Breaking Mommy Dearest - A Prologue

So Philip left for his month-long road trip, his walkabout if you will, last Thursday.  He's off the grid, by choice and I'm hating it, but I get it.  The night before he left, I stuffed a card for him to find into one of his tubs packed for the trip -
"I have come to learn - and respect - how much this trip means to you.  I wish you an amazing journey and hope that you find whatever it is you're looking for and that you are returned safely home.  I will be here when you get back.  I love you, Philip."  [sic]
A picture of the front of the card made it into his daily post as he was leaving New Orleans (how appropriate) on his way to Texas and it made me smile.
Anyway, I said all of that to say this.  Since he won't be back until mid-June, I have a bit more free time on my hands.  Not much, but enough to do a little self-searching of my own, albeit from the comfort of my hometown.  For a while I was wondering just what it was that I could focus on in order to take my mind off of him not being around and then it hit me like a ton of bricks - how about I work on my relationship with my mother?  
You see, my relationship with E-Bomb is probably what most would consider atypical and the next few posts are going to be dedicated to figuring out why I'm beginning to feel resentful towards her.  I'm hoping, through this little exercise of mine, to find a way to prevent this problem from getting out of control and get my relationship with her back on a healthy level.
Love her to pieces, but right now she's driving me crazy.

Ma and I at the family reunion, August 2013

Points that I will address in following posts will be marked with asterisks.

Stay tuned...

311 Day 2014

How does one describe one of the best experiences of their lives?
My brother and I just got back from four days in New Orleans where we did nothing but celebrate peace, love, unity and beers the size of our heads.  Thousands of 311 fans from every state in the US and something like 18 different countries descended on the town for the infamous 311 Day festivities and friendships were forged between members of the 311 Familia that will last a lifetime.  The best part was that my brother had the opportunity to experience it as well.
We landed late that Sunday morning, dropped our bags off at the hotel on St.  Charles Avenue, and walked about three blocks to what was to become our favorite day time bar, a place called Lucky's where you could have a drink, grab something to eat or do your laundry.  (A brilliant concept in my opinion.)  From there we walked around the town, killing time before we could check into our hotel, then stopped for beer and some amazing fish tacos at a place appropriately called Beer and Tacos.

My brother and I on Bourbon Street.

Once we sated our appetites, we got cleaned up and took the trolley halfway across town to meet up with my cruise buddies at the house they were staying in.  How awesome it was to be reunited with the people I shared yet another amazing experience - the 311 cruise last year - with.  We then headed to Bourbon Street and partied the night away.
It's really hard to describe the feeling of elation as you walk through the streets of an amazing town, waving at, saluting, and exchanging a "Happy 311 Day!" with complete strangers.  It kind of reminds you that there is still good in this world.  The fact that five guys from Omaha have put their heart and soul for the past twenty years into creating music that spreads the message of peace, love and unity just blows my mind.  And they're not finished yet.

Hammie and I with my cruise buds.

We must have waited in line to check out the merchandise for four or five hours on that Monday, but did we
really care?  No, because we were with like minded folks.  When drinks needed refilling someone would volunteer to step into the nearest bar.  When someone needed something to eat, another would accompany them to the nearest eatery to satisfy their hunger.  We laughed, we got to know total strangers, and had a damn good time.  We met people from all over the country - it was basically a giant tailgate minus the cars.
Bourbon Street was in a constant state of "Stay positive and love your life!" during our time there.  You could hear 311's music being cranked out of every bar you walked by - to me, that's a little slice of heaven.
Why?  You may ask.  What's so special about this silly band?  I can't really explain.  It's a passion for most of us.  Some get it, some don't.  Everyone who knows me says they think of me whenever they hear 311 on the radio.  Just last night Philip texted me to tell me that he was thinking of me while shooting pool and so he played Don't Stay Home on the bar's jukebox.

Homemade shirts are the way to go.

