Something Strange

First I need to complain about something. I love cooking, so I do it as often as possible. The thing I don’t like about cooking is that nearly every time I do it I get burned. I have several burn marks on my hands to prove it, and right now 2 small blisters. Is it that I forget that excessive heat is what is cooking my food so I should be careful? I am not sure, but it is painful and stupid. So, that is me complaining for the day.

A friend of mine and I decided it would be hilarious to join a dating site. While I didn’t think it was nearly as hilarious as she did, we did it. I know there isn’t anything on a dating site I’m interested in, and something told me to use a different name, but I didn’t listen to that voice in my head that is usually right.

I received the first message, and I forgot his name, but it was one of the most boring conversations I’ve ever been drug through, then *bam* he wants to “meet up” and will be off work in 25 minutes. Yea, I’m not a chick that is going to have a boring ass conversation with a dude but “meet up” with him after work. As far as I’m concerned every male on the internet is a serial killer and it is my life mission to avoid them at all costs.

Deleted. Blocked. Then they start coming in like crazy, and I call my friend to tell her I’m deleting the app. “No you are not!” She exclaims. “We are doing science right now!” I’m not sure she even understands science, or realizes that dodging dick pics isn’t science, but I have nothing better to do, so I play along.

The only conversation I could stomach was from a trans woman that wasn’t exactly forthright in her situation, and I didn’t push the issue because honestly, I wasn’t there to find a date, I was conducting some kind of experiment that hadn’t been fully explained to me.

When she and I get together the next time, she wants to see what “guys” are writing me, and finds that we share the same exact men, and nearly identical conversations. While I am losing interest in this experiment daily, nearly hourly, she is consumed by the attention and almost comical come on lines by these dudes.

I don’t tell her, but nearly 24 hours after downloading it, I delete my profile and remove the app.

That could honestly make me lose all faith in humanity, and wonder how anyone is dating nowadays. Like what if I was really looking for some kind of connection with someone? Is anyone connecting or are they just “meeting up?”

There is something strange about dating apps, they aren’t for people that want honest human connection. Where do you find that?

Also, does anyone else watch “Les Misérables” to cheer themselves up?

Are You Over That?

Sometimes I think that life just does something to ask you that question. I have had it many times in my life.

Once a guy and I broke up (this was MANY years ago) and I took it rather hard. Months later, I run into him. It is DALLAS TEXAS where you don’t ever really run into anyone, the place has like a billion freeking people, but whatever. Life just had to ask me if I was over him. Since I was being a little petty, the answer was a solid no, so life threw him in front of me again later and I could positively answer yes.

Recently, I found out someone is dying. Not just someone, but someone that I thought was my father for about 30+ years of my life. It is someone I felt like with a DNA test and a few choice words I had gotten completely over. So what he was a terrible father that never raised any of his children and ran off of 2 marriages, he wasn’t my problem anymore, I’m not related to this turd.

Finding out he was dying, I sat there for a minute and realized I never really got any closure from that. I said I did, and even had a whole story of how it didn’t effect me and how happy I was to find out he wasn’t really my father. Maybe part of it was true, but not all of it.

Now that I’ve found out he will not be walking on this planet much longer, I’ve realized that sometimes we don’t get our closure. Sometimes we have to just agree with ourselves that this person is an absolute idiot and doesn’t care. This particular person certainly doesn’t.

So, here is to life showing us that we need to buckle up..

Rambling About Stuff

I’m not sure what I want to write about tonight, I just know it has been a hot minute since I’ve put anything in here, so here it is.

Firstly, if someone is interested in you, whether it is male or female, you know it. You don’t have to guess or wonder where you stand, they let you know absolutely. Not sure if I’m saying that for me or you, but there it is.

Literally everything in my life has changed recently, and I do mean everything.

Firstly, I didn’t realize that I didn’t have a good grasp of friendship before, but this whole PS4 thing taught me a lesson in trusting and being loyal to the wrong people. When rumors began swirling around about me, I stood up for myself to the first couple, then when those bothered me less than they had planned, they dropped a few others, and one was a deal breaker for me. Once I got home, I deleted my profile off the system and sold it. I was done, out completely. It was a moment of clarity for me when I realized nobody was standing up for me, they were relishing in the rumors that those are NOT my people. Where I would have defended them to the point of insanity, they fed on the drama and added more into it to make it more enticing.

For months I’ve needed to get off my butt and take care of things. People kept telling me I needed to take care of doing this and that, but I “never got around to it.” Then life kicked me in the butt and made me do it. Now I have to do it, but by force this time, instead of being able to take my time and do it when I wanted to.

