So it's been a few days since I have shared with you all, and let me say, what a couple of days! I laughed. I cleaned. I had a mental break down. I got my car inspected. I watched the news. I went to The Mecca (aka Starbucks). I introduced someone to Target and talked said person into buying a stand alone freezer... all things wonderful... well except for the mental break down part...
Today I have a lot to share - So, sit down. Grab a cup of cocoa. And get ready because HERE. WE. GO!
Let me just preface what I'm about to say with: I'm not an extremely emotional person. I tend to go into cynic, sarcastic mode before I take a walk on the wild emotional side. I'm better known for making fun of any and all with my big mouth (which I put my foot in quite frequently), not for being all warm and fuzzy and rainbows and butterflies (gag). Anyway. So imagine my surprise when I find myself sobbing (no, no. Not sniffles. Not slight bunny sniffs of sadness... But SOBS. Weeping, if you will. Red puffy eyes. Kleenex akimbo. Snot bubbles all over. Gasps of air. Horrible blinding cry headache. The. Whole. Nine. Yards.) in the middle of my bedroom floor on a perfectly pleasant Friday afternoon. Why, you ask, did I all of a sudden break down like Super Sweet 16 girl who found out that she wasn't getting the black BMW at her super fab party? I'll tell you why. Because I'm a hoarder. No, not one of those people that can't even open their front door, but an emotional hoarder - someone who hoards all of their emotions until there is not a single brain cell's worth of space left for anything else. And just as a house would collapse if it had too much stuff in it, so did my brain. :(
One thing that no one tells you about being unemployed is that it is an absolute roller coaster of emotions. One minute you're thrilled that you no longer have to work for Baggy Eyes The Terrible - the most insecure, unprofessional, whining, back stabbing, rude person that I have ever met in my entire life - and the next, questioning your self worth and whether or not Baggy Eyes The Terrible was really not Baggy Eyes The Terrible and that you were really Employee The Horrible and deserved what you got.
Now, granted, I did contribute to my unemployment because technically, I did put in a 2 weeks notice.... however what happened after was - a cluster fuck of gargantuan proportions you could say (I would love to divulge every last minuscule detail of how it came to be that I no longer have a job, but I can't. Upon leaving, I had to sign a contract that said that I would not speak of the company's foul doing in order to receive my severance package and the ability to receive unemployment compensation... fun, right? And momma's got bills to pay so my lips are zipped. Sort of. Hahaha). Losing your job takes such an emotional toll that it's no wonder that there is a whole How To section at Barnes and Noble on how to recover from the blow. So that's one room in my emotional hoarding house... That's a biggie - like the living room.
Other things that have been filling my emotionally hoarded house are: being hospitalized for 5 days with a month long recovery (adult mono is a bitch. I don't recommend you get it. Ever.) Gaining and losing the same 40 lbs about 3 times now. Having surgery to get my gall bladder removed because it got pissed off from the mono situation. Having to completely take care of my mother while I was recovering because she was having her own medical problems... (the woman is at the point now where she can barely walk from the living room to the bathroom...). Lose a friend that was like family due to stupid, idiotic, and mundane things. Separate from the Man Friend. Return to work from being on leave for a month and be ignored, disrespected, and downright lied to because of something that happened while I was away and still have no idea what happened. Have a brother who is doing EVERYTHING right and just landed an internship that will pay 3 times as much as I was making in my last position (it's not that I'm not happy for him. I really am. I'm so proud of him. I just can't help feeling like a little bit of a failure in comparison to his success).... And that just all of the stuff that has happened over the last 6 months - and I haven't emotionally dealt with any of it.
I have stored every single one of those things away. I haven't cried. I haven't asked for help. I haven't said a word to anyone about what's going on. I've just put on a happy faced and tried to laugh about it. Well, as they as say, the shit hit the fan on Friday. The piper came a callin' for his payin'. My over-stuffed, emotionally hoarded brain-house came tumbling down and it wasn't pretty.
The truth is though - that after weeping out all of my frustrations, second guesses, and lost causes, I felt better (yay!!). I felt lighter somehow and more relaxed about everything. Hope has been restored! After all of that emotional outpouring, I realized that I cannot change what has happened in the past. I can't take it back. I can't magically make it go away. I can't just push it all in a corner and deal with it another day. I have been emotionally procrastinating because I'm good at it. Hell - it's gotten me through 27 years of some pretty shitty stuff (super awful shitty if I'm being honest), but that method isn't working anymore and it sure isn't healthy.
