Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

I started watching General Hospital when I was about five or six and watched it until some time after high school. When I started middle school and didn't get home until mid-episode, my Aunt Carla, who was much more adept at programming a VCR than we were in my house, would mail me tapes with a whole week's worth of episodes on them from Chicago. Once I was in high school, I would rush home from the bus stop, sometimes missing the first two minutes or so, to watch it. If something happened and I missed an episode, I just felt wrong.

There were other soap operas throughout my life: My sister got me watching Days of Our Lives one summer while I was in middle school because she thought some guy with an eye patch (Am I remembering that right? Did some guy really have an eye patch on a soap opera? Maybe a guy named Steve?) was cute, when I spent the summer between sixth and seventh grade with my Aunt Carla in Chicago, I got semi-hooked on Loving and Ryan's Hope, and for a few years in high school, I watched both All My Children and One Life to Live. Even though all the other soap operas were filled with suspense and intrigue--would that lady whose name I don't remember ever get out of the well where her evil twin sister, Janet From Another Planet, was hiding her? Would anybody ever find out that Vicki had an evil alternate ego who was holding Dorian hostage in some crazy glass cage? Seriously, the shows had me rapt--I eventually lost interest and just stopped turning them on. General Hospital was the only one that endured.

(You know, this blog was supposed to be about one thing, but I'm starting to think it might actually be about something else. Or at least another layer may be at work.)

I don't know what it was about GH that I loved so much, but God, did I love it. The people on the show were as real to me as people that were, well, real. I wasn't planning to revisit the storylines, but now that they're on my mind, I'm so excited, I can't help myself. There was Luke and Laura, of course, and Luke and Holly, and Robert Scorpio and Holly, and Anna Devane and Duke, and Felicia and Frisco, and the girl who pretended to be a nice girl but was really a stripper and Jagger, and Brenda and Jagger, and Brenda and Sonny, and Grant who was really a Russian spy, and Sean Donnelly who was an agent for the WSB but may have been a double agent, and Lucy Coe, and Scotty, and Blacky, and my God, I'm totally losing focus here. Even after all these years, the thought of General Hospital and all its storylines has me in a tizzy.

Once I was done with high school, or more likely it was after my first few years of college, I decided that I could no longer be tethered to the TV from 3 to 4 every day and that I had to give up my habit. And I did. I stopped watching it, really for no good reason other than that I felt like it was time.

(And once again, the something else appears.)

I missed it, of course. How could I not? For almost fifteen years, that show was a part of my daily routine, its characters a part of my life. But what I realized bothered me more than not watching the show anymore was not seeing what was happening in the lives of the people I loved.

Allow me to explain.

I was no longer watching General Hospital, but it was still on TV. Despite the fact that the characters no longer appeared on my TV, they still appeared on other people's TVs, and all sorts of crazy shenanigans still occurred in Port Charles. The only difference was that I no longer knew about the goings-on. I didn't know what any of the characters I had grown to know and love and sometimes hate were doing, but that didn't stop them from doing it. They were living their lives, with me or without me.

And that same thing is happening right here.

Now that Glenn and I have separated, he's, of course, still living his life. He comes and he goes, and he interacts with people, and his life moves forward just as it always has, only now, I don't know anything about it. Last week I found out that the previous week he got a huge promotion at work, and it happened completely without any knowledge from me. A few days ago I found out that he went to a tattoo shop with a couple of friends and is planning on getting his first tattoo, and that's something that, again, happened/is happening completely devoid of the presence of me.

It wouldn't give me that General Hospital feeling if it weren't for the fact that the same thing is happening with the kids--all right, that's totally a lie. It'd give me that feeling no matter what. But let's pretend that wasn't said--but it is. The Glenn part of the kids' lives is still moving forward, and I'm totally uninvolved.

I know I can't explain what I mean very well, but I'll try.

Last night Griffin performed in this awesome acoustic show that Glenn helped put together. It turns out there are all these pictures of the band on Glenn's Facebook page that I haven't seen since I'm not his friend. The only reason I know is I overheard Griffin saying something about not being able to see the pictures on his page. Besides the picture thing, which I guess isn't the hugest thing, really, the whole thing is something that Glenn's a part of that I'm not. Like The Hunger Games. All three of them read the books in the past few weeks and saw the movie together, and it's a thing that's exclusive to them.