Anyway, I’ll wrap up by saying not to feed into rumors and when you like someone, make sure they like you back because it sucks when you realize they don’t.

Speechless

There haven’t been too many times in my life I didn’t know what to say, but this is certainly one of them.

Last night a man I call my brother asked me if I wanted to go have a beer with him. I wasn’t particularly doing anything at the time, so I said yes. He had moved here after wanting to “come back home” for 30 years, and has only been here for 2. He had plans, like building a home and spending his retirement years here at “home” and living happily every after.

He picks me up in his run down Chevy truck and we go to the first place, and it is closed. We both remember it is Sunday and go to a bar we both know will be open. When we arrive, there are only 3 people there, and I’m the only female. We sit down at the bar and order.

I know he wants to talk about something, but what that something is I’m not so sure. He’s not an overly emotional human being, so I know nothing has happened like he fell in love or anything like that.

We make small talk because we haven’t seen one another in a few months (maybe even a year?) and settle down into the conversation that brought him to call me.

The family that adopted me own a place outside of town. It has been in their family for at least 3 generations. I grew up on it, and my kids grew up on it, and we had hoped that a few more generations would grow up on this place, but they aren’t. The family is going to sell it. Right now is a great time to sell, and could potentially make them a ton of money, so as fast as they can get their things off the property, it is going to go up for sale.

While most of the family is sad about it, remarkably, I am not. It does hold some great memories for me, but it also holds some not-so-great memories. Plus, in my mind, the place isn’t mine. I’m adopted, and that fact has been thrown in my face more times than anything I can think of. So, it isn’t MY property, it belongs to someone else.

Anyway, he is sad, and doesn’t know where he is supposed to go now. Coming back home for him in his mind was MUCH different than reality, and he’s very disappointed. His problem is that he doesn’t know where to go, he has 49 states to choose from, and since he’s retired he doesn’t have to worry about a job, so he could go anywhere. But where? That is the question, and the one he would ask me 30 times last night.

I wanted to tell him I could relate. I wish I were a little less private than I am. There were so many things I wanted to say to him, like “yea, I don’t know where I’m going either, but I’m out of here.” But I didn’t. I sat there listening to him, speechless.

I do know exactly how he feels, and relate on so many levels with what he is going through right now, but never said it to him. I have this weird thing where I want my private life to be private and until I figure something out, nobody needs to know about it. Makes it very difficult to get people’s opinions or to ask advice, honestly. It also makes it hard to let people know that I understand EXACTLY how they are feeling.

When I had gone through about 5 states that I thought would be nice for him to live in or visit and he disagreed, I finally went back to listening to him talk about what all the property meant to him and how sad it was that it will someday not be “in the family.”

I don’t share that, because I’m not “in the family” but understand how that would affect someone. I can empathize even though I don’t relate to the situation.

When he was done talking he looked at me and said “how do you look younger than me and yet you are older?”

Ahhh.. Genetics?

I didn’t say anything, just laughed and ordered another drink.

On the drive home, he didn’t say anything and either did I. I was thinking of what I was going to do, where I was going to go, and how life had taken me down a road I wasn’t familiar with and didn’t really enjoy. I would imagine he was thinking the same.

Sometimes It Was Me

I read a post yesterday while scrolling through Facebook that really resonated with me. It said that sometimes the problem was me, it wasn’t always someone else.

While realizing this, I remember a conversation I had with someone where I was talking about how people didn’t always stay in touch with me. I’m not always great at staying in touch with people either. Not that they don’t cross my mind, but I don’t often think of texting, or even honestly visiting people. I always assume if someone wants to see me, they would come see me.

It isn’t just that though, I’ve also done other things that made me seemingly either uninterested or incapable of having a relationship with people. I am obviously not, but I’ve also refused to fix what some people have thought, then been offended when they didn’t invite me to something that I thought I should be invited to.

So yea, I would like to say publicly that sometimes I’ve been the problem in a relationship, and even friendships and families are relationships.

I’ve been the sarcastic one, listened to stories about people without questioning the validity, and even made assumptions about people based on those stories. I am guilty.

I think if we realize that sometimes we are the problem, it will help us the next time we decide to be judgmental or sarcastic.

As I drove 1300 miles in the next 2 days, I’ll take the time to see if I can fix this.

I Just Don’t

You ever meet someone enthusiastically then realize a few days down the road you just don’t like them? Well, that just happened to me.

I’d like to say I’ve been handling it well, but I’ll be honest.. I haven’t.

