I miss the days when life was simple. And then I ask myself if it ever was. Did I ever think it was easy? Did I ever wake up with nothing to fear or dread? Did I ever feel wrapped in love and protected from all of the evils of the big bad world? Have I always been so jaded and sad?
I guess I always have been this way. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to wake up just once and not feel the weight of the world crushing down on my shoulders. To wake up and smile at the promise of a new day instead of fearing what fresh hell will be rained down upon me.
They say it's all about being positive but how can you be positive when the only things that happen all day every day are bad?
And then you carry that feeling like a suitcase full of boulders throughout your life and inadvertently hit the people you care about the most with it. And God forbid you meet someone new that you really care about because you end up hitting them with it too. Then they just push you away because they all have enough of their own shit to deal with without being hit in the face every day by your bag full of boulders.
And you end up alone and more sad and with more boulders in your suitcase.
I really need to get rid of all of them. Yes, I got dealt a really bad hand. And yes I am alone in the world with only my two daughters to give a shit whether I live or die. Yes, I've spent way too much time walking in sadness mourning all that I lost and fearing, ironically, this very situation that I am currently in. So now that it's here, what is left to fear? I've very nearly lost it all. My home is in the air and may be taken soon, my nursing career shot to hell, my finances are in the negative numbers, no savings, no security, no family, no "man" to take care of me . What the fuck else is there to fear besides death? Maybe it's time to throw caution to the wind and jump off the ledge and see if there's a good cross wind that will blow me into a new life.
God sometimes takes us all the way down in order to build us back up into a new and better version of ourselves. I mean what have I got to lose?
Friday, June 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Online Dating...It Ain't for Sissies Pt. "Two"
Ok, so I should preface this with the fact that I did actually meet a real guy and date him for a little while before I started this whole online dating thing. In fact, I still see him from time to time. That relationship will be explained later on in the "friends with benefits" section of the blog. LOL.
So after that little relationship, I was even further determined to try the online dating thing just to see what would happen.
So my profile was getting a lot of attention. My inbox was full. I was answering messages and feeling pretty secure that this was gonna be a walk in the park. Ha!
After a while I began to number them, so this is how I will refer to them here. The same way I do to my friends and family.
"Two" seemed like, on paper, he would be a pretty good fellow. He had a steady job that he'd had for 21 years at a good company. He had just bought a 4 bedroom brick home in a neighboring town. Had a nice new vehicle, a small SUV which to me is not the biggest turn on in the world, but I do enjoy the new car smell. He wasn't a bad looking guy, he was actually my age ("One" was 56...and I still find him sexy as hell btw.)
So I talked to Two on the phone several nights. He still seemed like a nice enough guy. Decent conversation, although half the time he was talking to his 13 year old daughter (red flag) to get her to leave him alone and let him speak on the phone. (If it was my kid, I'd have told her to beat it and go talk to her own friends that she talks to 24/7 except when I'm on the phone, but that's me...)
As it turned out, he was going to be off doing some stuff on the following day and I was off so he asked me if I'd like to go out to eat and see a movie. I agreed. We agreed he would meet me at a town halfway between the towns we live in and that was that.
I was so nervous. I mean, at least with One I knew him pretty well. I had met him where I work and he had spent alot of time out there just hanging out and flirting and getting to know me. It was cute. Did I mention it was cute? Anyway, I drove the 20 miles to meet this guy and it was the day after Valentine's Day. So he presented me with a big pink teddy bear. I was melted. I hadn't been given a little gift like that in about a hundred years.
We left my car there and took his the 30 miles to where we were eating and seeing the movie. Conversation went okay. We were both nervous but it was not bad. A little nervous laughter is good for you, right?
We got to the restaurant and he opened my car door for me, all very much the gentleman. I was a little put off by the fact that he only talked about his kid all the time...even to the point of saying "I know I shouldn't keep talking about blank, the people at work said not to talk about the ex or kid but blank is just very important to me and alot of women seem put off by the issue of blank having ADHD and then they just don't talk to me again. Blank this blank that. Blank blank. Oh there I go again talking about blank when we should talk about something else. My ex did this and blank did that. I'm just nervous."
I was hoping a beer would help him to chill the fuck out, but it really didn't. Still, I was a little amused since I had never been on a blind date in my life and it kinda was almost blind in that I didn't really know him.