This Friday they're seeing The Avengers. And me? I'll be standing in line at the grocery store wondering just what exactly is going on with Sonny that prompted Soap Opera Digest to put him on the cover.

A Long Time Ago, We Used to Be Friends

I was sitting here playing words with friends when I got an email notification regarding a comment on my blog. I've since deleted the comment, but I feel compelled to post it here (please try to bear with the grammatical errors--it's going to be difficult, I know) and reply to its different parts. For the purpose of clarity, my replies will be prettily posted in pink.

y'know I wasn't going to reply to this, as I HATE to be involved with this aspect of your life (your shameless exibitionism), but since you are not answering your phone I will reply here. 
For somebody who doesn't want to be involved in this aspect of my life--you know, the shameless exhibitionism--this is an awfully odd choice of place to initiate correspondence. I wasn't answering my phone (because I don't have the stomach to talk to you?)? Is my email or Facebook message box broken? The claim as to your reason for posting here is obviously untrue.
If you have noticed that in recent years we have not hung out quite as much as we used to, well there is a reason for that.
You mean it's not because I loaned you twenty bucks and you never wanted to pay me back? Really, though, I don't know your reasoning, but if you'd like to ask Erin, Glenn, my mother, Griffin, my sister, and Lisa, it's because I don't like hanging out with you very much anymore. You're mean-spirited and insult me endlessly. Every chance you get, you find something bad to say. Hanging out with you is not fun. It's why I don't call you very much. To be honest, our friendship had become an obligation, which is something that I've felt bad about for a long time.
Your life is an endlessly repeating self made shitstorm and its hard not to get sucked in. How many times have you been on the outs with G now? I can no longer count them. You find some guy to get fascinated with and go off the rails on a crazy train.
I  have been interested in exactly one guy in the last five years. Count him. One.
How many nights has the conversation gone this way "Am I hot? would you have sex with me?"
It's actually gone like that never. I would never even ask if someone thinks I'm "hot" because I've never in my life considered myself to remotely be so. I'm well aware that cuteness is my virtue. I have no hot delusions. Our conversations have been a lot more like this--

Kelly: Do you think there's something wrong with me? I don't understand why Glenn never wants to have sex.

Guy Friend: No, there's nothing wrong with you. I'd hump the shit out of you. 

"I want to have sex all the time do you think I'm a nymphomaniac" Never in all of my life have I asked if anybody thought I was a nymphomaniac. Never. Is that even a real thing? Yes, I want to have sex all the time. I've never, ever thought anything was wrong with that.
You text whatever dude basicaly begging for sex.
I've wanted to have sex with one person other than Glenn in the past five years; in the past three, he's the only one I've ever text in a sexual nature (and before the last three years, I text no guy in that manner ever). And I haven't begged him for sex. Been more forward than I should be? Yes. Begged him to have sex with me? Hardly. Um, I'm not a crack whore.
Its pretty much an all night I'm unhappy/I wwish I could have sex-a-thon.It sucks. I'm sorry but it does. It gets so tiring sometimes. And I sympathize with you I truly do, but so much of it is your own fault that its hard sometimes.
I'm trying to fathom what the hell you're even talking about. I don't even remember the last time we hung out alone before Saturday night. This is so ridiculous, I don't even know how to reply.
As to the other night, I think what yoou said, at least concerning my motives, would be accurate about 10 years ago. I don't think you really know me anymore, and thats my fault. I would notin a million years expect you to have sex with me, which is pretty much why I did what I did. because nothings gonna happen.
What did I even say your motives were? I never said you had a specific motive. You said to me, more than once, that I should come to your house and have sex with you. You also took some things that you know about me and my likes/dislikes and threw those in, I guess to try to entice me. So, wait...you asked me to go to your house over and over so I wouldn't have sex with you? Yes, that makes perfect sense. Well played, sir.
You may be claiming now that you wanted sympathy, but when do you ever really want anything more than attention? It was something that had happened a dozen times before.
But that was like 10 years ago? Well, whats the difference between then and now? Same shit going on.
Um...what? I don't even know how to reply to this one. It's a bit unfocused, but I'll try. What happened a dozen times before? You tried to have sex with me? Sympathy and attention are pretty much the same thing. You can't show somebody sympathy without paying attention.
So I guess I'm pissed that you're pissed and decided to drag it out here.
I contemplated how you'd feel about it, but then I decided if you cared as little as you did about me on Saturday night, I shouldn't care how you felt about me telling people. I hardly think I was the one dragging it out. But I am now.
Are we still friends?