The concert at the New Orleans Arena on March 11 was nothing short of extraordinary.  The band played three sets totaling five hours and 66 songs, at times accompanied by either native jazz musicians or a small orchestra.  I don't know of many artists that do that for their fans anymore.
I plan on keeping this experience I was blessed enough to have tucked deep inside my heart for the rest of my life, and look forward to many more like it....I should probably open up a new savings account titled "The 311 Experience," being as that I will be on the boat again come 2015.    

Leave It To Music To Soothe The Soul

I'm still coming down from my trip to New Orleans and let me tell you, the drop has been pretty brutal.  [I'm working on a recap post so stay tuned for that.]  In the months leading up to my trip, it was the One Big Thing I was looking forward to, and now that it's over, I need something else to Look Forward To, but I don't want to live my life that way.  I want to look forward to every new day.  I want to completely immerse myself in the present moment and squeeze every bit of joy possible out of it.  I see so many others capable of this, so why is it so hard for me?

We don't want to walk into the gray, solo rolling with no map in hand
so we reach out for someone to grasp, keep from sinking into the sand
Pick it up now brother help another pick it up
don't get stuck in the destruction looming near
pick it up now brother help another pick it up
This is the revelation of the year
Picking up all the pieces here and there to see if one might fit
Spinning them around and sideways and up and down it kinda stings a bit
Digging through all the ditches
Just unwinding all the stitches into thread then hang it out to dry so
what was I expecting just collecting balls of lint up in my head?
I know I know don't yell at me
- Revelation of the Year, 311

Right now, all that runs through my head has so much more to do with things other than Philip.  The constant struggle I feel is an existential reverberation of life.  I know it doesn't have to be that way so I need to make some choices to remedy this problem, because I'm missing out on so much.  You know how some people are functioning alcoholics?  Well, I'm a functioning depressive.  I get out of bed and go to work every day, I do laugh, I do smile, I do enjoy the blessings I'm lucky enough to have bestowed upon me.  But those demons are always in the back of my head waiting for a moment of weakness so they can attack.  Those moments come in the hour before daybreak when my brain hasn't fully woken up yet.  Sometimes they hit in the midst of reverie, but it's usually before the sun has come up that the waves of desolation sweep over me.
There are things I do have on my side - I have God, my family, my friends, and believe it or not, the music of 311.  Their new album has hit home.  The chatter going around social media is how personal the new songs are, and I'm right there in agreement.

Every time I think I've got it figured 
something bigger always jumps in the frame
something gets in the way
Now I'm ready to turn the page on yesterdays and forgive them
Now I'm ready to disengage to seize the day and move on.
-Boom Shanka

I'm getting better at reminding myself to
Try not to think too far ahead
The pendulum swings soon enough
We could stay on this side instead
But we wanna make it rough

But the kicker is teaching myself to
Journey in peace now
You don't have to be afraid
Though mistakes
they will be made
Journey in peace now my friend

No you can't go around it
You have to walk right through it
My father told me that so long ago
Every time that you ignore it
It gets a little more
You just have to walk toward 
The fear to go

Don't be afraid
it's all part of the plan for us
Don't be afraid
it's all part of the plan for us
All that you hold dear
is on the other side of that fear.

Still Writing For My Life

My anxiety level has been incredibly high over the past several days for quite a few reasons, but I'm doing a pretty good job of not letting it paralyze me.  So, go me.  Some of the reasons are self-inflicted [well, isn't all anxiety pretty much self-inflicted?] like my constant over analyzing of whatever the hell is going on between Philip and I right now.  Most are environmental - stress over money, stress over the wedding I'm participating in, other friends that are presently dealing with life-altering career decisions, friends and close family members dealing with life-altering situations concerning relationships.  Monday was three years since my father died, and I found out that morning that a close friend's father passed away suddenly the day before.
Last Friday afternoon I took a second to scribble some notes in my journal to try to help me sort my thoughts.  I listed the things that are bothering me right now, then listed how I can cope with them in positive ways.  In short,