So we passed a little time in the bar, talking about blank mostly, and then we went to the movie. It was my first 3d movie and I gotta say, it was nice. I enjoyed it alot. I kept thinking he might hold my hand, but he didn't. I mentioned that to him later and that was a mistake. Then all he did was hold my hand. Constantly, while talking about blank blank blank.
So he took me back to my car, gave me a hug. I had to kiss him. So shy he was. And it was not bad. I drove home feeling pretty ok about the whole thing.
We decided we'd go out again on Friday night. We talked on the phone the two or three nights in between.
Friday night, I met him at his house, and we left from there to go out to eat at the casino across the river. He had a bee in his bonnet about something. I don't even remember now what it was, I don't think I was consciously aware of what I did to make him sull up like a little girl, but that is what he did.
Turned out the casino restaurant had a ten mile waiting list so we decided to go eat elsewhere and maybe see another movie. He asked me where I wanted to eat, I said I didn't care. He mentioned a couple of places, one where you could get drinks that would have eased the pain of the date and one where you could not. I said "Well a drink would be nice." So he picked the one that didn't serve alcohol.
As we ate, he didn't really speak much and was still acting pissy. Man, I wish I could remember now what silly little thing set him off. Obviously, it meant alot to me. LOL.
After eating we discovered the movies had already started. So we drove around, him driving 40 miles an hour on the fucking interstate while asking me if I wanted to be with him. Just all needy, possessive and strange. So we finally ended up going to a bar, a country bar, where he got even weirder.
We played pool. That was ok. I put on my drunk bar girl act and laughed and batted my eyes and jumped up and down when I got a ball to go in. (I suck at pool)
When the band began tuning up, we went and sat over in that area and I tried to get him to have fun. But he bitched about the band, he bitched about the music. At one point, when a guy in the band came over and talked to us, and he wouldn't talk so I had to...and hey the guy was pretty hot...well of course he bitched about that too. "Do guys in the band always come over to talk to you?"
I looked at him like he was from Mars. How can you generalize that type of behavior?
I was like ...uh...sometimes. Like now...otherwise, not really.
"And why did that woman at the door ask me if I was with you? Like she thinks I'm not good enough for you?"
I said..."Like she wanted to get enough money for admission?"
So he sulked some more and I was beginning to get pissed.
Finally, he hit the straw the broke the camels back and mouthed off something about my teenage daughter being the boss of me, and I grabbed my purse, stood up and said, "I think we should leave NOW."
The ride back to his house reminded me of many rides with my ex. Sulking and tense silence and me just wanting to jump out of the car.
Finally after almost 30 minutes, he began to apologize. "I'm just not ready to date. It's all my fault. I have issues." Blah blah blah. I was still ready to leave until he mentioned that he had tried to take his life once before.
I thought, well shit...I don't wanna be responsible for that crap. So I gave him another chance.
That's when he started up with the you should apply for a job in my town. Maybe you could like it there. All these little hints about me moving in. And we'd only been talking a week. Jesus! This is way too fast.
I started counter talking about moving.
He wanted to come over the next night after I got off work. I reluctantly said ok because that meant I had to clean my pigsty after working all day.
But I did it because I was trying to be dating, even though I really hated how pushy he was becoming.
He brought me a blue teddy bear that night. It was cute. I put it with the other one.
We watched some tv, drank a couple of beers, made out on the couch and he literally tried to eat my face off. And that was when I knew it just would not work.
I sent him home at midnight feeling kinda sick about the whole thing.
The next day I came down with a horrible cold...probably from him sucking my face off. He wanted to come over, I said no. He asked again, I said no. He said he would bring me whiskey for my cough. I said no. He offered something else...no. no no no.
The next day I was supposed to go meet his kid and have dinner with them. Since I was very near dead, I told him I thought I'd have to raincheck it.
That did NOT go over well. He pushed and pushed. He would bring her here. I said I was too sick for company. He still pushed and pushed. I finally said "No means no. I am not meeting anyone today. Case closed."
So he blocked me on facebook. Sent me an extremely ugly text message. Stopped talking to me on the online dating site.
I was like damn, dude. Get a grip.
So after a few days, he tried apologizing. I told him fine. I will forgive you but we are done.
He kept trying ever so often to make up and ask me out again. In fact, he still messages me on the site sometimes, but I do not think I will ever go down that road again with him. The kissing issue alone is bad enough. LOL.
So that was the story of Two. Next post, I will bore you with the tawdry details of "Three".
Happy dating people!
So after that little relationship, I was even further determined to try the online dating thing just to see what would happen.