What do you think?

I don't know. I have to think about that, perhaps you've already made you're decision.

Most definitely. 

I just want to say this; you live your life like its some kind of play, and alot of times you treat the people in your life like they are actors, or worse stagehands.
Again, I'm not sure how to reply to this one. I don't even know what it means. I treat them like they're actors or stagehands because there's a lot of drama in my life and they're in it? I seriously don't get this one.
 I've tried to help you in the past. Whenever you have asked my advice I have always given the best i could, but you don't want to take it. You just want to keep the merry-go-round spinning and I'm getting dizzy.

When you finally get your first girlfriend, you can criticize me for not taking your advice. You have no idea what it's like to be in a relationship, so pardon me if I don't leave Glenn as you've told me to do so many times. When you decide to do something with your life other than sit around smoking pot all day--yeah, right. I'll just stop right there.

Call me if you want to talk, I won't be arguing further on the interwebs.
Okay, then. You wait for that phone call.

Kelly again, about to sign off--bear with me while I say one last thing:
19 years.

Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts

I didn't want to write about this, I told myself I wouldn't, but I can't not do it. It's just bothering me too much for me to keep mum. This story has to come out.

On Sunday I wrote about having a pretty wretched Saturday night, and I was pretty vague with the details. That's not really going to change. What's going to change is that I'm going to share a small part of my night with you--a small part that had a big effect.

I've got this friend. A close friend. A guy friend. A guy friend who's been my friend for 19 years. A guy friend who's been my friend for 19 years who knows just about everything there is to know about me. A guy friend who comes to my house on holidays and kids' birthdays and special occasions and is a little bit more than friendly acquaintances with Glenn. A guy friend who used to like me. A guy friend who should know better.

On Saturday night Guy Friend and I went out and had two margaritas each and dinner. Since I've been running a ton and eating a little and drinking alcohol not at all since the beginning of March, the margaritas obliterated me. I seriously cannot believe how drunk I got. Not only was I crazily drunk, but I was also crazily vulnerable and needy, two things that Guy Friend, who knows everything there is to know about me, knew. Something else that Guy Friend indubitably knew, considering our long, convoluted history together, is that when I start talking about what would happen if the two of us kissed, something is seriously wrong. Something Guy Friend (who, yes, had two margaritas, too, but is well over 200 pounds and drinks and, therefore, could not have been drunk beyond sense), having been one of the closest friends I've had in my life, should have known is that in the condition I was in, any action on his part would have been too reprehensible to speak of, but that didn't stop Guy Friend from kissing me, putting his hand in a place I can't bring myself to repeat, and repeatedly trying to convince me to go to his house so we could have sex. It didn't even come close.

As I said in the beginning of this blog, I didn't plan to write about this incident, but it's been bothering me so much that I had to. Is this what I have in store for me now that Glenn and I are going our separate ways? Guys who are going to try to take advantage of me, guys who act like petulant little brats when they don't get their way (another story), and guys who are such pussies--forgive me, but there's just no other word for this one--they don't even have the nerve to have a conversation with me when a conversation is most definitely in order (and, yes, that's yet another story--I've got a lot going on)? Is this the life I've chosen?

Because I've got to say, right about now, it's not looking like the wisest choice that's ever been made.

The Harsh Light of Day

I'm taking a break from writing about me today to write about somebody especially near and dear to my heart: Buffy Summers. Specifically, I'm writing about a particularly sad episode from season 4 called "The Harsh Light of Day."

For those of you who don't have a background in Buffy (sacrilege!), let me give you a quick history.