• Regarding Philip - It is out of my control, therefore I have to stop letting the questions that plague me [What is he doing at this moment?  What's going to happen between us?  Does he still miss me?  Care about me?  Did he cut his ex out of his life yet?  Is he sleeping with other people already?  What if I had done this?  What if I had said that?] consume my mind, because regardless of whatever the answers may be, I have no control over them.  I have to Let It Be.  
• Regarding financial stress - Work is picking back up already and the winter will [hopefully] be over soon.  My paychecks will return to normal.  My bills are paid, and I can't ask for much more than that.
• This wedding thing...ugh.  I'll reserve that rant for a whole separate post.  Let's just say I highly doubt I'll ever agree to be in another one unless it's for a family member or a close friend.  But it'll all work out.

Once I got all of that out of my system, I felt better.  On Saturday I was telling a friend about what I had done, and she texted me Tuesday morning to see how I was doing and inform me that I had inspired her to do the same thing - she wrote down all of of her anxieties, took a figurative step back, and was able to pinpoint the cause of the worst of them, therefore allowing her to focus on making changes so that her quality of life can improve.  It just goes to reiterate the point I am always trying to make - writing is cathartic and good for the soul.

Right now it's a matter of going back and applying the advice I give myself and praying that all will be well in the end.  

Relationships Never Get Easier, They Just Drive You A Little More Crazy

So my best friend of twenty years, Andrea, and I are going though some major relationship bullshit.  You know how I now it's major?  We're not really that young anymore.  Her and I both have run the gauntlet.  (Maybe her a little more than I; she's got a beautiful five year old daughter that I absolutely adore.)  Regardless, we've seen each other through some cruddy times when it comes the end of our relationships with men.
I remember consoling each other after middle and high school breakups, and I sometimes wish we could go back to those simpler times.  In college, life (and relationships) got a little more intense for both of us, and I remember when she broke up with her high school sweetheart.  It was like the end of the world, and I was almost as devastated as she was.  I remember thinking "If they didn't make it, is there hope for any of us?"  How foolish I was.
When I was about 18, the shit hit the fan with the guy I had fallen for, the one I crushed on my entire senior year of high school.  I had a mental breakdown in our friend Dara's parents' kitchen, and Andrea was right there counseling me and doing what best friends do.  Granted, the guy overcame whatever obstacles he had been facing at the time and we ended up together for five years.
Fast forward to our mid-twenties - Andrea was getting married as I was breaking up with the guy I thought I wanted to marry.  She and another close friend of ours were right there by my side as I endured the aftermath of the nastiest breakup of my life.
Fast forward another three years or so and I was floating along, single as hell, her marriage hit the rocks and never recovered.  So there we were, coping with divorce before we were even out of our twenties.  (And when I say "we," I mean it.  Their divorce affected me almost as much as if it had been my own, because that's just how her and I roll.)  So what the fuck?  That's not how it's supposed to work!  I had always admired the faith and the hope that Andrea invested in Love, so to see her in that kind of pain was unbearable, not to mention having to deal with the process of figuring out custody and new living arrangements.  Life was not supposed to take that turn.  My dearest friend was not supposed to have go through something like that.
Not long after the shock of that life changing event had subsided, the relationship I had with Buzzard blew up in my face.  I can't decide if that was more difficult to cope with than when I had broken up with my ex, but it sure as hell sucked.  And who was right there to get me back on my feet?  Andrea.
Fast forward to the present - The morning after Philip broke up with me, I met her and her daughter at breakfast, not taking my sunglasses off because of how swollen my eyes were, weeping the entire time into my napkin.  Just recently I got a text from her - things had come to blows with the guy she was seeing and the relationship has come to a halt, only to be revived if he makes some major changes that should have been taken care of a long time ago.  At thirty years old, Andrea and I are both trying to pick up the pieces of our hearts that have been shattered by the end of yet another relationship.
The bottom line is that love doesn't get easier as we get older.  It just gets harder and harder.  We are doing our best to continue on with our lives, Andrea devoting everything she's got to her daughter and her job, I'm devoting all I've got to my nephew and my writing.  But the pain is still there and we are sharing it as if we were one person.
We have hit the realization that we aren't in middle school anymore.  We are having meaningful relationships that ultimately we want to last forever, but fate keeps throwing wrenches in that plan.  It's not like we have awful taste in men either (well, I used to but have gotten a lot better at judging character.)  It isn't until "shit gets real" that we discover our partners' true colors.  Our concerns about "should I text him or should I not," "the anxiety I'm experiencing is killing me," "what did he mean when he said that," "I'm over analyzing this but I cannot control myself" are not comparable to what goes through a girl's head when she's still a teenager.  Outsiders looking in may think we are crazy, but we know we're not.  We're just going through the shit life throws at us, together.
I thank God for Andrea every day.  She'll send me positive quotes at random and I send her funny ones back.  We make each other laugh, we cry on each other's shoulders, we tell each other everything will work out, everything will be okay.  We remind each other to keep on truckin' on the days we just can't get it together.
Is it fair?  No.  Is it life?  Absolutely.  We may not have quite figured it all out yet, but we can accept that we probably never will.  If we ever do though, watch out because we will take over the world.

