Snow Bunny

I don't know if I told you, but this last weekend I took a little jaunt up to Tahoe. "Jaunt" as in 10 hours of dangerous driving into the gaping mouth of a wintery Armageddon.... uhhhhhh oh wait, that was just my mom trying to scare me into safety. It was actually a pretty smooth drive sans the speeding ticket I got!

 

 I've never been to Tahoe, but it was SOO pretty. We shopped at the little boutiques and I watched people gamble! I also had the realization I'm pretty unaccustomed to snow, mostly because I'm cold during the summers in Fresno so why would I go somewhere where my body gets doused in ice! It snowed all day Saturday which was cool. Look at my car!!

It NEVER snows in Fresno so I was like a kid staring out the windows exclaiming something stupid about the snow over and over. Snowflakes are pretty although this picture makes them look like dirt. ha ha

I didn't sleep well my last night because I was sure the blizzard would force me to spend the next week living off dirty peanut M&M's and recycled urine as I clawed my way out of the largest avalanche the world has ever seen! Oh wait, that was just the scenario my mom came up with as a way of telling me she loves me and her helping me to be more prepared. She loves me A LOT!

Anyways, I woke up and hit the road to try and beat the storm out of town. Umm, turns out things were quite "heavenly"... ah aha ha - Get It? That's the name of the mounta.... ok, anyways, look at the unsafe picture I took while driving!

I made it home safe and sound! Sort of! As I come off the 41 onto Friant (2 miles from home) my brakes start to make a weird sound. I'll never live down the guilt of asking my dad to investigate because he missed the 1st hour of the Super Bowl!!!! BUT, he discovered a bolt that holds together my front brake caliper had fallen off. OMG! Luckily it was a fairly easy fix and we're back to business as usual, but WHEW! That was close.

Anyways, what'd you do this weekend?

So how old does this make me? 50? 60?

I received an iTunes gift card for Christmas. I get them from time to time and I just keep the credits online so I can buy what I want (music/iPhone apps/etc) whenever the mood hits me. (Anything Apple or for the kitchen is a surefire way to win my heart BTW)

So what hits me yesterday? MUSIC - I want a new CD. And what do I wind up buying? The Best of Sade, of course. I guess she has a new album coming out and I can't wait for that, but OMG I AM MY MOTHER!!  She was always rockin' Sade. That and DeBarge. Enough for me to exclaim when I was 5 that I HATED music and that I would NEVER own a radio! (Pretty sure my mom played RECORDS!!! and there was no such thing as a CD yet so radio was where it was at maaan... HA HA)

I'm LOVING listening to my new CD now, but there's a little voice inside telling me this is, in fact, the final sign of the times. Forget all those earthquakes in one place after another - god is speaking to us all. Be forewarned!

Oh yeah, and I made and ate a really good sandwich the other day. MMMM

What I've been up to... And FREE PORN!

Hey everyone...

MISS ME? I've been busy supporting our economy! In the world of shopping, NO ONE can hang with me in a shopping marathon. Oh, you think you can? We'll talk when hour 6 rolls around... They ALL talk the talk, but no one has ever walked the walk.

Well, with the exception of MY MOTHER - that women will BREAK YOU! She's got a handicap placard and she knows how to use it! She also knows how to use her children as pack mules to haul the scrap metal or whatever she purchased that one time that weighed like 200 lbs back to the car. HA HA, just kidding mom, I LOVE YOU! Well, that was a true story, so not really kidding...

A N Y W A Y S... Move along, nothing to see here !!!

I don't have enough time to put on a fashion show for you, but I got a little be of everything. Jackets, closed toed shoes, a shrug, shirts, jewelry... Gotta prep for winter, ya know?! However, every shopping trip produces something SO EXCITING, I get worked up just THINKING about it. Feast your eyes on my new lady friend. Yeah, I pretty much went lesbian just for her and her hot sister.