(Begin Quick History)

Buffy Summers is the vampire slayer. Her job is to kill vampires (pretty black and white, right? Yeah, not so much). Ironically, she falls in love with Angel, who used to be the most evil vampire of all until he was cursed with a soul by angry gypsies for killing the favorite daughter of their clan. Once cursed with his brand new soul, Angel became different from all the other vampires: sad--tragic--loveable. And as previously stated, Buffy loved him. For over two years, they faced unimaginable obstacles to their love, from monsters to demons to lost souls, but because their love was pure and deep and strong, they overcame. In the end, though (to be specific, of season 3), after some particularly harsh words from Buffy's mother about Angel holding Buffy back from having a normal life, Angel did what he believed to be right and moved to LA to start his own show (or something akin to that).

Fast forward a summer to season 4. Buffy, having just said goodbye to the only man she ever loved, the only man she ever had sex with, the only man she loved enough to be with and not have sex with, the only man she could trust with her life, was understandably upset. (Before I move on, I want to make sure not only that you understand how upset Buffy was--decimated, really--but also what kind of a relationship Buffy and Angel had. Aside from those few months when he was actively trying to drive Buffy over the edge by torturing and killing her family and friends, he was the ideal boyfriend. There was nothing Angel wouldn't do for Buffy. Nothing.) Forget upset. She was lost. Life with Angel was the only life she knew.

(End Quick History. Move on to episode.)

When we first see Buffy in "The Harsh Light of Day," we see her at The Bronze making eyes at Parker, the new guy who's caught her attention. He seems awesome. He's super cute, he's intelligent, he's sensitive, he's attentive. Perfect guy, really. And he's interested--not too interested, though. Well, when I say not too interested, what I mean is not pushy. He listens to what she has to say, and instead of acting the aggressor, he Psych 101s her into thinking that she's the one coming onto him.

Sex is had. And Buffy is too.

The morning after the sex, the first sex that Buffy has had with anybody other than Angel, the first time she entrusts somebody with something so intimate, Parker makes up some excuse about why he has to go and says that he'll call her. I shouldn't even have to tell you that he never does. Or that Buffy, used to somebody who truly loves and cares about her, never even considers that he might not.

She goes back to her dorm, where she tells her best friend, Willow, what happened. She gets excited about the excitement of a new relationship, looks forward to the courtship phase. She waits for him to call. She waits and she waits and she waits some more. She checks her messages, and she checks her phone for a dial tone. And then when she gets tired of waiting, she goes and she looks for him, only to overhear him giving the same exact spiel to some other girl that he gave to her. She goes over to him, and once they're alone, she puts her hand in his. He squeezes it and lets go. He tells her he'll call her when he can. Heartbreakingly, she asks him a question:

Did I do something wrong?

Baby, It's Cold Inside

Now that I'm almost two days removed from my stupid Saturday-night actions, I realize that I totally overreacted yesterday and made them seem much worse than they really were. That being said, please don't make the mistake of thinking that everything (read: anything) is even close to fine because it's not; things are far from fine; in fact, if I had to say how far from fine they are, I'd have to go with saying that they're hell-and-gone from Cartagena fine. And as far as fine goes, that's not fine at all.

It's just that I'm so sad. So unbelievably, devastatingly, sad. So put-my-head-down-on-my-desk-and-sob, want-to-crawl-into-bed-and-never-get-out sad.

And you know what I want to cover myself with when I get into that bed that I never want to get out of? My afghan. My extra-warm, six-foot long, one-hundred-and-sixty pound afghan knit with brown and white and pink and hazel yarn imported from both Scotland and Germany. But that afghan...well that's an afghan I can't use. Do you know why?

You don't have to answer. I know you know. You know I know you know. We all know. We all know that the afghan of which I speak isn't an afghan that's an option. We know that I can't use that brown and white and pink and hazel afghan for comfort or to keep out the cold, no matter how badly I want to wrap myself with its warmth. We know that I'm so badly in need of a blanket right now that I'd wrap myself in almost any afghan I happened to come across and that if I were to use that particular afghan, that brown and white and pink and hazel afghan, I'd eventually get so warm and weighed down beneath its heaviness that I'd start to suffocate and be unable to breathe until I eventually pulled it off and hurled it to the floor, where it would sit, untouched, until I felt uncomfortably cold once again.