When I Hit A Fork In The Road

Is it possible that the things that are lacking in my life are that way simply because I'm not a big enough bitch?  Or because I tend to hesitate to say how I'm really feeling when I really should just let it out?  I just finished reading The Theory Of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch and it got me thinking - maybe I should take the advice sprinkled throughout this novel and do something with it.  Maybe, I should start taking left turns instead of right ones.  Maybe, instead of staying within my comfort zone, sometimes painstakingly, I should venture outside of it a little more often.
I'm not saying that I'm going to morph myself into a royal bitch that no one will like.  I need to learn to stand up for myself more often.  I tend to keep my mouth shut when something is bothering me or I am being treated unfairly, whether it's at work, in relationships, or even when I know I'm getting screwed over while making some sort of financial transaction.
I've gotten a lot better at it over the last few years - I used to be a complacent doormat, I might as well face it.  Not so much anymore, but there's always room for improvement.
I can only control the present.  To an extent.  Like when I learned last week, from a fellow photographer, that apparently someone at work had an issue with the posing of my subjects and that was the reason I had been put on a few jobs as assistant and not a photographer.  The thing is - I had been doing it my way since August and nothing had been said to me.  I was so upset I nearly launched into a full blown panic attack on the job.  Ordinarily I would let it go and not bother to speak up to person I should have, the person who had the opportunity more than once to address this issue with me as I sat in their office.  But I remembered the book, and I did the opposite - I spoke up.  I called one of the supervisors (the person I needed to talk to directly was out of town,) on my way home that day and told them how upset I was that there were "issues" with my work and I was never informed, that if there was a problem, someone should have addressed it with me so I could rectify it.  I also made it a point to shoot over the two-day job to prove that I am a good photographer, tweaking the things I knew needed improvement anyway.
So yeah, ordinarily, I would have sat back and done nothing until I was approached about the situation.  But if I had done this, who knows when that would have happened.  I had to take action, especially because the integrity of my work was technically in question.  I have yet to hear any backlash, so I don't even know if I did the right thing, aside from the person I had expressed my grievance to informing me that they checked out my past work and didn't see any problems.
It's a tough call sometimes.  I'm one of those people who has a crushing fear of angering someone, whether it be a friend, a lover, a family member or an employer.  I sometimes stumble over my words, even in my head, and fear that saying whatever it is that I need to say will do more harm than good.  Past experience and the environment I grew up in contribute heavily to this.
So it's definitely time to start making the left turns when I hit a fork in the road, because I've become painfully aware that always going right hasn't really been working out for me.      