I’ll give you some background. I met someone, they had the same ideals and principles as myself, and I thought we’d get along great. I went into the relationship (not the way you are thinking, even friendships are relationships) very positive. I even told people around me this was going to be great.

With no real explanation, I got off the phone with this person one day and realized I didn’t particularly like this dude. I can’t go around telling anyone, especially since it was only DAYS ago I was talking about how great he was and how we had the same principles that were lacking in people nowadays. Typically I don’t mind looking a little cray cray, but I’m really trying to keep that at bay right now.

When you don’t like someone, you usually can go down a list of reasons why. Well, in my case, I don’t have a list. I don’t really have anything. I just honestly and thoroughly do not like this person.

The problem is that I’m not good at faking anything, so he can feel there is something amiss, and has even randomly apologized for something or nothing, he isn’t really sure. It is an uncomfortable situation that I’m not sure right now how I’m going to deal with.

A little about him: he is a very strong personality, an extrovert that many people like and some even admire for his accomplishments. He doesn’t boast or brag about them, but other people have. He’s apologized for things he has done, and even a couple that he hasn’t done, so he does take personal responsibility.

Typically, those would be great traits in a person. So why do I dislike him so much? I have no idea. I can’t put my finger on it.

I do the smiling and talking thing, trying to figure out what in the hell is wrong with me, and try not to let anyone know I’ve decided not to like this dude randomly.

It makes me wonder how many people do that to me. How many people smile and me then go home and wonder why in the world they don’t like me? I think with me though, there are plenty of reasons not to like me, and if you couldn’t find one right away, one would hit you very soon. I’m kidding, sort of.

Has this ever happened to you?

Not Very Long Ago

So, it wasn’t too long ago I wrote a post about the need to shut off.. I shut off my phone in hopes of having a little peace on a day where I typically do not.

A couple of days after that, I was feeling rather disconnected from everyone. The thing about being me is that people tend to leave you alone, because they get the feeling that is what you want, so when you actually want some interaction, you have to go seek it out. Granted, there are a couple of people in my life that know I’m terrible at that, so they pretty much stay in touch with me all the time, but not to excess. It is typically just enough to get my attention like “hey, I’m always here, don’t forget..”

The bulk of the population just contacts me when they either have to tell me something, want to schedule a lunch date, or need something.

It goes without saying I’m terrible at keeping in touch. When you tell me to stay in touch, basically you should realize it probably is never going to happen and set a reminder to text me in a few weeks to see if I’m still alive.

The other day though, I wanted to be in touch again. I wanted to hear from people, so I started texting. 3 people told me they had been thinking of me lately and wondered how I was doing. A couple of people just chatted with me about kids, houses, and whatever was going on in their lives. A couple of others didn’t answer right away, and by the time they did my feeling had faded back to “why doesn’t everyone just leave me alone!”

There are people that love differently than others. Some people make a great show of the love they have for you, it’ll be all over your Facebook and you’ll get matching tattoos and weekly lunch dates, then there are people like me, that will love you to death and you won’t get any of that.

What you do get from people like me is a rock. I don’t change my mind about people overnight, if I loved you last year and we haven’t spoken, I still love you today. If you showed up at my door crying, I’d be sitting you down with some tea and terrible advice about hitmen and guns. If you hate men, I do too! If you decide you don’t, then I guess they are alright. If you call me angry about something, then I’m angry about it too! If you decide you aren’t anymore, then that is cool too. What you get with someone that doesn’t just let everyone in is that person completely. You aren’t sharing me with anyone, ever. Yes, I have other friends, but when I’m with you, and I trust you, you are in a very elite group of people. From me, you always get the truth, even if it isn’t something I want to say or want you to hear, I’ll say it. I’ll say it because it is the right thing to do, and even if you can’t hear it, I’ve said it, and put that energy out into the universe. You don’t have to guess if I’m angry, or what I’m angry about because I’ll spell that out for you, and it doesn’t mean I don’t like or love you anymore, it just means you made me angry. I’ll get over it, and we will be fine. That is what a rock is. It doesn’t move, you can turn around a thousand times in your life, and it’ll still be there, and so will I.

So, I won’t be putting up cute things on Facebook talking about how wonderful you are, but if you come over, I may. Or, I may talk about hitmen and guns, who knows?

The lesson here is to reach out to people, say hello to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while, they may be me, just waiting for you to need or want them.

Turn It Off

Don’t you hate it when you do the block editor on accident when you are wanting to do the classic, then trying to figure out how to change it before you start typing? Maybe that is just me.

