My Golden Birthday

It happens once in a life time. It is supposed to be your lucky birthday, your star birthday, your golden birthday. It can happen any year up until you are 31, but it only happens once. Mine hit last week, and this week I am celebrating. YEAH!! Don't get me wrong I am excited, and wow here come a new decade, I wasn't really into the last one. Things are changing, am I?
Looking back I like what I see, there are a few bumps in the road I wish had never happened, but hey they made me who I am . I have come to realize I am a introvert that hangs with extroverts. I would rather, stay home on my days off and do nothing rather then go out. That being said I love people I love getting to know them and helping them. I give my all when I am at work, I give my all when I am with those I love and care about, I even give my all to complete strangers. But when it come to me I would rather not in fact I would rather others not either.
so I planned my 30th birthday party, it's happening tonight, I am looking forward to it, not because it's all about me. I am looking forward to it so, hopefully, a group of amazing people can meet and connect. When all is said and done I would really just rather get all these people together and then quietly sneak out the back door. Honestly, no joke. People say "Thar's so mean, how could you. " I would rather watch this group of amazing people interact and get to know each other, as a fly on the wall, then as one of them.
There is even part of me that hopes that prince charming will show tonight...
Did I mention I'm still single : )

Real

Can we be real for a moment? I mean really real. Real like a bug's guts being splattered over your windshield because, your car and it suddenly collided. Real like, learning your mom was right about just about everything that really mattered and wrong about things like your face freezing. Real like how ligers are real but Charlie the Unicorn is not. Let's be real just for a moment.

......

OK moment over now back to the wonderful thing we call life.

I will survive

I am almost certain I am not to be married, I am to be single it is who I am. I am not your typical girl I don't think about what I want for a wedding. Mind you this revelation of singleness, comes the day after one of my closes friends gets married, and the week of Single Awareness day. I would like to think that those two facts in combination with multiple other trivial details add up to me feeling like I will be alone forever, but I don't really think that is the case.

The world in general promotes an anti-single place, in fact most places do the church, gyms, adverting. 2-for-1 deals, buy one get one free, come stay with us and a friend stays free. Blah, blah, blah.

I know this is all starting to sound very bitter, but really it's not. I just decided the path I am going to take. I am not saying I won't ever get down when I see couple together, or the next time I decide to go out alone, but I am going to rise above it. I have never been in love, or in a relationship for that matter, so like many things I don't know what I am missing.

Case in point I had my first drink when I was 25, I believe I am better for it. I don't just get drunk I don't drink just to drink. When I have a drink or two I enjoy them but keep my senses. I know people who are my age and older who get "wasted" an a regular bases. Why do I need to? Now don't get me wrong there have been time when I have said screw it I am getting sloshed, according to my friends I don't get anywhere near bad, and I am fine with that. It amazes me for the longest time, before and then a bit after I started drinking, people couldn't tell if I was drunk or not, because I am who I am no questions asked.

I am who I am know questions asked. (to steal from a plethora of song lyrics)I am my daddy's girl, my hero is my mom, I like to drive fast, I like to paint my fingernails black, I was born to fly, I am a daughter that my father has been good to, I am the spitting image of my mother, I am a good little girl, I like whiskey, I like wine, I like to drive with no place in mind, I want to grow something wild, I want to dance.

I am done trying to find someone, I am done. I have told people I am looking but guess what I am not anymore. I am going to have times when I cry when I yearn for someone to hold me, but I am not going to let it get the best of me. Stop looking for people for me I am not that girl. I am the stable one the one that people come to for relationship advice even though I have never been in one. Let me have my down moments but don't let me wallow in them. Don't tell me how great guys are or how big of a jackass men are, I know there are both out there, but I know I am to have neither. I am OK with that. I am OK going to the movies alone I am OK going out to eat alone, I am OK living alone, what I am not OK with is you having pity on me. Make it a joke laugh it up. At the some time don't tell me "it's ok not to marry" in that tonw, you know the one. I know it is ok not to marry, don't tell me you miss being single and that I won't know what I am missing until it is gone. I get I am OK with it all, but don't help me to build up a wall around my heart full of bitterness. Let me be who I am don't try to set me up, don't try to change me.

