoric, as if I am talking to a new love interest, or a cool new friend, about something cool that only they understand and that we have in common. Actually taking and savoring their advice. Really understanding (and acknowledging, if only internally) that they really do know what the F they are takling about.

Drinking by myself.

Watching foodnetwork (although I always feel lonely and desparate when I am cooking--absolutely do not know why).

The few minutes when I meet up with my pretend friends and they seem really excited to see me and have no idea how lonely I am because of the fact that I'm not really that much a part of their lives but they are a huge part of each other's lives. The moment when it feels as if that is truly a non-recognizable issue for them (or that they do not recognize that it is an issue for me). Kind of like a child who tells you your breath smells but then gives you the most genuine, biggest hug ever, and shows you a sweater they knitted for you.

Receiving texts from my sister, telling me how much she misses and loves me.

Loneliness is the absence of happiness and hopefulness and understanding and empathy and sympathy and respect.

I want it, but I don't know how to get. it. The absence of loneliness. Death has crossed my mind, but that's not an option. This is not new.

I think I'm just going to give up and enjoy the absence of loneliness during the moments described above and try to make them happen more frequently, as opposed to trying to make more incidents like that happen. I can't wait to travel to California and get my nails done and get Mexican food and get drunk with my sister.

Middle of Nowhere.

Sometimes, I feel like I am dying. I kind of feel that way now, while I’m at my parents’ house, especially when I stumble upon a piece of who I used to be, am confronted with photographs of the past, and subsequently become overwhelmed with a disturbing and deeply painful conglomeration of nostalgia and self-loathing.

I don’t know how it happened. I used to be really awkward and socially inept, except for those rare few persons that I somehow gelled with. In my adolescent pre-teen years (or what I understand for many are the "awkward" years) I could not look people in the eye, felt hot and nervous whenever I had to have a conversation with more than one person or with someone who I felt intimidated by or who I felt didn’t like some aspect of my personality, which was usually everybody (yes I thought no one liked me or that everyone thought I was awkward). I had a vivid imagination and was who I was and who I eventually became, in private. But I cared deeply about what other people felt and was crushed when I was specifically and pointedly rejected by more than one group of people in my pre-teen years. Whenever I see those people now (which was previously on facebook or someother dumb ass social networking site), after playing fields are leveled and it doesn’t matter so much anymore, and all that pain comes back. Actually, I will admit that I deleted my facebook profile because I didn't enjoy the feelings it stirred up inside of me, but many of which were wholly unrelated to the past. --but that's beside the point.

All of that went away for a long time when I was in high school. I became outgoing and confident, became totally unaware of any imperfections in my personality, my body, whatever. Unlike the stereotypical high school girl, I was never concerned with my weight (although I certainly showed off my body) and had intense relationships with my clique of girlfriends. We were all into guys (usually the wrong ones). Actually, I had intense relationships with everyone. The intensity that I used to hold inside basically just came inside out, and I was who I was and I didn’t really give a fuck. Although I did get into some trouble with overindulgence in various things (sex, drugs, etc.) it was all in good fun, I liked myself, and people liked me.

Then I attended college and the old socially awkward me somehow returned, but not in full force. Instead of being popular, I clung to a small circle of my boyfriend’s friends and several random people with whom I had become close to over the years in college, most of whom I didn’t go to school with, but met in one of the many jobs I performed then. In the back of my mind I felt like maybe something was wrong with with me but I didn’t pay it much attention. I started drinking quite heavily and chain smoking and drugs and was very dark and sometimes would get very depressed and drink and stay in all day. My grades slipped. I couldn’t really put my finger on the problem. But, all in all, I was still who I was, and I really didn’t care what people thought about me. I was definitely on the outside of the inside though, and had just accepted it as what it was.

Fast forward to my 20’s. A mismesh of the highschool me and the darkened college me emerged, and I was both. I didn’t give a fuck, but I also in turn was highly selective about the people I wanted in my life and let everyone know that I definitely didn’t like most people and that they were privileged to be in my presence. I began to drink and smoke even more but not as a salve as in college, moreso as an unabashed lifestyle. Drugs were not the norm as they were in college, but I still did them. In other words, my 20’s were great. It is just a big blur of drunkenness and fun and enjoying life.

Which brings us to the present. Well, in my late 20’s, although I was thinner than I had even been in highschool, I started having the body image issues I never had before (even during the time I was actually fat for about 2 -3 years after college). I began to obsess about wrinkles and getting old and particularly my ass being flat; although I have been told that my ass is flat for years, somehow, it suddenly began to bother the shit out of me. I became very self conscious about it and would buy clothes to enhance it as opposed to before when I just really didn’t give a fuck.