Yes, I know this is disturbing. I'm sorry. I LOVE SHOES! and Guess shoes, particularly those by Marciano are starting to multiply in my closet. Sometimes I just sit on the floor in my closet and look at all my little pretties. Is that weird? WHAT? WHY?!?! It makes me so happy though!

Wanna see what totally turns me on? Here's some FREE PORN for you. Go ahead, it's work safe... What? Don't you trust me? Just click it! C'MON!!

Speaking of fashion - it's a lot of work to even look semi put together! I think that's about the time some people just wave the white flag. They surrender. They. dont. care. This concept is foreign to me from every vantage point. On that note, I give to you the worst dressed man of the week.

Alright, enough of that nonsense... Don't you want to hear about other thing's that I think are cool that actually make me uncool?  LOOK AT THE LITTLE BASIL BABIES in my Aerogarden! They're growing up so fast... Why just a couple weeks ago I remember...

Okay, well, shoes, porn, and basil is about as wide a range of topics as I'm willing to cover today. I'm gonna call it a night now! G'night everyone!

Dilbert gets me every time...

If you've had the pleasure of asking me computer questions, I'm pretty sure I've said something along the lines of: "Quit being afraid of it..." "Just push some buttons" "You can't break it anymore than it already is so why not just try something" "Don't even read it, just say OK OK OK"

And then I read this:

A HA HA HA - So my mom thought this was hilarious! In my defense, there's some sort of abnormal force around her house causing her computers to do things that hardly EVER happen.

Thought you could use a laugh. Happy Monday.

Can you see it?

Today I had the realization that I will never be good enough. I am wholly undeserving of the kindnesses given to me. I am beyond touched at others thoughtfulness. And no matter what I do, I don’t think I could truly convey my heartfelt appreciation for the GOOD people I have in my life.

Actually, I am undeserving because I’m not a very good daughter and I’m an even worse friend... I could spend 10 years trying to do something thoughtful and it would never be as nice as what my friends do for me. I let people call me, I don’t call them. All I do is work and I don’t bring much interesting stuff to the table. Maybe a sarcastic story or at least a distraction when I fall down, but in return I’m surrounded by the most stellar group of people I’ve ever met. My friends and family are pricelessly valuable and treasured by me.

The one person I haven’t figured out yet is my mother. I struggle EVERY day with my own contradictions, but now I can 100% tell you, those traits came from her! She’s confusing. I know she loves me, but I’m pretty much positive she hates me as equally with a white hot passion. Read back to Thanksgiving and I posted a picture of a dress I wanted, but they didn’t have my size. I showed up at her house a week ago and she had ordered that dress for me! I think I actually cried when I opened the box! That was SOO thoughtful. SOO nice. We made a lunch date out of it and we went and had it tailored. (I pick it up tomorrow!!!) We get along great at times. Last week we went and had pizza at a fancy new place that’s all organic and environmentally friendly. She buys me little prizes and tries to cater to my every whim. She’ll cook dinner if I’ve had a long day and I call her crying. She’s offered her home to me should I lose my job and need to move back in. She compliments my outfits... and I love SOO MANY things about her. She’s well read, she knows every episode of Judy Judy and Dr Phil. She’s funny and at times thinks I’m funny. We can talk about alternative medicines and NO ONE is a better green thumb. Ask her about any plant and she knows it. She has awesome decorating skills and if you want any help planning a party, she better be the 1st one you call! I love my mother, and despite the price I have paid for the love blood “should” bring unconditionally and for free, I’m so happy to have my family back, it makes me tear up just typing this.

Over Christmas we went to Magic Mountain and their generosity was again so undeserved. They even re-upped my season pass for me. However, in an RV, I don’t know if the 2 of us do so well living in essentially a big giant hallway. Now I can see that my mom does not like ME at all. I just sat there and I saw... I saw it so clearly - I will NEVER be good enough for her. NEVER. All my desperate need for approval stems from right here. She may compliment sometimes, but inside she critiques always. I see... I see it in her eyes. I am a dirty, sloppy, messy, manipulative, disease riddled, rigid, pagan, time wasting, disappointment to her - and that’s all there is to it.