Sometimes There's Nothing More Gorgeous Than A $100 Bill

If money is the root of all evil, then why do I feel like if I just had a little bit more I would be happier?  Maybe because I wouldn't stress so hard over never feeling like I have enough to make ends meet?  I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night with depressing thoughts creeping into my vulnerable, sleep-groggy mind, thoughts that tell me I'll never amount to much because I chose a career that I actually enjoy, that I'll never be able to afford to meet another human's basic needs, (a child's,) because I can barely meet my own, I start to panic about getting older and still not really having it together and I end up feeling utterly desolate, unable to fall back asleep.  
There are times I feel like no matter how much money I squirrel away, something will always happen to make it disappear.  Then I think, how do people do it?  How do they get married, buy houses, and have children when I know they are plagued by the same fears that plague me?  I guess the answer is simple - they just do.  My mother says the same thing.
Things change, people are born, they live, they work, they love, they hate, they work some more, try to live a decent life, and then they die, life goes on.  
It is a simple concept, it's just a really hard one to accept, especially for people like me.
I'm not sitting here bitching and complaining about my awful life, as I sip gourmet coffee (a Christmas gift) in a mug I bought when I went out to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past weekend, bundled up in warm clothes with properly running heat.  I unbelievably aware of how lucky and blessed I am to have a roof over my head, don't think for one minute I take anything for granted.
Maybe if I list the ways I've fucked up that I have since worked so hard to remedy, I'll feel a little better about myself?  Let's go.

• Back in 2009 I defaulted so bad on my car loan that my car was repossessed.
• Around the same time the car insurance company became tired of not getting paid and dropped me.
• I lost my health insurance for the same reason.
• I've had to borrow $20 from friends just to put some gas in my car.
• I've defaulted on my school loans.
• My credit card debt was so out of control that I just started ignoring the notices that came in the mail and the phone calls that came every day.
• For months, every bank statement I received had a negative balance.

I used to get so mad at how much the bank took from me every time I was hit with an overdraft charge, because I was trying, I was trying so hard to get back on my feet financially, and I couldn't.  Because it seemed like the bank was taking every dollar I was trying to use to get the credit card, school loan and car loan people off my back.
So let's now look at how I remedied (or at least tried to) all of these problems.

• I got my car back and resumed making the payments on time.  (We'll leave it at that.)
• I did end up driving without car insurance for a good year or two.  I don't condone anyone doing that, but once I was a little more financially stable, I secured myself some affordable insurance and have never missed a payment since.
• Same goes for my health insurance.  I did my best to take care of myself so as not to get sick, I went off birth control for about a year (which is actually recommended for women who are on it for long periods of time.)  And again, once I was back on my feet, I applied for individual coverage that I could afford.
• I called the company associated with my school loans and got back on track with them.  I was able to defer my loans until I was able to start paying them again, and since then have not needed a deference, nor missed a payment.
• I consolidated all of my credit card debt.  I know that's not the best way to handle things, but it was my only hope.  The woman I worked with offered me comfort and solace as I cried to her over the phone, as she pointed out to me that my case was no where near the astronomical ones they typical handle.
• I also stopped wasting money on trivial things like getting my nails done, (which I can do myself,) going out to the bars so often, and packing my lunch for work instead of hitting the Wawa every other day.  (Except for coffee refills of course.)

Once I got my shit together, which I swear only happened by the grace of God and lucrative seasons at work, I finally felt like a worthy human being again.  Now my car and credit cards are paid off, and the only debt I am carrying is my school loans, a very small amount on a credit card and the little bit I still owe on the eye surgery I had in June 2012.  These are the things I am using to reestablish my ruined credit and when I checked recently, it seems to be working.
But that little voice still nags me.  "Sure, you may be relatively back on your feet and supporting yourself, but what about a family?  Don't you want to buy a house one day?  How will you afford a mortgage payment?  Childcare?  College-fucking-tuition?"
Maybe once I realize that it's a never ending cycle, that there will always be things out of my control, I can accept it and just keep moving forward.  This constant feeling of being stuck?  It's getting really old.