Then after I had children, I totally regressed back into blob of self-consciousness and awkwardness. Sure, I’m no longer nerdy or physically awkward but I might as well be. Like before, I find it very difficult to look people in the eye, feel hot and nervous whenever I had to have a conversation with more than one person or with someone who I felt intimidated by, feel like no one likes me, just generally,and that everyone thinks I'm awkward. I stumble with my words when talking to people even on a professional level. I now feel very self-concious about my mannerisms—the way I shake my head when I talk or dart my eyes, the way my mouth gets dry and sometimes doesn’t seem to open all the way when I talk, as if I’ve had botox on my face, how I use my hands in an exaggerated dismissive way that is usually perceived as non-chalant. Which never used to bother me before, although it was always there and I just didn’t know it until I had it repeatedly pointed out to me during the early years of my professional career (e.g., “people think you just don’t care and that you’re not excited anough” or “you have a poker face”). How I have a huge head, how I slightly hunch over when I’m walking (a by-product of my extreme dislike for being tall in my adolescent years) and how I feel ultra self-conscious when I’m standing tall and feel like a fucking big ass giant, and how people (except for my family and my husband) seem to never let me finish a sentence before I make my fucking point. Have I just been broken down? Or am I dying? Like am I dying? Is everything I built up over the years fucking destroyed? Can I repair myself? How? I feel like the bravado and don’t give a fuckedness has turned into sheer bitterness and anger and old lady-like “I don’t care what you think about me or my opinions because I'm used to the dislike” instead of what used to be the "I'm superior to you and that's why you can't fuck with me" attitude I used to have. It’s very saddening to live inside of me right now.

Ink Spot(s)

So as a side bar: I googled the name of this blog just now--I can never find it and always seem to misspell the name (since I don't use it very much) and was shocked to see that the titles of my last two blog entries appeared in the Google search results. And only those titles. Yes, I know that posting on blogspot puts the blog into a public forum, making it available to anyone who stumbles upon it, but the fact that my words were there kind of freaked me out.

It used to be very difficult for me to be totally and completely honest via this medium, and I only recently overcame that. Also, I only know of two people (who know me) who have read the blog, and the fact that I told either of them is beginning to disturb me more and more and more and more.

Why I write my intimate musings on the world-wide web remains a total mystery to me. I have another journal where I also write things down old-school. There is really no difference between the journal and the blog. I guess the functionality of the two is the most material difference.

The blog is available to me anywhere, or when I simply feel like typing something or making a point I know won't eventually get lost in the clutter of my life--the blog will always be here, unless I delete it, which I've vowed not to do. In fact, I kind of forgot it was here after I had my first child (since the first few entries were really just about being pregnant with her) and somehow remembered and used it occasionally here and there. But now I think about writing so much more than I used to. How convenient.

The journal, on th eother hand, is great for the times I need to say something to something/someone in the car and have no one else to talk to, or at home late at night, or just randomly want to be more thoughtful about what I write (which is what a journal kind of forces you to do), in order to prevent utter sloppiness. Anyways, ok. I'm over it.

Sin Brut

I'm on day four of sobriety. Well, this is not real sobriety--this is the sobriety imposed by my doc of two drinks twice a week, which is literally about a tenth or less of the amount I usually drink. Yesterday, I was feeling really anxious, so I had a glass of wine when I came home from work. I struggled with whether to "waste" my first drink of the week that night but I ended up giving in at around 9:30. It didn't relax me, nor did it make me feel any better. It just made me feel like I had a glass of wine. Today, I feel this same anxious energy and would love to call a friend and stop at a bar for a beer on the way home, but we all know that one intended beer equals six for me. So I'm not gonig to do it. The major thing I've noticed in the past few days is that my mind has been so fricking clear, it's crazy. I mean, I've actually been able to do my work efficiently and thoughtfully and I am somewhat organized, and I haven't been distracted by email and the internet (except for this, but I just wanted to type what I was feeling at this moment). Also, although my energy is a bit anxious, is more of an alterness that I am not used to and I do not have the nervous energy I usually feel at this time of day. I am obviously not as tired (but that could also be because I've been going to bed at 10:30 instaed of my usual post midnight bedtime, which could also be a positive effect of not drinking. I feel great and hope that I can continue on this path and not coil myself into a tight ball of nerves. The doctor said that 4 to 6 months of sobriety is biggest indicator of permanency.

The only other time I've been completely sober was both times I was pregnant, and I remember it being horrible. But I do not know what it is like to just be sober, period, without all of the raging hormones. It has been so long that I don't even really remember what it was like. That's sad. This isn't so bad!

Ok...I'll post updates when I feel I need to.