All life must come to an end

We had my aunts funeral yesterday. She was far more than an aunt to me. She was my mom, sister, and friend. It took me some time to convince her she was even just my aunt let alone the rest. We would go shopping and the store clerk would ask "is this your daughter" my aunt would respond " no she is my husbands niece" I would say "I am HER niece" Finally we ened up just saying, "close enough" whenever anyone ask if we were mom and daughter.
I remember when my Uncle and her first got together, it was "wrong" for us to like her, because "they were living in sin". You couldn't help but like her let alone love her. Once they "became honest" we were free to like her. (strange how "Christians" rationalize things).
After my own mother died my aunt was one of various women to step up and take her place. She was one of the few of these said women that truly knew my heart. I was allowed to be me the me my mother had helped me to become. I could be a kid, I could be an adult, I could laugh, I could cry, I could be silly I could be wise, I could be me.
I will miss her but like my own mother I know she is in no more pain. She doesn't have to put an a mask, she can run she can jump she can laugh. I know that my mother and her both are up in heaven with so many others looking down on me, saying, "That's my girl."

Ring in the new year.

As another year ends and we are on the cusp of a new year...2009. A year full of possibilities and expectations. I ponder, what is to come? Will this be the year? Should I even hope?
I am a bit depressed, depressed might be a bit extreme, but let's face it. I am tired of being a totally awesome, great looking, fun loving, mature woman who also is hopelessly single. I know your saying now wait if all that is so true then how is that possible, beats the hell out of me too.
In the past week I have had more then my share of strangers, who after meeting me and talking to me find it "hard to believe" I'm still single. I also know that complete strangers shouldn't hold much weight, but I also get the same from people that know me (not those that are family or close to it, you know the ones that have to say that sort of thing) you know friends and co-workers. When it comes from them it's almost like turning the knife.
Now don't get me wrong I know if I did "have someone" a lot of things would change, I WANT CHANGE.
The best (or worst) is the eharmony promo stuff. Apparently when you get a match during the holidays the send you stuff like. Come out of the cold with...., don't spend the holidays alone spend it with..., try something new in 2009... OMG, really.
I say all this to say, here to 2009 a year of possibilities.

Why do we try so hard?

Why do we try so hard to fit in, to get noticed, to stand out, to please other, to be everything for everyone including ourselves, except the person we were truly meant to be. I know in this crazy messed up world we sometime lose sight of what is most important.

Kicking the bucket

So tonight my grandmother died. Really I am relieved. I am a little stunned, that it took so long. Let me start by saying my grandmother and I weren't close, in fact any attempt made to get to know her was pretty much shot down. I have known for awhile now that she was near the end, it's just a sense I have. I honestly can say I am relieved though because I think now her son and daughter-in-law can get on with their lives.

I always hoped that one day my grandmother in her state of Alzheimer would mistake me for my dead mother and spill the beans on some huge family secret. You see grandma was very tight lipped about herself, the past, and really anything if not everything. It was like pulling teeth at times to even get simple facts for family trees or just to know where she came from. In fact some of us suspected that my grandmother had been abused at some point just based on her reactions to various things in life or on TV. When grandma did start to share you couldn't push or force her to talk just let her talk and thank God for the glimpse of who she was.

I am pretty sure my grandmother was the first person I didn't like because she hurt my mother. now don;t get me wrong I loved my grandmother but I didn't like her. I am the type of person that if you hurt someone I love then pretty much I will let you know that I dislike you (passive aggressively of course). It took sometime to take pity on my grandmother for lack of a better term. I think I actually tried to start making an effort right before my mother died and then greatly so after I saw the relationship or lack there of that my sister was having with her. No matter how many steps I took though there was know "getting to know her".

My dream theory was that my grandmother was really Shirley Temple. At some point growing up my mother had said that know one knew how old Shirley Temple was and there was some mystery in her past. In my head I had put together that my grandmother was really Shirley Temple because they looked alike. I reasoned that they were switch in their late teens. Another theory I had was that my prude of a grandmother had a lover on the side somewhere and it was all just for show. I guess I will never really know beyond what I learned from my parents, my uncle and my own observations.

We always used to joke that grandma kinda got skipped when it came to being cool. My Great-Grandmother coolest lady I every knew, loved to share, loved to joke and laugh. My mother again another cool lady. Somewhere the coolness skipped a generation with my grandmother. I can only hope it doesn't skip another with me.