So my profile was getting a lot of attention. My inbox was full. I was answering messages and feeling pretty secure that this was gonna be a walk in the park. Ha!
After a while I began to number them, so this is how I will refer to them here. The same way I do to my friends and family.
"Two" seemed like, on paper, he would be a pretty good fellow. He had a steady job that he'd had for 21 years at a good company. He had just bought a 4 bedroom brick home in a neighboring town. Had a nice new vehicle, a small SUV which to me is not the biggest turn on in the world, but I do enjoy the new car smell. He wasn't a bad looking guy, he was actually my age ("One" was 56...and I still find him sexy as hell btw.)
So I talked to Two on the phone several nights. He still seemed like a nice enough guy. Decent conversation, although half the time he was talking to his 13 year old daughter (red flag) to get her to leave him alone and let him speak on the phone. (If it was my kid, I'd have told her to beat it and go talk to her own friends that she talks to 24/7 except when I'm on the phone, but that's me...)
As it turned out, he was going to be off doing some stuff on the following day and I was off so he asked me if I'd like to go out to eat and see a movie. I agreed. We agreed he would meet me at a town halfway between the towns we live in and that was that.
I was so nervous. I mean, at least with One I knew him pretty well. I had met him where I work and he had spent alot of time out there just hanging out and flirting and getting to know me. It was cute. Did I mention it was cute? Anyway, I drove the 20 miles to meet this guy and it was the day after Valentine's Day. So he presented me with a big pink teddy bear. I was melted. I hadn't been given a little gift like that in about a hundred years.
We left my car there and took his the 30 miles to where we were eating and seeing the movie. Conversation went okay. We were both nervous but it was not bad. A little nervous laughter is good for you, right?
We got to the restaurant and he opened my car door for me, all very much the gentleman. I was a little put off by the fact that he only talked about his kid all the time...even to the point of saying "I know I shouldn't keep talking about blank, the people at work said not to talk about the ex or kid but blank is just very important to me and alot of women seem put off by the issue of blank having ADHD and then they just don't talk to me again. Blank this blank that. Blank blank. Oh there I go again talking about blank when we should talk about something else. My ex did this and blank did that. I'm just nervous."
I was hoping a beer would help him to chill the fuck out, but it really didn't. Still, I was a little amused since I had never been on a blind date in my life and it kinda was almost blind in that I didn't really know him.
So we passed a little time in the bar, talking about blank mostly, and then we went to the movie. It was my first 3d movie and I gotta say, it was nice. I enjoyed it alot. I kept thinking he might hold my hand, but he didn't. I mentioned that to him later and that was a mistake. Then all he did was hold my hand. Constantly, while talking about blank blank blank.
So he took me back to my car, gave me a hug. I had to kiss him. So shy he was. And it was not bad. I drove home feeling pretty ok about the whole thing.
We decided we'd go out again on Friday night. We talked on the phone the two or three nights in between.
Friday night, I met him at his house, and we left from there to go out to eat at the casino across the river. He had a bee in his bonnet about something. I don't even remember now what it was, I don't think I was consciously aware of what I did to make him sull up like a little girl, but that is what he did.
Turned out the casino restaurant had a ten mile waiting list so we decided to go eat elsewhere and maybe see another movie. He asked me where I wanted to eat, I said I didn't care. He mentioned a couple of places, one where you could get drinks that would have eased the pain of the date and one where you could not. I said "Well a drink would be nice." So he picked the one that didn't serve alcohol.
As we ate, he didn't really speak much and was still acting pissy. Man, I wish I could remember now what silly little thing set him off. Obviously, it meant alot to me. LOL.
After eating we discovered the movies had already started. So we drove around, him driving 40 miles an hour on the fucking interstate while asking me if I wanted to be with him. Just all needy, possessive and strange. So we finally ended up going to a bar, a country bar, where he got even weirder.
We played pool. That was ok. I put on my drunk bar girl act and laughed and batted my eyes and jumped up and down when I got a ball to go in. (I suck at pool)
When the band began tuning up, we went and sat over in that area and I tried to get him to have fun. But he bitched about the band, he bitched about the music. At one point, when a guy in the band came over and talked to us, and he wouldn't talk so I had to...and hey the guy was pretty hot...well of course he bitched about that too. "Do guys in the band always come over to talk to you?"
I looked at him like he was from Mars. How can you generalize that type of behavior?