And afghans, we know, have feelings, too.

All Screwed Up

I've never been the most rational person in the world, but believe me when I say that lately I've been making the worst decisions a person could possibly make. The first time Glenn and I separated, the principal of my school called me into her office and told me that when she got divorced she did some crazy things and made some horrible choices, so maybe bad-decision making is just something that goes along with the crumbling of a marriage. I honestly don't know. What I do know, though, is that as idiotic as I've been in my life, I've rarely been as idiotic as I have recently.

Shockingly, I'm not going to go into detail here. That's how stupid and embarrassing the decisions I've made have been. Despite the stupid things I've been doing, though, I still have some sense of self-preservation and, therefore, know enough not to list my idiocies of late.

What I will say is that I don't understand why I do the things I do. It's not like I don't know the difference between right and wrong. It's not like I don't tell myself that I'm not absolutely, positively, under no circumstances going to do something and then do that very thing five, four, even three minutes later. It's not like as I'm doing the things I do I don't realize how dumb or demeaning they are,  chastise myself, and cringe both mentally and physically at my behavior. I know all of these things, and I do all of these things, and yet I do the stupid things anyway. I seriously feel powerless to stop the stupidity that overcomes me, and powerlessness, well...that's not a good feeling at all.

A week ago before I sobbed on her shoulder lamenting some of the particularly stupid things I'd recently done (in what was probably one of the most awkward situations of both of our lives), a woman I work with told me that what I need to do is work on listening to my inner voice. I know she's right. I just wish I knew how.

I Don't Want to Know

All these well-meaning people have been giving me unsolicited advice--well, I assume they're well-meaning; in actuality, they could be malicious, underhanded people scheming to ruin my life--and I have to say that I don't appreciate it, not one little bit. None of these people really has any idea what it has been like to be in my marriage. They weren't with me when I spent I don't even know how many nights sitting in front of the mirror in my parents' house crying; they weren't with me when I cried myself to sleep for practically the entire eight months I was pregnant with Griffin; they weren't with me when I was twenty-seven years old and wrote in my diary that I couldn't believe I'd spent almost ten years feeling lonely and rejected and that I had to get out of my marriage as soon as possible because I was dying inside; they weren't with me when I got a ticket the day after my ten-year anniversary because I was so busy being distracted and miserable about Glenn wanting nothing to do with me the night before that I didn't notice the speed trap on the side of the road; they weren't with me any of the times that I told Glenn that I felt completely unloved and he didn't utter a word in return; they weren't with me when I came home excited to see Glenn after a four-day trip to Chicago last October, only to walk out of the airport to find him telling an old man he'd kick his ass and then being ignored for the next three days for getting annoyed about it; nor were they with me on New Year's Eve this year when Glenn decided to be mad at me, leaving me and the kids to spend the night on our own and not even bothering to acknowledge the change from 2011 to 2012. On these occasions and on countless others, none of these people were with me; therefore, I'd say that the amount of qualification they possess to give me advice is exactly none.

Not only are these people not qualified to give me advice, but they also have no idea what kind of struggle I've gone through to get to this point. They really don't know me at all, which means they have absolutely no idea how much the idea of change terrifies me. They don't know that even though I've dreamed of living in Chicago since I was dragged here at eight years old, I never went back because I've always been too afraid; that I cancelled my plans to move to Gainesville after high school because I was terrified; that I cried myself to sleep the night before my wedding but didn't want to change my plans because Glenn was all I knew; that every year I imagine working in a new school but lack the nerve to go to one. They don't know that the idea of change paralyzes me, that if it didn't, I would have gotten divorced a long, long time ago and that it's taken so much strength and courage for me to do what I'm doing and that their unsolicited advice is doing nothing but making me second-guess a decision that I don't want to change.

