my little girl

In re-reading some of my latest posts, I have noticed that they are very one sided. Nothing to do with anyone other than myself, my feelings and my thoughts. I am fine with the 'my thoughts' part of the blogs, I am the only one who is writing them, but I am not okay with the 'myself' part. Somewhere in the past few months I have lost the thoughts of my daughter inside my mind and haven't shared them as I so freely share my own trials and tribulations.
My little girl. Emma Marie, or Emma Lou, or lately, Lou. She has the most grandiose ideas and give her and inch she'll make a marathon out of it and not even blink, she'll just look at me with her head tilted sideways and the curls bobbing and wink. At 29, I learned along with Emma, who is 5 and 1/2 as I write this, how to wink. Mine is no where near as nice as her winking, but still we can both do it (just hers better than mine). But I digress on a separate topic all together.
About 3 weeks ago, I had finally decided it was about time for my little girl to sleep through the night, in her own bed, and not wake me just because she rolled over and woke up a little bit. A grand plan had emerged in my mind through the points system. If Emma was able to sleep through the night for 4 out of 7 nights in one week, beginning on Sunday we would have an Emma day. Well...then I decided we would have a bunch of ideas to pick from and I suggested Albany Art Room as her 'prize'.
This is how the rest of the story went:
She was so excited jumping up and down, me thinking the whole time...nice she is this excited about Tye-dying a shirt for less than $8 bucks. When all of a sudden she does an air pump with her fist and says, "I can't wait to go back and paint a puppy for the puppy I made the last time."
"WOAH, what??? Oh no, no, no. That isn't what i said, I didn't say Pottery Place, I said Albany Art Room where you can do Tye-dye."
I then get the head turning sideways, the curls bobbing and the little wink, "but mommy you said I can have an Emma day."
"Yes, Yes I did. Okay lets try this then, 5 days of sleeping through the night?"
"Oh no, you said 4. That's the deal."

So, I was talked out of Albany Art Room and somehow convinced that all along I meant Pottery Place. I wouldn't want the first ceramic puppy that cost me $27 to be all by itself right?? I do, really do want to spend another $27 so these ceramic puppies can be friends, fall in love, and get married. Then we will have to go back and make ceramic puppies!
To close, yes, Emma did sleep 4 nights in a row, but just to be grandiose, she added another night to it making it a total of 5!!!! So, i am sleeping like a champ and at the low price of $27.

waiting

Why do I set myself up for something so much bigger than what it really is?I’m so much more! At the end of the day I’m left with tears and pride. Pride is so much more important than keeping a person in my life, a person that i know in advance, will hurt. Without moving on, without the grieving process, I am but a pawn in a game. A game I'm not even sure I want to be playing right now. And how fitting the song, ' Consider me Gone ' is playing right now on the radio.
Every single day i know when i wake up I hit the alarm at least 3 times, then i shower. I don't get out of the shower until I have figured at least 2 possible outfits to wear to work. Lately, I have been having a VERY difficult time with this task. I then wake Emma after I am dressed and get her motivated. Long story short..breakfast, car with our daily necessities (coffee!) and off to school and work. Daily. Interrupted, unplanned events and thoughts are exactly what i have a problem with. I am someone who 'needs to know well in advance'. The only downside i see to this is the fact that i am passing the genetics and the teachings down to my daughter. Which in retrospect doesn't seem all that bad.
In my opinion, I have tried my hardest to end a relationship set up and doomed for failure. Yet something keeps us lingering. WHY??? I'll tell you why. It's the comfort zone. Its the known thought that each of you finds solace and relaxation in the other. It is completely friendship driven, mutually agreeable thoughts, and just comfort with the other person. But yet a damn title! Why is it we have to describe ourselves using a title with someone one else? Why do i have to be the employee of, the daughter of, the girlfriend of, the mother of?? I hate it all! I am me, and I love who I have turned into. so if that is the case, why am I still hiding like a secret? that the girl no one wants to hear or accept as the real me? Am i so scared to be me that i may possibly have lost the ability to be me?
I am such a strong woman playing the part i am currently in. I am shutting myself off from those who care about me. and here i thought i needed therapy for this! lol, i still do but can't afford it. Either way, as a coverall, I describe myself as a single mom. forever that is my first title. When will i be okay with adding to that? Why am i so scared to be able to let go? If i could let go, i would let in the thought, the ability and the actions to move forward in my life. I have frozen who i have become to the point that i no longer allow outside influences to hurt me.
I was just sent an email a few weeks ago that says we can only control 10% of our lives. It showed the point that we can control 10% and that is our reaction to the 90%. I share my reactions and hope for the best.