I am 30 years old. Any of you who know me will know I am a fairly clean and organized person. I have a decent amount of common sense and many varied good qualities. Come to my home. My house is clean, even my drawers are organized. I shower and shave and brush my teeth EVERY day. Change my sheets and towels every week. My receipts are filed. I am a functional adult. Yesterday I took apart, cleaned, and put back together my entire refrigerator shelving system - just because... But that’s not good enough. Under her watchful eye, I was copiously reminded of my failings. I sleep in my own filth because I choose bathe in the morning and not before bed. I left my toothbrush on the counter, didn’t rinse a spoon IMMEDIATELY, decided to not wear socks even though it was cold outside. One time I walked through with my shoes on! Also, I basically set up a mobile brothel in the motorhome because I brought along the PG-13 Casino Royale movie to watch and my brother isn’t old enough (16) to watch that type of pornography. I even talk to the dogs wrong.

Once, I almost.. ALMOST.. set my backpack on a part of the bed where it may have touched her sheets. My god woman, I am not the enemy, I AM NOT a Philistine! I take too long to get ready. (No one gave me a time I had to be ready, you know. And last time I checked it was my vacation too... But apparently I almost ruined the trip because my brother wasn’t in line when the park gates opened. He could have gone without me, but he chose to wait. Yet after LITERALLY 10 comments about it {one involving a phone call from a friend in another state!} I was like - tell me how you really feel mom! She doesn’t even ride roller coasters, so I don’t even KNOW what that was about. When I got totally bent about it, then she tries to tell me to lighten up and that she was just kidding... UH NO... you don’t say something 100 times in a row and then get to claim it was a joke... NO. OK, moving on)

I cannot stand being controlled and micromanaged. It grates on me so badly and all my good qualities go flying out the window and I do become a bad person. I look back and I see the error of my ways... I lock up. I snip back. I roll my eyes. I judge. I get mean and dismissive. I see a side of me I don’t like come out.

Really, you see, all of this is about fear and hurt. I try to remind myself that she must be scared inside and that’s where her need to control comes from. That she put herself aside for so many years, now she’s just trying to reclaim some semblance of order for her. And she must have to be extra strong to do it with my dad and brother. They are both fast talking and strong willed, and I’m sure not the neatest or most tidy. In fact, they do need A LOT of direction when it comes to daily life... HOWEVER, that’s not me.

The worst part is... she doesn’t see. She doesn’t see the love and acceptance I have for her. That no matter what she says, NO MATTER WHAT she does, I still love her the same. I still come around to see her. I still want and need her in my life. Even though I know she can’t do that for me in return, I love her. I see the big picture, but I don’t know if she can see it. I see her efforts, her heart, her kindness, but does she see?

If she knows nothing else, hopefully she knows that I love her. I love her even though I disappoint her. I love her even though I hurt her. I love her even though I’m different than her. I love her even though I’m not good enough for her. I love her and NOTHING.. no statement, no injustice, no act of god, no religion, no divorce, no swear word, no amount of time, no announcement, NO NOTHING will change that.

I read this book “The Cult of Perfection” and it said some interesting things. It talked about friends and how “people like me” hold ourselves to this unattainable standard of perfection. We’re ALWAYS trying to be enough... yet, we wouldn’t dare hold anyone else to that same standard. And it SO true. I LOVE the uniqueness of my friends. I love them even more FOR their tragic flaws. Change them? NO WAY... That’s how I know they are true. When you can look at someone and know what their issues are and love them just the same, that’s how you know it’s real. Only thing that I ask is that you do the same for me. Show me that one kindness. That it’s ok to not be perfect and that you still accept me. That’s it’s okay to not be exactly the same. To understand, TO SEE, that everyone does things their own way, for their own reasons... and that’s o.k.

Always with the yen/yang. Always with the questions. Always with the contradiction. See...?

Contradiction

Yeah... That always sums it up for me. I am everything. No 1 thing is ever the answer.