Another thing these people don't know is that Glenn is trying with everything he has to get me to stay in this marriage. They don't know that he assaults me with sad face every day, sends me emotional emails, and confronts me with conversations that I don't want to have on a continual basis. They don't know that he's offering me things that I don't believe he can give me but that even if he could, they're things I no longer want. They don't know that he's playing the "kid card." They don't know that I feel as if reconciling with Glenn will take every bit of joy, every bit of drive, every bit of me that I have left.

They don't know that it will decimate me.

Now they do.

The Beat Goes On

Either a little more than two years ago or a little more than one year ago (the fact that I don't know which one shows just how stagnantly repetitive my life is), one of the times when I was mourning the loss of C and resenting the entrapment I felt after agreeing to remain in my marriage (if you read my old blog or know me, you know exactly what I'm talking about), an old student of mine, Ronald, visited me after school, and we hung out for a little while talking. During our talk, he mentioned that had recently broken up with his girlfriend. Concerned, I asked him how he was doing, and he answered that he was doing pretty well. He said that he'd been upset for a while but soon realized that life is going to go on no matter what, and that we can either be miserable, or we can be happy. He chose to be happy.

I know what he said isn't exactly revelatory, but let me tell you something: when he said that to me, I had a revelation. I literally stopped walking (we were en route to the parking lot), grabbed his arm, and said, "Wait...what? Will you say that again?" I made him repeat it not only once, but twice, and then I repeated it to him to make sure I got it right, and then I repeated it to myself on the way home in my car. I repeated it, and I repeated it, and I repeated it again until I felt sure that I wouldn't forget it.

And then I chose.

It worked, too. I felt like a new person. I don't know why Ronald's words affected me so much; it wasn't like he'd said anything I hadn't already heard in one way or another. Maybe I was just ready for a change and his words came at the right time. Maybe I was just desperate for something to believe in.  Maybe, maybe, maybe--the truth is, I'll never know why they affected me so strongly. All I know is that they did affect me, and they affected me big.

After that talk, I did what I had previously been unable to do. I stopped moping over C. I committed to my marriage. I embraced my life. I realized that the thought of living the way I had been living for so long was unthinkable and I could no longer live it. I did exactly what Ronald told me to do. I chose to be happy.

Well, if you're reading this blog entry, you've most likely read the entries leading up to this one, so you know that Happiness isn't exactly where I am. If you know that, though--if you think that--if you feel you've gathered enough information to safely say that this is what's so, I'm here to tell you that you're wrong.

Once again, I'm making a choice.

(Just in case you don't remember what it is, let me say it to you one more time.)

Life is going to go on. We can either be miserable, or we can be happy.

Ronald chose to be happy.
And so do I.

Melankelly and the Infinite Sadness

There's this old TV show called Alice that I used to watch with my mom when I was super young. For those of you who don't know it--and that would probably be anybody under 35--it's about a widow named Alice who moves to Phoenix with her son to start a new life and ends up working at Mel's Diner with a total dingbat named Vera and an older woman named Flo who can't stop telling people to kiss her grits (even if you don't know the show, you must at least know that line. I mean, come on).

Anyway, the TV show really has nothing to do with this post. The lyrics to its theme song do. And they go like this:

I used to be sad, I used to be shy
Funniest thing, the saddest part is I never knew why...
Kickin' myself for nothin' was my favorite sport.
I had to take off, start enjoyin' 'cause life's too short.

There's a new girl in town, 'cause I'm feelin good.
Get a smile, get a song, for the neighborhood.
Things are great when you stand on your own two feet,
and this girl's here to say with some luck and love,
life's gonna be so sweeeeeeeeeet!

Well, for the past few weeks, I've felt like that song, especially the second verse. I've had this omnipresent feeling of excitement and unboundedness, as if there's nothing I won't be able to achieve now that my life is mine. But since Friday, that feeling has been dissipating, and it's been dissipating fast. In its place is a whole lot of empty, the opposite of fulfillment, and about twenty-two gazillion gallons of sadness.

I'm not sure what happened--okay, maybe I am, but maybe I'm not in the mood to write about it (ironic since I'm writing a blog right now, huh?)--but it doesn't really matter. All that's just a story anyway; what really matters is how I feel, and how I feel right now at this very moment is like poo. I feel like nothing is real. I feel like all of my relationships, whether with males or females, platonic or not, revolve around technology rather than true human interaction, and therefore, don't really mean a whole lot in the tangible world. I feel like other than my kids and my sister, I don't really have anybody else, and I feel like for a woman who's been on this earth for thirty-seven years, that's an awfully sad thing to say.