it happens when you know its going to happen

Relationships...in so many cases seem to define people. I have met so many new people on my path of freedom and in so many cases have been introduced as any of the following: 'the mother of', 'the daughter of', 'the son of', 'the child of', 'my boss is' etc.
Why is it that we find ourselves needing to define ourselves by others????
I want to end this right here, right now. For so long I have too been one of those people, but here, tonight i am me. My name is not important to those who don't actually know me, but I am me, college educated, single female, mother of an amazing 5 1/2 year old girl who attends parochial school and has such a loser father that i have the audacity to make him prove other wise. But at the end of the day, I am me, 5' 6" runner of 5K, friend of many, often mouthy, but so very loyal oh and such the typcial irish female!

To start a bit of a thought that has been running through my head recently, enough that i was blogging at work today in an email to myself at home, i want to share my continued thoughts on relationships that has been building over the past weeks.

An ending to any relationship has its mourning period. I was told recently that within a relationship once it ends, there is always two very distinct perspectives on the relationship. There is one person who has already mourned the 'loss' of the other person and has finally made the last break complete. The other person is left holding out their hands and finding them empty and maybe more than a little lost and broken hearted. Then there comes two sides to every story on just how to describe the relationship and when the mental break began.

I am 29 years old with less than a month to go before i say good-bye to my 20s and hello to the 30s. i have never officially been an age in the 30 range, but mentally I've been here for quite some time. Its just about time my body is catching up with my mind. I have yet one more failed relationship to add to my list and this time, like every other time, i am the person who has already mourned the loss and have left the other person with his hands face up empty handed wondering why. This time around though, there seems to be something missing.......

it's mostly that fear that i am single, the fear that i may not find the one who makes my heart flip and the fear that i may never fall madly in love. maybe, just maybe second best isn't so bad after all. but then i wake up from my selfish reality and know that second best is just the first losers point of view. When have I ever accepted being the first loser? ummm.. yes readers, NEVER!

So will carry on, I will put myself out there for Mr. AMAZING WONDERFUL and FANTASTIC and hope he realizes just what an amazing person he is getting in return to all my sacrifical offerings. by this i mean shorter showers, no longer leaving the curling iron plugged in all day, or the toaster(whooops!!! that one i did today for the 4th time!)
I am going to wow this world with my mommy expertise and my ability to almost wink, along with the oh so tempting newly famous turtle tattoo. (check back for pics!!!) I am a lover of life, keeper of mother earth and greener than green. Regardless of the men that may cross my path, I love me and I love my life.

it's time

When you plan your life out, it never seems to want to follow where you are trying to lead it. No matter what I may want for my life i have found that God wants something very different from what i think is good enough for me.
In some cases i could refer to parts of my life like a candy store and yet in others its like walking into an ocean filled with jellyfish. Regardless of what i was hoping for opening those doors or stepping foot into that water He has a bigger plan. I need to remember that and pray on it. I do, remember and pray that is, but at the end of the day when i let my thoughts wander and i let my mind play the game of pretend, i have been finding myself more melancholy than satisfied.
What do i do when i realize that the chapter in my life is over, but I'm not ready to flip the page and find out what happens in the next chapter? How will I ever know where the story ends and where the story begins with a new ending if I don't test the closed open door? Here is a great example, It has always been a dream of mine to move south and find myself a cowboy, yet year after year finds me here, cold in NY. My ultimate question, is it fate or my choices?
Choices always seem to throw me a curve late at night when I blog. All i know is, I am not here enough, and I don't seem to think life through long enough to see the results as they really are, with my glasses on and God at my side.

blogging is good for the soul

After having a confusing emotional week, I have rounded the week with a great time tonight. But I have now such emotional confusion. Its funny because I am such a big fan of reading my horoscope daily and have found a strange and particular connection with what has been the astrological signs for the week. I have been uncomfortable all week, on edge and feeling severely anxious with a fear of the unknown. This feeling has not been replicated in well over a year. I am led to believe this feeling is a precursor to things of change.
Tonight I was given a multitude of opportunities and did not follow through on any of them. I feel as though I am at such crossroads right now and am so hesitant to make the next decision. Choices are always difficult, but when coming to a potential end and a new beginning, I seem to freeze.
Without change, there is not freedom, without hope there is not wisdom, without freedom there is not change. The choice is never easy, but the ability to have the thoughts to make that choice begins with the freedom to begin anew.