I was like ...uh...sometimes. Like now...otherwise, not really.
"And why did that woman at the door ask me if I was with you? Like she thinks I'm not good enough for you?"
I said..."Like she wanted to get enough money for admission?"
So he sulked some more and I was beginning to get pissed.
Finally, he hit the straw the broke the camels back and mouthed off something about my teenage daughter being the boss of me, and I grabbed my purse, stood up and said, "I think we should leave NOW."
The ride back to his house reminded me of many rides with my ex. Sulking and tense silence and me just wanting to jump out of the car.
Finally after almost 30 minutes, he began to apologize. "I'm just not ready to date. It's all my fault. I have issues." Blah blah blah. I was still ready to leave until he mentioned that he had tried to take his life once before.
I thought, well shit...I don't wanna be responsible for that crap. So I gave him another chance.
That's when he started up with the you should apply for a job in my town. Maybe you could like it there. All these little hints about me moving in. And we'd only been talking a week. Jesus! This is way too fast.
I started counter talking about moving.
He wanted to come over the next night after I got off work. I reluctantly said ok because that meant I had to clean my pigsty after working all day.
But I did it because I was trying to be dating, even though I really hated how pushy he was becoming.
He brought me a blue teddy bear that night. It was cute. I put it with the other one.
We watched some tv, drank a couple of beers, made out on the couch and he literally tried to eat my face off. And that was when I knew it just would not work.
I sent him home at midnight feeling kinda sick about the whole thing.
The next day I came down with a horrible cold...probably from him sucking my face off. He wanted to come over, I said no. He asked again, I said no. He said he would bring me whiskey for my cough. I said no. He offered something else...no. no no no.
The next day I was supposed to go meet his kid and have dinner with them. Since I was very near dead, I told him I thought I'd have to raincheck it.
That did NOT go over well. He pushed and pushed. He would bring her here. I said I was too sick for company. He still pushed and pushed. I finally said "No means no. I am not meeting anyone today. Case closed."
So he blocked me on facebook. Sent me an extremely ugly text message. Stopped talking to me on the online dating site.
I was like damn, dude. Get a grip.
So after a few days, he tried apologizing. I told him fine. I will forgive you but we are done.
He kept trying ever so often to make up and ask me out again. In fact, he still messages me on the site sometimes, but I do not think I will ever go down that road again with him. The kissing issue alone is bad enough. LOL.
So that was the story of Two. Next post, I will bore you with the tawdry details of "Three".
Happy dating people!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Online Dating ...It Ain't for Sissies.
After being married for a quarter of a century, and still being relatively young at the age of 42, once my divorce was final I decided it was time for me to get out and experience some new things.
I wanted to "date" for pretty much the first time in my life.
How to go about it, however, was a mystery to me. In my small town, everyone knows everyone. And most everyone my age seems to be happily married and way behind me in the raising children dept. (Not everyone got that jump start on it like me.) We don't have bars. I could go looking at Church, but that just seems wrong on so many levels. I don't believe in that whole picking up guys at the supermarket thing. I have no real friends who have single friends they could hook me up with, so I found myself pondering the online dating possibilities.
I checked out some of the more popular services only to find that while parts of them are free, to be able to effectively use them you have to pay. So I held off for a while.
Then I ran across a site that is actually usable and free. They do have pay services as well, but you can read mail, search, check out profiles and chat all for free. So I figured what the heck...sign me up.
The trouble with these free sites is that basically any psycho can use it. I mean, look at me!
So I created my profile, uploaded a reasonably cute picture of myself and put myself on the market.
That's when all the "fun"
started...
I wanted to "date" for pretty much the first time in my life.
How to go about it, however, was a mystery to me. In my small town, everyone knows everyone. And most everyone my age seems to be happily married and way behind me in the raising children dept. (Not everyone got that jump start on it like me.) We don't have bars. I could go looking at Church, but that just seems wrong on so many levels. I don't believe in that whole picking up guys at the supermarket thing. I have no real friends who have single friends they could hook me up with, so I found myself pondering the online dating possibilities.
I checked out some of the more popular services only to find that while parts of them are free, to be able to effectively use them you have to pay. So I held off for a while.
Then I ran across a site that is actually usable and free. They do have pay services as well, but you can read mail, search, check out profiles and chat all for free. So I figured what the heck...sign me up.
The trouble with these free sites is that basically any psycho can use it. I mean, look at me!
So I created my profile, uploaded a reasonably cute picture of myself and put myself on the market.