I am fighting.
        Yet I’ve given up.
I am strong.
        Yet so powerless.
I am happy.
        Yet filled with such great sadness.
I am love.
        Yet bitter inside.
I am hope.
        Yet numb and dead already.

I just don’t know. I have these moments of clarity, breaths of fresh air, light... But they are always tempered with contradictions. Confusion, trapped, panic, and darkness. UGH.

I would say if people defined me by my passions they would somehow involve work, food, sleep, and music. But all of those have left me for now. And I feel bad for my friends and family. My mom is trying so hard to help. I don’t know how to kindly take this out of her hands. Lord knows what they think of me. I mean, I’m not even nice anymore. It takes so much energy just to maintain my composure, I just show up and grace everybody with my bad attitude. I walk around with my arms crossed and my voice with no inflection. I’m sure this isn’t the reaction they would want from me... Marisa, the most hyper, lively, arms flailing about, talking a mile a minute person they remember.

I know... this too shall pass...
RIGHT?

I guess I don’t write much about my mom. Well, that’s not true, I’ve written a few things about her in the past (years ago), but that was a rough time in my life, and my reactions to her then were simply a product of that devastating time. My mom and I are 2 exceptionally strong willed stubborn women. We’re also extremely passionate and pretty hyper-sensitive to everything. You can only imagine the two of us together. The same, but SO different - it’s bound to be volatile... and usually comical too. But I love her and she loves me. It’s just our thing - our dance. I don’t think she believes I love her, but if only she knew how much I do. How much I’ve changed my entire life, just so she could be in it. Just takes time I guess.

Here’s what I find fascinating about life. We are ALL this way. We are all the same, yet SO SO different. Part of my struggle some days is how to fit in. I want to do what is good and happy and reassuring to others. (without losing myself) But all I really know how to do is treat people like I like to be treated. But some days I think I am totally crazy and so, like some fucked up Seinfeld episode, I pull a George and try to do the opposite of what my instinct says. Ha Ha

I notice this happening alot. I have a friend who is constantly saying and doing things that get me all worked up. That totally drain me. I’m confused as to how he is so confused. However, when I stepped back, what I really heard him saying is - “This is how I would like to be treated. This is what I would like someone to say to me. This is what I need.” We’ve talked about it and he admitted as much. But WOW did I have the opposite reaction! Sorry “friend”...

The same, but so different.

I have another friend to whom I just sent an email. I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing an excerpt of what I said to him. It was basically me saying, “Hey what’s up, I don’t know what to do... so I’m gonna tell you personal truth about me and see if it resonates. Or at least excuses the fact that I might not be reacting how you want me to, but my intention is in the right place and I hope you can see that... and also, since I don’t know what to do, will you to tell me what to do?” I wonder if that’s what he took away from the email? LOL

Here’s the part about the personal truth:

------------
It's weird cuz my reactions to trauma and despair is to be like an injured animal. I want to run off into the woods and lick my wounds until things are better - in solitude. When it comes to my life I have a pretty rigid grip on serious decisions being made by me and only me. I have to do it myself. Learn it for myself (Even if it's the hard way) Make up my own mind. So, that makes friends sort of a dead issue. You can sit there and stare at me and listen to me and hug me and none of it changes anything until I come to it myself, until I'm ready. I like to just SIT thru the uncomfortableness until it passes.

But then I think back on some horrible times and I remember the few people who didn't forget about me. Who checked on me. Sometimes who just left me little things on my doorstep or sent me an email with no expectation of return conversations because I had no energy to do so, or came and forced me out every once and a while. And THOSE few people I will love forever because I was incapable of giving anything back and yet they expended the energy to show kindness anyways.
------------

That is my natural reaction. To retreat. I don’t want to talk about it. Think about it. Have you touch me. Hug me. (Did you see the contradiction in the above too? cuz I kinda do... LOL)