friday nights

Tonight is an unusual night for me. I can be found spending some serious relaxing time with Emma after a long week, cooking dinner, maybe a night at the Y and a swim in the pool. Tonight though was different for so many reasons. Mainly, I did not spend the evening with Emma. I took a night, to myself to do with it, whatever I chose. And choose I did. An after work gathering of friends, some old, some work, and some newly made turned out to make an eclectic group of people who, altogether had a blast with one another.
I planned on staying quiet, which isn't hard in a group of people I don't know, but what surprised me, the energy felt tonight. It was as though there was something hidden in me i didn't know I had buried. I left tonight wondering for more, looking toward the future and having anticipation I didn't realize still could exist. If this is actually a feeling I could potentially have again isn't it worth having, or is it just easier to let it fall to the wayside and enjoy that one moment instead of wondering for more?

acceptance

Have you ever had one of those amazing weekends where Sunday night comes to an end and your still awake replaying every moment in your mind? That is pretty much how my night has played out for the past hour or so. I should be exhausted, and I am, daylight savings should right now be kicking my butt, yet it's not, and I am still up. I am playing in my mind the entire weekend's events beginning with Thursday night.
The entire week leading up to this has been spent making candy bats, ghosts, pumpkins, cats, etc. If its Halloween related, I am making it in chocolate. Emma is having her first Halloween party as a kindergartner and I feel obligated to go above and beyond my normal call of mom duties to make Halloween candy figures that only I and the other mothers will appreciate as their children are devouring the candy. By Thursday night, with the help of Emma, I am finishing stuffing Halloween goodie bags that will house the candy as well as a Halloween craft I found at Michael's Craft. As I am in the store looking for goodie bags to put the candy in, I had this brilliant idea to offset the candy with a craft. Yes not so brilliant by Thursday night. Alas, its only about an hour past the time i should be getting Emma ready for bed and we have completed 23 goodie bags for school and an additional 7 for the soccer team for Saturday.
By the time I fell into my bed, failing to wash my face, leaving on my necklace and completely not caring that i only used about 1/3 of the toothpaste recommended, I am so very thankful I have taken Friday off! Friday was an amazing view into a stay at home mom's on the go's lifestyle. First we drop nana off at her work (she has a broken RIGHT foot and has become my 2nd child who i can leave alone and know no bad will come of it) then head to Holy Spirit for the very first Kindergarten Mass in the gym. My little one had to say 2 lines in a row and had to offer up a prayer for the principal. I was never a prouder mom than that moment. I am also sure I was the only mom who had tears threatening to leave my eyes and find my chin but I did not care. After mass, this story gets so much better, I am free for the next 2 1/2 hrs until Halloween parade and party.
Where did i spend a good portion of that time? At the Y on the treadmill and killing my abs on a machine that must have been invented by a man. Lunch with a friend, and a quick glass of wine leads me back to the school.
This is where all the fun begins. My child, who for a while I thought was permanently attached through something invisible can now do everything herself and at her Halloween party, sits on the complete opposite side of her classroom than me, the mom who has taken the entire week and devoted it to making candies!! She was amazing, a witch of course. Saturday is a great soccer game where Emma scored 2 goals! Trick or treating began in our neighborhood and quickly fizzled out due to lack of people answering the door. We moved on to our first invite to an annual Halloween party from one of Emma's friends at school. Dinner and playtime then trick or treating in a downpour where for about 70% of the time, my little one stayed under her own umbrella. Home to crash hard!!! A nice visit from the boyfriend who I think has begun to grow a sprout or two on me and I think, I think I am beginning to like that.
Throughout the course of all the weekend's events, and all pf the planning, I have had a nagging sense of something that was being pushed only so far into my mind but only for a fleeting moment. By the time I had realized there was something seemingly important I should be paying attention to, the thought was gone. At this exact moment, I think i have a better grasp on what was hiding from my thoughts, but until its out there, I can't be sure.
I have finally begun to accept exactly who I am and where I am in life. This may sound simple and a big duh may be forming, but back to a previous post where unless your on the outside looking in, the view from here is never the same. This weekend was hard for me and not because of the craziness I like to call the life I lead. This weekend, my first 'holiday' where I have had no contact, no stresses, no worries and no view into my old life. Putting that sentence out there is hard, realizing that last night was enough to refill my glass a few more times than necessary. I am now starting new traditions, new friends and new networks.
I have been given a second chance to make the right decisions and so far, every single decision I have made has felt so very right. I have accepted who I am and what I can do for those around me. I am me, I am fun and unique and caring. At the end of the day, I check on my daughter to make sure she is warm enough in bed and has a snuggle animal to keep her feeling safe. I brush my teeth and flop into bed and know tomorrow is going to be a great day.