That's when all the "fun"
started...
Saturday, January 14, 2012
My "Social" Experiment
Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my little social experiment.
I'm a nurse. Well, I'm LICENSED to be a nurse. Currently, nursing is pretty far from what I want to be doing. Okay that's not true either.
I'm a certain kind of nurse. I function well in two very distinct jobs. Either I can be a home health nurse taking care of adorable dottering old folks and whiling away afternoons setting up their meds and doing their dressing changes while listening to them tell me stories of long ago times or I can be a psych nurse specializing in outpatient mental health or inpatient dual diagnosis drug and alcohol rehab. Quite a stretch right? Well, I've spent my nursing career sampling different jobs to see what I enjoy most. Of course I did all that when I thought I would be married forever and that my dear husband would always be there to have the other side of the income coin.
I was always the ancillary worker. His job, while usually paying less than mine, had better benefits for him and was a good, home town job. I was content to take lesser jobs so that I could take care of the kids and kinda be around when they needed me growing up because for a large part of the time they were growing up he worked non negotiable evenings. That meant if I wasn't going to open house and little programs and talent shows and taking them treat or treating, nobody was. And it was all ok at the time.
Flash forward and the kids are now grown. Youngest just graduated last May from high school. And now I'm divorced.
I didn't handle this little divorce as well as I thought I would. I mean after all I pretty much hated his guts for our entire 25 year marriage but I'm slowly coming to realize that there was more love sprinkled in there than I had previously thought. It was just overpowered by the vicious hate that we had for each other. Well mostly the vicious hate I had for him. He claimed he never hated me. And to my knowledge neither of us ever cheated on the other. That's not why our marriage failed. Everyone in small town Texas here thinks that is the reason but it is not. Small minded people just think whatever they want is fact.
Anyway, shortly after we separated a over a year ago was when my final nursing job came crashing down around me. They had hired a complete and total nut job as the Director of Nurses and she wanted all of the old staff except the one ass kisser she was grooming OUT of there. So she made it her mission to get rid of all of us in any way she could.
And after watching a place that I loved and respected so much go down the tubes so fast under her new regime, I gave in and said Fuck it and quit.
So now I'm poor... well that wouldn't do. So I was forced to sell some mineral rights so that I could have some money to hang on with until I got over all the terrible things that were happening to me. I was in a deep dark depression, saddened over the separation and the fact that we just couldn't seem to get it together enough to pull it back together no matter how many times we tried. It's very daunting to give up a 25 year marriage. Especially when you started it at 17 years old.
I stayed home for literally nine months. I seldom went outdoors. I avoided people at all costs. I wanted no part of any of it. I went out when I had to and that was very rarely to buy supplies for the house. I watched tons of daytime tv and squandered my money. When I would get online or buy a paper and look for nursing jobs I would get literally sick to my stomach. The town I live in has NO jobs for nurses save for the horrible nursing home which I have worked at four times and do not intend to work at again. That meant I would have to drive at least 30 min or an hour five days a week one way to get to a job. After having driven 120 miles round trip daily for four years I was sick to death of the prospect of driving anywhere on a regular basis to get to a job I couldn't probably stand.
Both my daughters worked at a little home town cafe owned, of all things, by a high school boyfriend of mine who barely even remembered me. They loved their little jobs and then one day an opening came up and they asked if perhaps I might want to work.
Well, how odd. I had not done anything outside of nursing for 19 years. I'd never worked in food service in my life, but it was just a cashier job. How difficult could it be? And after all, I didn't seek it out, it just came to me, so I figured God was telling me to get up off my ass and finally get back out and be in the public around ....omg...people.
So my little experiment began. I've worked as a nurse in this little town of 5k people several times. Alot of people knew that I am a nurse. Even more of them knew I was getting divorced. And in case you have never lived in a small town, boy oh boy do the small minds and big mouths love to gossip!
It was very ...interesting...to watch the looks on people's faces when they came in and saw me working as a cashier. You could see the wheels turning..."did she lose her nursing license? Is she under investigation? Is that why HE left HER?" and probably lots more uglier things that I don't want to know about.
Some of the more sarcastic ones would ask me if we were trying to turn it into a family business. And so, it's been a learning experience for me to work in a different and somewhat less "grand" position than I've been used to for so many years. It's been interesting to see how differently people treat "service workers". How callous and unkind they can be, or controversially, how kind they can be. It's been very enlightening to me to learn so many new things about human nature. No, I haven't explained them well today in this post, but they are here, inside me and some day I will.