Friends are Fucked

I am just angry, angry, angry at so much right now. My lack of meaningful relationships is really bothersome. It can be primarily attributed to my intense dislike of the main facets of my current friends' personalities. But it also seems to me as if the primary dysfunction is that everyone is so fucking self-centered. Am I being a bitch? I just can't help but think about this, like constantly. I really would like some sort of companionship, but everyone gets on my fucking nerves. EVERYONE. EVERYONE. I would tick off a list of everything I hate about the people in my life, right now, pros and cons. I really do think I am going to do that. Maybe it will make me appreciate them more. Of course, the real names are not used. That way, no one will come across this in the future and either get their feelings hurt or curse me out. Also, it will be astronomically easier to talk about them with these aliases, as if I'm not really talking about them.

Polia. Wow. There are no words to describe how many times this person has hurt my feelings by reminding me that I'm "not really that type of friend." Although I have known this person for over 15 years now, this person only calls me when they want my honest opinion about her stupid man problems, or the problems she has with her "real friends," or when she has no one else to hang out with. This person never invites me out to events with other frineds, although I know these friends, and we live in the same city, and work nearly two blocks from each other. This person is irresponsible with her money and takes advantage of me and then makes me feel bad for asking for it back later on. This person also feels as if I am constantly implying she's not a good friend, when I intentionally go out of my way TO NOT do that, for the very reason that I told her how I felt seven or eight years ago and she basically chewed it up and told me that "that was just how our friendship was." I wish I could cut Polia off completely, but that's impossible because of my general lack of friends in Washington, DC. In other words, when I actually do want the company of others, I am forced to call her. I guess that is one of the things I DO like about her. She is, in fact, fun to hang out with. But the way that I feel about her lack of respect for our friendship is beginning to eat me apart. So I am slowly working on cutting her off. And I recently found out that she has befriended my ex boyfriend completely behind my back, taking advantage of his own loneliness in the process. He doesn't understand that she's just a fucking self centered ass bitch that needs to soak up his sympathy and advice. Ok, I've made the decision to cut her ass off. That's it. There is way too much negative energy being emanated from me right now, but I feel as if this person's presence in my life creates some of that energy. If it makes me feel this way, there is no need to continue to fuck wtih Polia. FUCK IT!!

Ok, I don't know what that just was. I'm so done. I need to get back to work.

'Tis True

This is an exercise in I don't know what. I felt like making a list of sixteen things I thought I thought I would never do, but did, or currently still do. Next, I'll make a list of sixteen things I still think I will never do. The purpose of either of these lists is completely beyond me. I think they will have some purpose, though.

Sixteen things I thought I would never do.

1. I never thought I would think I was an alcoholic.

2. I never thought I would be addicted to cigarettes.

3. I never thought I would gain 40 pounds in the three years after I graduated from college.

4. I never thought I would feed my kids Kraft macaroni and cheese at least once a week.

5. I never thought I would come to eventually think that Kraft macaroni and cheese actually tasted good.

6. I never thought I would be living in a shitty two bedroom apartment in southeast DC at the age of 31 after going to lawschool for three horrible fucking years and becoming a fucking lawyer.

7. I never thought I would be enter the pre-foreclosure process.

8. I never thought I'd buy a house in Ohio, or that I would one day have tenants.

9. I never thought I'd be afraid of getting old.

10. I never thought I'd start to look old.

11. I never thought I'd become brutally aware of and eventually self conscious of and ashamed of my mannerisms as I grew older.

12. I never thought I would meet someone who could love me as much as my husband does and stay with me even though I am a total fucking bitch to him all the time.

13. I never thought I'd meet anyone I could tolerate being around for longer than three days.

14. I never thought I'd be a shitty Mom.

15. I never thought clean counters and floors would actually start to become an obsession.

16. I never thought I'd completely stop reading books by the age of 31.



Sixteen things I think I'll never do.

1. I'll never enjoy going to social gatherings where alcohol is not served.

2. I'll never like being a lawyer.

3. Not one day will go by where I will not audibly enunciate the words "fuck" and "shit."

4. I'll never make anymore friends that I will be communicate with for longer than five years.

5. I'll never ...this list is harder. As I write this shit, I'm thinking that I don't want any of these to be self-fulfillling prophecies, but I do believe these things. I don't knwo whether they are predictions or whether they are things I want, or don't want, or whether I'm just being cynical.

Fuck it...I'll do this shit later.

Plus One

Sometimes, I feel as if I am going to explode. Or implode. Sometimes, I feel as if I want to love everybody in the world, have a huge orgasm, or mound of coke or ecstasy. Other times, I never want to leave the confines of blankness, anonymity, and virtual lifelessness. A place where I don't have to communicate with anyone, including my brain. Most of the time, I at least want to tell people to fuck off.

What is normal? And why does being honest with yourself either end up in the commission of a serious crime, a really good novel, the end of a friendship or relationship, or an educatory experience for others? Why does it have to affect someone else in order to be valuable?