Actually, as I’m typing this I’m thinking how unfair I am. I don’t trust many people. I don’t think many people see much value in me. Well, I think people see value in me when it’s EASY. When I’m happy and fun and generous... When I cater your party... When I spend money on you... But what about when it’s difficult? When I don’t laugh, or go out, or have anything good to say? Who is willing to hang in there with me? I don’t know if that’s a subconscious thing or not, but I’ll apologize now for basically admitting that a small part of my funk is now an admitted “test”... Oh brother, am I that typical of a woman? ha ha

SO, where am I going with all this? I don’t know. It’s all the same old thing. Me just rambling about where I am on the roller coaster of life. I don’t think it’s solving anything, but it does feel relatively therapeutic to write it all out. Maybe part of it is a whisper to my friends to hang in there with me. Let me work it out on my own. We’ll see what happens.

Mind Fuck

Seriously, no one can truly fuck you up like your mother. I know it has different effects on boys and girls, but WHEW... my mom... I can't even put her into words.

I think the SICKEST part of all of it, is that I'm just like her. Stubborn, strong willed, independent, headstrong... (When I have to be that is... I'm not sure how I come accross to others since I'm desperate to please and fear I come accross as rather submissive... But I guess that's just because it's what I want to do...) However, we always seem to be that way AGAINST each other. And you know what that means? That means "I Lose" because she's the mom, she's older, she's just that much more evil.

Sadly she doesn't see how she has created this competition between the two of us. She's always saying how proud she is of me, how far I've made it in life at this age compared to her, how she loves me, fights for me, needs me, but then she's quick to remind me she's still better. When I bought my cute little sports car, she was the first to remind me that she had a Mercedes 600 series AMG. When i built my new home, she was quick to inform me that her house cost close to a million dollars. When i got my 1st coach purse, she went and bought a bigger one. When I told her I've been sticking to my diet and I've lost 10 lbs so far, she has apparently lost 20. When I mention how hard my divorce and excommunication from church is on me, I get a 2 hour speech on how much more aweful her marriage to my father was or how unfair her own reinstatement was. When I say I feel pretty, she reminds me that she was professional model when she was my age. When I say how well I'm doing at my job or that I got a raise or that I've just crossed the 10 year mark, she's the 1st to say how fortunate she was to find a man who takes such good care of her and that she doesn't have to work.

I can't win. I'm never enough. My whole life I've been fighting, fighting SO hard to prove to ANYONE that I am something good. But it's never ENOUGH. I'm not smart enough, pretty enough, fun enough, established enough, successful enough, tough enough, good enough, gracious enough... ANYTHING ENOUGH!

It's maddening.

And I'm not sitting here saying that I really feel that way. Of course, the rational side of me says there is always someone out there who is going to be better than you. I can't be perfect. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm tired. Keeping any sort of self esteem and blocking all those thoughts out of my mind is EXHAUSTING. Especially when she calls me OFTEN and this just keeps happening. Have you figured out yet that I just got one of those calls this morning?

And when I told her how I felt, her words were "Well, you are dead wrong." And when I got upset and screamed and cursed at her, she said that I was sick and twisted and that she would just never call me again because she couldn't take the emotional beatings that I KEEP giving her. When I asked her not to martyr herself of the phone, she cried hysterically and said she's just fighting for me and missed me and needed me, but that I was heartless and made her feel like she could never do anything right or be good enough for me.

... silence ...

Maybe I really am sick and twisted. Maybe I am the martyr. Maybe anything... I have nothing to ground myself. No guage to let me know whether I'm swimming up or down. But I have to be tough for my brother. I have to be tough for myself. I have to be tough for her. And I just have to block all that out and stand on my own 2 feet. Make up my mind that I'm fine and just work on being good and loving and kind and honest so that no one else will ever say I've created these feelings in them. I may be the only one I know with THIS exact situation, but I am certainly not alone in dealing with trialsome family issues. It's good to know I'm not alone.

Thanks for reading this. If you think I'm really fucked up, please tell me and straighten me out. I fear I need a reality check. LOL.