The really interesting thing to me is how much I love this job. And how it saddens me to know that I soon have to leave it. While it is fun, and virtually stress free, it doesn't pay the bills for my one income existence. Nursing will.
So I have it in front of me... knowing that I have to go back to fifty hour weeks (including drive time) and severe stress...and wishing that I could just stay where I am and make enough money to get by. Just to get by. I don't require much else except the ability to pay my bills. Yes I would like to travel and do fun things and buy toys. But I would so much rather be a happy person daily at the little job I have and not do any of those things. Hell, I haven't done those things my whole fucking life. No need to start now. Lol.
Anyway, there's a job opening up at, of all things, a prison nearby. It won't be a hellacious drive and I've dealt with fuck heads in the rehab game and in the mental health game so hopefully it won't be too bad if I actually get it.
Ironically, my ex husbands new girlfriend that he just looooooooves to death is a guard in the prison system. Silly dyke bitch. Thankfully it's not the one I'm aiming for.
Stay tuned... who knows what fresh hell will happen tomorrow. :-)
I'm a nurse. Well, I'm LICENSED to be a nurse. Currently, nursing is pretty far from what I want to be doing. Okay that's not true either.
I'm a certain kind of nurse. I function well in two very distinct jobs. Either I can be a home health nurse taking care of adorable dottering old folks and whiling away afternoons setting up their meds and doing their dressing changes while listening to them tell me stories of long ago times or I can be a psych nurse specializing in outpatient mental health or inpatient dual diagnosis drug and alcohol rehab. Quite a stretch right? Well, I've spent my nursing career sampling different jobs to see what I enjoy most. Of course I did all that when I thought I would be married forever and that my dear husband would always be there to have the other side of the income coin.
I was always the ancillary worker. His job, while usually paying less than mine, had better benefits for him and was a good, home town job. I was content to take lesser jobs so that I could take care of the kids and kinda be around when they needed me growing up because for a large part of the time they were growing up he worked non negotiable evenings. That meant if I wasn't going to open house and little programs and talent shows and taking them treat or treating, nobody was. And it was all ok at the time.
Flash forward and the kids are now grown. Youngest just graduated last May from high school. And now I'm divorced.
I didn't handle this little divorce as well as I thought I would. I mean after all I pretty much hated his guts for our entire 25 year marriage but I'm slowly coming to realize that there was more love sprinkled in there than I had previously thought. It was just overpowered by the vicious hate that we had for each other. Well mostly the vicious hate I had for him. He claimed he never hated me. And to my knowledge neither of us ever cheated on the other. That's not why our marriage failed. Everyone in small town Texas here thinks that is the reason but it is not. Small minded people just think whatever they want is fact.
Anyway, shortly after we separated a over a year ago was when my final nursing job came crashing down around me. They had hired a complete and total nut job as the Director of Nurses and she wanted all of the old staff except the one ass kisser she was grooming OUT of there. So she made it her mission to get rid of all of us in any way she could.
And after watching a place that I loved and respected so much go down the tubes so fast under her new regime, I gave in and said Fuck it and quit.
So now I'm poor... well that wouldn't do. So I was forced to sell some mineral rights so that I could have some money to hang on with until I got over all the terrible things that were happening to me. I was in a deep dark depression, saddened over the separation and the fact that we just couldn't seem to get it together enough to pull it back together no matter how many times we tried. It's very daunting to give up a 25 year marriage. Especially when you started it at 17 years old.
I stayed home for literally nine months. I seldom went outdoors. I avoided people at all costs. I wanted no part of any of it. I went out when I had to and that was very rarely to buy supplies for the house. I watched tons of daytime tv and squandered my money. When I would get online or buy a paper and look for nursing jobs I would get literally sick to my stomach. The town I live in has NO jobs for nurses save for the horrible nursing home which I have worked at four times and do not intend to work at again. That meant I would have to drive at least 30 min or an hour five days a week one way to get to a job. After having driven 120 miles round trip daily for four years I was sick to death of the prospect of driving anywhere on a regular basis to get to a job I couldn't probably stand.
Both my daughters worked at a little home town cafe owned, of all things, by a high school boyfriend of mine who barely even remembered me. They loved their little jobs and then one day an opening came up and they asked if perhaps I might want to work.