Tuesday was an interesting day. When I woke up, I had several messages on my phone that needed my attention, then my work messaging had 18 messages. Each one, asking something different of me, and quickly I became overwhelmed. The day went from one fire to another, while still trying to keep up with the things I actually needed to do. On a phone call with another manager he stopped and said “are you alright?” To which I actually answered him honestly that I was not.

Yesterday was my day off. I don’t usually actually take it off, because I’m typically behind and really need to do something. Yesterday was no exception. I had made a list of the things I needed to do, but did something different. I shut off my phone and didn’t go into the work messaging at all. I wanted to be left alone, by everyone. It wasn’t personal, I just needed a minute to be able to gather up my thoughts, get my head back straight and be able to be the productive person I know I am.

I had a friend many years ago tell me that not every question needed my answer, and not every situation needed me to handle it. Apparently I didn’t agree with her, or I would stop. If someone texts me, I answer it. I don’t think about it really. Whether that text is from an employee at work asking a question they could have easily looked up, or my brother sending me yet another laptop for a friend that already purchased one months ago. The way I look at it is if they are asking it or calling me about it, then they need an answer. What if I text a question to someone and they thought it was retarded and ignored it? How would I feel if I really did need that answer? Have someone make you feel extremely unimportant and you understand the value of making sure people know they are important.

Of course I’m stubborn enough that if I actually do need the answer I’ll text again “hey, you get that message from me? I kinda need to know that!”

My Wednesday started at 7am sharp, and the very first thing I did was shut off my phone. Nobody was going to get an answer from me, I needed a minute to myself. I made myself some coffee, and began debating what I was going to have for lunch.

It was such a different morning than Tuesday morning that I actually enjoyed the quiet. I sat drinking my coffee and flipping through Netflix, then made myself some lunch around 11, and was actually able to eat it without being interrupted with phone calls, texts, or work messages.

I don’t get overwhelmed easily, and when I do, I usually have to completely disconnect from everyone to get myself back together again and recharge for the next barrage of people-ing.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like people, generally. I just have to take them in small doses. To me, it is like poison. I can take it, and handle it, but then I need to get away from it for a while to get back healthy again before I go back to slowly being poisoned to death again.

Okay, maybe that is a bad example.

But people are very draining on me, unless I find your presence calming and soothing to me. There aren’t many of those though.

After lunch I cleaned up a bit, drove to get myself my favorite coffee, and came home to enjoy it. I sat here, in front of my huge monitor and decided it was time to turn everything back on again. So I did, about 1pm, turn my phone on and get back into work messaging.

I only had 3 voicemails, 6 texts, and 19 work messages to sort through. Instead of entertaining that though, I text my sister and did the small amount of work I had to do and sat back in front of the television. I did manage a “I’m off work today, but will definitely get to this tomorrow” on a work message, but ignored the rest until this morning.

No matter how insanely overachieving we think we are, or how “connected” we really want to be to the world, sometimes it is good to disconnect for a while and just enjoy the peace of being with yourself.

Relationship – Time for You

Let me just start this out by saying that literally nobody I know or hang out with is single. Each and every person I know is in some type of relationship. EVEN when we made a PRACTICALLY IRON CLAD agreement to stay single so we could be the old ladies in the nursing home hitting everyone else with canes, but it is what it is. At least I stood by the agreement.

Anyway, with Valentines Day coming up, I though I’d do a post on relationships. I used to think because I’m a touch of a failure in them I couldn’t possibly have any advice, but I was wrong. Just because I haven’t been married for 30 years doesn’t mean I don’t have an excellent idea of what is going on in them and how to prevent problems and fix problems accordingly.

Besides, I’ve known people married for extreme amounts of time, and they aren’t exactly all geniuses. One has a child my age, born 10 months after his wedding, by another woman. Another couple I know about has been dealing with his on again/off again cheating since day 1. So, maybe I’m the smart one, eh?

I had a friend come over to my house. Let me tell you something though. When someone knocks on my door, I have the reaction of someone that has just been bumped into at the supermarket by someone they hate. I actually literally get angry. Who has the nerve to knock on my door, and what in the WORLD could they possibly want?

That is actually more annoying than calling me, because you actually have to see my facial reactions in person, I don’t get to hide that behind a friendly tone.

Anyway, she comes in and we haven’t seen one another in a few months, so we are talking about all the crap that fills the gaps in our lives. While talking, she keeps checking her phone, so I ask if she’s gotten into a relationship. “I’m not sure.” This is actually a very telling answer. It says she wants to be and thinks she is, but has no clue where his head is. It’s a game, and from what I can remember of it, a pretty dull one.