Before I offend anybody, I have to acknowledge that I have plenty of Facebook friends and a few people I text back and forth with; there have also been several people who have offered to listen to me if I need to talk, and I appreciate them all, and I know that in their own way, in a newfangled twenty-first century kind of way, they're really friends, but that's new school, and I'm not. I'm of the school of the old. I need real-live interaction with real-live human beings. I need to inhale the scent of someone's shampoo or perfume or fabric softener, to sit across from or next to people in a bar or restaurant and see them smile about something I said or hear them laugh at the ridiculous things we see people do. I need to accidentally bump into somebody while we're sitting down, take a french fry off of somebody's plate, or sit close to somebody while we watch a scary movie. I need to see that somebody real is right there in front of me, and I don't.

What I see is no one.
And what I feel is

alone.

Caught in a Mosh

*We interrupt this regularly scheduled divorce to bring you the following message: Glenn has refused to sign the divorce papers. This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test. Glenn has, in fact, refused to sign the divorce papers.*

So, uh...yeah. You read that right. When I got home from work yesterday, I emailed Glenn about the child sharing plan, and he responded with a refusal and the news that he would not, as previously discussed, be granting me a divorce. Apparently, he talked to a complete ass who convinced him that he should fight for us and not just let me go. Thanks to the advice of this moron, I now have to have a contested divorce instead of an uncontested one, which essentially means that I'll be spending way more time and money to end up at the exact same place I would have ended up anyway. I look at it like this: it's like driving to work. If I leave my house at 6:50 in the morning, turn left on Nova Drive, right on University, right on Miramar Parkway, and left on Douglas Road, I end up at Miramar High right around 7:15. If I wanted to, though, I could leave at the same time, turn left on Nova, go to 441, turn right, stop at the Hard Rock, lose a couple hundred dollars, continue down 441, turn right on Pembroke Road and then left on 68th Avenue, stop in front of my old house, get out, knock on the door, tell the new owners I'm feeling nostalgic and ask if I can take a look around, pay them for their time, get back in my car, continue toward Miramar Parkway, turn right but then decide I want to see my other old house, turn left when I pass Publix, drive around Woodscape for a while, go down to County Line Road, turn right, go to University, turn right again, get back to Miramar Parkway, turn left, get to Douglas Road, turn left, and finally end up at work, a lot poorer and a lot later than I should be. Either way I go about it, I'm going to end up in the same place, so why take the more expensive, stress-inducing route? It just doesn't make sense.

Whether it makes sense or not, I know why he's doing it. He thinks there's a chance I'll change my mind, and I'm not really surprised that he thinks that since it's happened twice in the past. He thinks we can work things out and make our relationship right again. The problem with that notion, though, is that our relationship wasn't right in the beginning. I won't deny that we've had happy times, but as far as "right" goes? I can't think of a time that it's ever been that way, and if it was, it's been such a long time that I can't remember.

I know I probably sound selfish, but I just want it all to be over. I absolutely, positively, under no circumstances whatsoever, want to work things out. We've tried that too many times before, and it's something I'm just no longer willing to do. As sad as this whole thing makes me (and, yes, I realize I don't sound all that sad right about now), I just want it to end.

This is Kelly's Year of Yes. The overarching question? I don't know what it is just yet, but I most definitely know what it's not.

Big Girl Will Cry

Maybe it's because I'm kind of crazy, but never in my life have I been levelheaded when it's come to boys. For me, falling for a boy has always been all consuming and life altering. When I'm in love, or on my way there, I'm absolutely incapable of thinking about anybody or anything other than that boy, and for that boy, there's pretty much nothing I won't do. When I love, I love like mad. Really.

I understand that I am not the norm.

I understand that I am not even close.

I understand that because of the way that I love, a whole lot of lovelorn is coming my way.