It's not ok to always be ok. I think the hardest lesson that I've learned is that being strong isn't about just being able to say that you're still standing at the end of the day... Just standing isn't living. It isn't feeling. It isn't relishing in the world around you. So after I stopped weeping and cleaned myself up, I finished cleaning the physical spaces of my house. That is, after all, what I originally set out to do with my day. When I was all finished, I lit some candles, turned on the tv, and smiled because it just felt so good to be mentally and physically clutter-free. I don't recommend this cleaning method to anyone - having a good, loud sob session in the middle of the day is a good way to have the neighbors think you're a lunatic and look at you funny at your next neighborhood get together (thank god our neighborhood is as dead as a cemetery during the day or otherwise I would be reporting to you from a lovely padded cell at the nearest mental institution).
Listen, my lovelies, I know that last bit was heavy, but I never promised to be all sunshine and lollipops... so to all of my Daydream Believers - don't fret because here comes the silly!!!!
I got my car inspected today and, instead of going home to wait for it to be done, I decided to stay at the shop. I was hoping for a fantastic people watching opportunity... what I got was... not. :) I arrived at my favorite car repair place on time (7:30 am) and proceeded to take a seat in the waiting area. Imagine, if you will, a tiny room with a row of chairs. a small coffee maker, a single bathroom, and the reception desk. I sat down in the second to the last chair in the row, in the corner of the room. My thought was that I could place my oversized bag/purse (filled with all of the goodies that were going to keep me preoccupied for 3 hours)on the chair in the corner so that I would not have to place it on the floor (Do you know where that floor has been?!?!?!) and to have it out of reach of any purse snatchers and everyday hoodlums. As the day went on, the waiting room was quite a buzz. At one point almost all of the chairs became full and I looked up to see a rather large man hovering over MY purse chair. It's not like I want to begrudge the large man a seat (as I'm sure it's hard to be that large and be able to comfortably stand for a long period of time) but there were other chairs. And I was there first. And I knew what he was trying to do. And I was not about to give up my purse chair without a fight. It was not until his oversized rump was mere centimeters away from my purse that I finally relinquished the space (what would he have done if I had not saved my beautiful bag and he had crushed my ipod????? Momma would've gotten a new ipod and purse that's what!!!!). As he sat down with a loud HA RUMPH, I knew it was going to be a battle of wills. He may have won the purse chair battle, but I was going to win the purse chair war and my purse would reign again!!!! ALL HAIL THE PURSE! ALL HAIL THE PURSE!
But I digress. So he sits down and proceeds to breathe like a rhinoceros that just ran a 100 yard dash on a hot summer's day.... I swear I could hear each individual molecule of air as it went in and out of his body... over my ipod.
Well played large man. Well played.
Ding! The door chime rings to alert us, waiting room folks, that another player has entered the game.
And just like clockwork, Mr. Audi walks in.
Now Mr. Audi is not unattractive. He's ok. Brown hair. Medium build. Brown suit. Nothing spectacular. It isn't until he talks that I learn that the large man has brought in reinforcements, and Mr. Audi is one of them!!!!! Mr. Audi, upon uttering his first syllable, lets it be known that he is a pompous ass. That he knows more about cars than anyone else at the shop. That his shit does not stink. And guess where he chooses to sit? You got it, my smart cookies! Right. Next. To. Me. Between large man's breathing and lack of being able to share the arm rest and Mr. Audi's need to hear himself talk, I thought my perfectly styled head was going to pop off of my body like a bottle rocket on the 4th of July. Lesser women would have buckled, but not me. I was in it to win it, Baby.
I completely feigned deafness when Mr. Audi tried to talk to me about his Audi. I pushed back as large man's meaty arm tried to make its way over to my side of the arm rest. I multi-tasked the shit out of my situation and held the invaders back on all fronts. For 3 hours I did this. Sure, I was tired and had not glossed for hours, but this was war. A war I was going to win.
Defeat came out of nowhere for the invaders. It's almost sad because they had no idea that the end was near. All of a sudden, Mr. Audi gets up to explain one more thing as the mechanic is walking away from him and I swiftly put my magazine and Starbucks cup on his chair. Take that! WHAM! POW! When he walked back to sit down, I met his eyes with a cold, blank stare and shrugged my shoulders to almost imply that I had no idea as to what just happened. The large man was not as easy to take down because he was firmly planted in his chair for better or worse. It took the mechanic coming out to tell him that his car would be ready in a few minutes to finally get him up and out of the chair... but when he hoisted himself up, I acted quickly and slid my purse back to its original spot. AH HA! I win! I win! I win! ALL HAIL THE PURSE! ALL HAIL THE PURSE! Sure, I may have needed some help from the mechanics, but at the end of the day - I had my corner back and my purse was secure once again.
Viva la purse!
Happy Monday!
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