Well, how odd. I had not done anything outside of nursing for 19 years. I'd never worked in food service in my life, but it was just a cashier job. How difficult could it be? And after all, I didn't seek it out, it just came to me, so I figured God was telling me to get up off my ass and finally get back out and be in the public around ....omg...people.
So my little experiment began. I've worked as a nurse in this little town of 5k people several times. Alot of people knew that I am a nurse. Even more of them knew I was getting divorced. And in case you have never lived in a small town, boy oh boy do the small minds and big mouths love to gossip!
It was very ...interesting...to watch the looks on people's faces when they came in and saw me working as a cashier. You could see the wheels turning..."did she lose her nursing license? Is she under investigation? Is that why HE left HER?" and probably lots more uglier things that I don't want to know about.
Some of the more sarcastic ones would ask me if we were trying to turn it into a family business. And so, it's been a learning experience for me to work in a different and somewhat less "grand" position than I've been used to for so many years. It's been interesting to see how differently people treat "service workers". How callous and unkind they can be, or controversially, how kind they can be. It's been very enlightening to me to learn so many new things about human nature. No, I haven't explained them well today in this post, but they are here, inside me and some day I will.
The really interesting thing to me is how much I love this job. And how it saddens me to know that I soon have to leave it. While it is fun, and virtually stress free, it doesn't pay the bills for my one income existence. Nursing will.
So I have it in front of me... knowing that I have to go back to fifty hour weeks (including drive time) and severe stress...and wishing that I could just stay where I am and make enough money to get by. Just to get by. I don't require much else except the ability to pay my bills. Yes I would like to travel and do fun things and buy toys. But I would so much rather be a happy person daily at the little job I have and not do any of those things. Hell, I haven't done those things my whole fucking life. No need to start now. Lol.
Anyway, there's a job opening up at, of all things, a prison nearby. It won't be a hellacious drive and I've dealt with fuck heads in the rehab game and in the mental health game so hopefully it won't be too bad if I actually get it.
Ironically, my ex husbands new girlfriend that he just looooooooves to death is a guard in the prison system. Silly dyke bitch. Thankfully it's not the one I'm aiming for.
Stay tuned... who knows what fresh hell will happen tomorrow. :-)
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Karma is for real
As I sit here in my doctors office being stared down by the heinous bitch who I call the gatekeeper, I am reminded of the four years I spent as the gatekeeper of a local mental health center med clinic. There were times, probably more numerous than I even recall, when I took out my frustrations with the behavior of the patients on the scheduling book. If they made life hard on me, I didn't jump through hoops to get them in so they could get more xanax after their recent overdose, etc. I made them wait just like everyone else. Sometimes longer if I thought it was for their own good.
So maybe this bitch thinks it is for my own good that she will never give me an appointment. Even when I can't breathe. Just because she disagrees with the meds I am on.
Like I said people... Karma is real and I'm paying mine off every day.
So maybe this bitch thinks it is for my own good that she will never give me an appointment. Even when I can't breathe. Just because she disagrees with the meds I am on.
Like I said people... Karma is real and I'm paying mine off every day.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Men are pigs!
How does that grab ya? Do I seem to be making broad statements about generalized behavior? Do you disagree or feel like you are part of the 1% who are good men?
Yeah? Well so does he.
And that shit could not be farther from the truth!
Treat your women right. The first time. Don't "learn your lesson" with the one who has your kids and puts up with your shit for way too many years and THEN treat the NEXT one right. That's fucking bullshit. Number one deserved it. And you are a Dick for not being the man you should have been for her.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Happy New Year!
I'm hoping to be better at this whole blogging and journaling kind of thing this year. Thanks to Google making things so damned easy to do it really would just be silly for me not to do all those fun things I've been putting off. Like starting my photography blog. And all the great photographer peeps that I follow...well at least some of them...tend to have photography blogs so I thought "why not? Get busy. Show the world what you see with your eyes." But that's not what this post is about.
In the continuing saga of my crazy life, I should fill in the blanks since the last post.
I met a guy at the restaurant where I work. Ironically enough, my oldest daughter dated his son in high school. He was actually her first love. And I loved that kid. I harassed him mercilessly. He is a "junior" so my daughter, even while dating him, mostly referred to him as "Little John". I always made random stupid jokes about Sherwood Forest and never quite understood why she felt the need to put the little in front of his name. But I guess now I do... since I have found myself referring to him as "Little John" on occasion since his dad and I started dating.