Here's the thing. As bad as things got with Glenn, I never once questioned whether or not he loved me. Yes, I spent a lot of time feeling lonely in my marriage, but even when he despised me, which was pretty often, and even when he didn't trust me, which was just about every second for the last three years, I knew that Glenn loved me. I knew that despite the fact that he wasn't able to show it the way that I wanted him to--the way I needed him to--he did, in fact, love me, and I knew that no matter what, he always would.

I'm no longer privy to such security, not from Glenn, and certainly not from anybody else.

What I'm privy to instead is the knowledge that I'm once again going to fall hard for boys that don't fall back. I'm going to be vulnerable and naive, trust too much, and end up disappointed. I'm going to be too secure, and I'm going to be insecure, probably hour by hour or even more frequently than that. I'm not going to know how to play the silly games that single people play, the ones that I've never played, and I'm going to say things I should not. I'm going to wait for texts and phone calls that never come, and I'm going to wonder when it's the right time to text or to call.

I'm going to dwell, I'm going to cry, and I'm going to hurt.

I am       going to break.
        not

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry, Before I Go Insane

I wasn't sure if bipolarity was a word or not, so I just looked it up, and it is, which I guess is good since I'm about to use it, but in truth, if it wasn't a word I was just going to make it up and use it anyway because no other one fits me quite as well. Other words come close: indecisive, rash, cautious, inert, impatient, callous, empathetic, miserable, giddy, unbalanced. Choose any of those words at any given time, and they just might fit me, but they don't fit me the way bipolarity does. They go on, and they look decent, sometimes even good, but some of them gap in the back because of the small size of my waist and not-so-small size of my butt; some are just a little too long, dragging on the floor when I walk and fraying along the bottom; some are just a tiny bit too tight in the thighs and won't sit on my hips exactly where I want them to sit; and some have just a little too much stretch so that by the time I've worn them for a few hours, they slide down my body, button and zipper slipping too far below my belly button, crotch sagging just a little too much. Bipolarity, though. Bipolarity doesn't do any of these things. Bipolarity is exactly the right length and exactly the right width everywhere it touches me. It flatters my little legs by not being too long, hugs my hips and thighs instead of smooshing them in like sausage, and accentuates my butt without making it look too big. I'm telling you, nothing fits me, nothing has ever fit me, like bipolarity does.

And it's getting worse.

My extreme moods used to last for days, or even weeks, but they're starting to shift day-by-day and even hour-to-hour. I'm not kidding when I say that I can be getting ready for work, dancing around my bedroom; on my way to work, singing giddily along to some song, thinking about the great wide open that lies before me and all the possibilities it brings; then pull into the parking lot downtrodden and miserable, having been hit with the realization that life has no guarantees, and I can be just as miserable tomorrow as I was yesterday; and then walk through the halls, smile at a couple of kids, talk to one or two other ones, and then, before I know it, feel happy enough again to dance around my classroom when nobody is there. Now take that series of events I just gave you, repeat repeatedly throughout the day, and you have an idea of what my life has been like for the past month or so.

Like I said, it's more extreme now, but I've always exhibited bipolar tendencies. When I was fifteen and staying in a private psychiatric facility, I had to take some "spit test," which amounted to me spitting in some tube or something at intervals for a certain amount of time so my psychiatrist could test the chemicals in my brain. Everything checked out okay. Years later, and only a few years ago, my therapist told me she believed me to be "slightly bipolar." Another therapist who came after her agreed.

Since I don't like medication--I won't even take antibiotics, and it takes a headache that I believe is going to kill me to get me to take an ibuprofen--it  should come as no surprise that I've never considered taking any. It's not just that, though. It's also that I've always felt like my "condition" wasn't a condition at all--it's just me. It makes me who I am: zany, crazy, aspirational, defeated, conflicted, tumultuous, mopey, dichotomic me. It makes me a little less boring than I would be if I were on medication, and a lot less like everybody else. And up until the last month, I've been, for the most part, happy with that: I've enjoyed living a life that's a little bit crazy and a little bit sane.

But now...well, now the "little bit" and the "sane" feel kind of like a thing of the past, and I don't think saying I'm living the life of the insane would be entirely false.