She asks me if I have gotten into one or found anyone interesting and I laugh. “Unless he breaks into the house, he’s probably not going to find me.”

Finally, about an hour into us talking she begins typing a text out on her phone and I want so badly to intervene. I want to tell her to stop, if he isn’t answering he isn’t interested, but I can’t, we aren’t that close and she hasn’t invited me into that yet.

About 15 minutes later her phone beeps and she looks up at me “you ever too busy to answer a text from someone you care about?” I immediately answer “nope.” I go into how I work 7 days a week at my job, write, cook, clean, and have various other activities, but if someone I actually want to hear from texts me, I drop it all for them. I know people that do the same for me. I’ve actually WATCHED it happen to other people. Nobody is too busy, it is just a matter of priority.

She explains to me that she has gotten into what she considers to be a relationship with a guy that always seems too busy to answer her texts. She’s never been able to call him when she wants or needs to, and never quite understands where she stands exactly.

I didn’t give her great life advice or tell her to get rid of him, I told her she needed to love herself more than she wanted a relationship. If you love yourself, you don’t stand for things in your life. If you are in any type of relationship (even friendship) and that person cannot find time to text you, then you shouldn’t be bothering them anymore.

I have wrapped myself up more times than I can tell you waiting for that phone to make that tone of a text, or waited for that phone call that never came. Screw that.

I told her if he was interested, he would show it and it would be abundantly apparent. We don’t tend to hide feelings like that, unless we are married or haven’t come out as gay and not ready to make that step.

Life is too short to hang on to a phone waiting for someone to decide you are important enough to text or call. This goes for men too. If she’s interested, she will show it, and if you are a priority, she will drop everything the minute she hears from you. (If possible, like we can’t throw the doctor out of the room because you called during an exam.)

When people do call me and I honestly don’t have the time, I feel bad. Once my father used to call me every Tuesday at 11, which also happens to be a time I’m in a conference call for my job. Every Tuesday I had to remind him of my call and actually felt bad I couldn’t give him that time. I made a joke out of it eventually, and even when he would make sure he didn’t call me during that time I’d say “hey! You forgot to call last Tuesday at 11.”

By the time we were done talking, I told her she’s probably wasting her time with this idiot when a guy that would adore her is in the sidelines waiting for her, and that ended up to be true. She got rid of ‘too busy for you” and began dating the man she married last October.

She came over last night and thanked me for my advice, and said I should be a counselor. Could you imagine? Nah – I’m too into this whole radical honestly thing to ever try to give advice to people I don’t know.

I’d be all like “well Karen, maybe if you stopped drinking long enough to pay attention to your life you could fix it eh?”

Probably not a job I should look into.

Broken?

First of all, it has been 15 days since I’ve written anything, which is odd. I remember being a much more prolific writer than this.

You ever realize something about yourself that you didn’t notice before, and it surprised you? It was like when you are driving your car and you go to use something and it doesn’t work, and you’re all like “well, this is broken.”

I had a pretty tragic event happen to me about a year and a half ago, that has changed some things about me. Most of the things I knew, and am working out, and yet there is this one thing that just kinda blindsided me.

I don’t have unshakable trust in people, I never have. I know people will get angry with you randomly, sometimes over something stupid and they will leave you. People are generally fickle, and if you don’t fit in right at that time for them, or you have some type of misunderstanding, then you are forgotten to them. I could give you 100 examples, but I’ll spare you the details.

Recently, I realized that event changed the fact that I’m able to trust people I’ve met since that event happened. I don’t trust my intuition, or the feeling you get when you meet someone. So it’s not really that I don’t trust them, I don’t trust me.

There is an absolute line too, it is if I met you before that happened, we are good, if I’m meeting you now, I’m going to be a little screwed up. It comes out sideways, and weirdly, but what it is saying is that I don’t trust myself. I WANT to like you, maybe trust you enough to order me the correct drink in a restaurant, but honestly, I question everything.

So, I make a friend and am acting normally (for me) and as with any friendship, there was a small life test. For normal people, they go to the friend, talk to them, get it sorted and go on with life. For me, I act all crazy, list out 20 reasons why I KNEW this person wasn’t truly a friend of mine, and don’t answer her texts.

She calls me though, and I answer, to which she explains what occurred, apologizes, and it is in that moment I realize I may be a little broken.

Someday I’ll have all this fixed, be able to get into a friendship and crazy will be asleep or dead, and I won’t have to worry. Until then, I’m sitting here with crazy letting it drive until I can figure out how to get a handle on it.