John is "a bit" older than me. He's funny as hell and he's completely set in his ways so much so that a block of dynamite could not change them. Yet I find him to be fun to be around and I enjoy our days together no matter what it is we are doing. He has a really wonderful sense of humor mixed with sarcasm that I find pretty much impossible to get mad at. Oh I have a time or two but mostly no. We just kinda get along. We are not racing for the church. We have no rush to define what it is that we are doing. I don't ask him a ton of questions about where he is and what he is doing and he doesn't ask me every two seconds about me and where I am and what I'm up to.
He does do a few things that charm the pants off me... He opens my car door. Such a simple act but so charming and sweet. He opens all sorts of doors for me. He takes me shooting...lets me play with an assortment of high powered very expensive rifles. AND he gives me encouragement when I blow the shit out of something. Especially when I get to play with pistols and his mouth drops open and he can't believe the targets I hit. I love that.
He holds my hand and sits with me on the couch. Yes ...another simple thing but the ex simply couldn't find the time or effort to do it unless he was gonna get laid. And he wasn't getting laid if he didn't do it. And he never did it...so he rarely got laid. And that's why we are divorced.
Anyway, it's kinda weird to be out there dating. I'm not hard core dating like the ex. But I am happy and comfortable with how my life is right now.
We all got through the holidays with very few scratches and I am happy to say we are starting a new year will all sorts of possibilities and hopes for a better life and better attitude.
I love my kids. I love my grandkids. I love my sons in law. (Youngest daughter got engaged on Christmas eve) and I am happy in my relationship. I don't know what tomorrow will bring but I can tell you this... planning it won't make it so.
You must live every day like it's your last. Try to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them. I am still working on forgiveness because I have soooo many people to forgive. But I'm gonna try. I won't have to answer for all of them when I reach those pearly gates. The only thing I have to answer for is my own behavior. So as long as I'm doing my part, they can all go to hell which is where they are headed anyway. Ok ...yeah... still bitter.
Goodnight and Happy New Year to all!
In the continuing saga of my crazy life, I should fill in the blanks since the last post.
I met a guy at the restaurant where I work. Ironically enough, my oldest daughter dated his son in high school. He was actually her first love. And I loved that kid. I harassed him mercilessly. He is a "junior" so my daughter, even while dating him, mostly referred to him as "Little John". I always made random stupid jokes about Sherwood Forest and never quite understood why she felt the need to put the little in front of his name. But I guess now I do... since I have found myself referring to him as "Little John" on occasion since his dad and I started dating.
John is "a bit" older than me. He's funny as hell and he's completely set in his ways so much so that a block of dynamite could not change them. Yet I find him to be fun to be around and I enjoy our days together no matter what it is we are doing. He has a really wonderful sense of humor mixed with sarcasm that I find pretty much impossible to get mad at. Oh I have a time or two but mostly no. We just kinda get along. We are not racing for the church. We have no rush to define what it is that we are doing. I don't ask him a ton of questions about where he is and what he is doing and he doesn't ask me every two seconds about me and where I am and what I'm up to.
He does do a few things that charm the pants off me... He opens my car door. Such a simple act but so charming and sweet. He opens all sorts of doors for me. He takes me shooting...lets me play with an assortment of high powered very expensive rifles. AND he gives me encouragement when I blow the shit out of something. Especially when I get to play with pistols and his mouth drops open and he can't believe the targets I hit. I love that.
He holds my hand and sits with me on the couch. Yes ...another simple thing but the ex simply couldn't find the time or effort to do it unless he was gonna get laid. And he wasn't getting laid if he didn't do it. And he never did it...so he rarely got laid. And that's why we are divorced.
Anyway, it's kinda weird to be out there dating. I'm not hard core dating like the ex. But I am happy and comfortable with how my life is right now.
We all got through the holidays with very few scratches and I am happy to say we are starting a new year will all sorts of possibilities and hopes for a better life and better attitude.
I love my kids. I love my grandkids. I love my sons in law. (Youngest daughter got engaged on Christmas eve) and I am happy in my relationship. I don't know what tomorrow will bring but I can tell you this... planning it won't make it so.
You must live every day like it's your last. Try to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them. I am still working on forgiveness because I have soooo many people to forgive. But I'm gonna try. I won't have to answer for all of them when I reach those pearly gates. The only thing I have to answer for is my own behavior. So as long as I'm doing my part, they can all go to hell which is where they are headed anyway. Ok ...yeah... still bitter.
Goodnight and Happy New Year to all!
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