Today's reality

When I become overwhelmed, I feel like it's an outer body experience. So much energy & emotion shoots through my body that it becomes uncontrollable. Years ago, I would just sit on my bed and cry. Cry and cry until it all came out. These days, I'm very in touch with my emotions. I know how to control them. I know what to do when I feel out of control. I breathe. 

A lot of times I go into my closet, turn off the light and lay there. I concentrate on my breathing the entire time. If I'm cold, I'll cover up but I will stay in that closet, in the dark. It lasts about 20-30 minutes but it helps so much. I honestly think I need to do it at least once a week, in the early morning if possible. Or even every morning to start off my day. I wonder if what I do is meditation? I've never even thought about that until now. 

One time, I did something different. I got overwhelmed but for reasons a woman just can't control ;) So I drove. I listened to the radio & I drove. I stumbled across a graveyard. I hadn't been to a graveyard in almost 10 years. I entered the area and felt a sudden sense of calm. I spent the next 30 minutes walking around and thinking about all the people down below and what kind of lives they must have led. What they might tell a person like me who was trying to find peace among the dead. 

"Be grateful for the life you have now. It's the only one you'll ever get. Be happy."

That was the voice that overcame me. It wasn't anyone elses voice speaking to me. It was my own. As I looked at my feet, I imagined the many souls that lay around me. There must be hundreds. Hundreds of cold, whittled bodies lay under me that once lived promising and bountiful lives or maybe even dreadful lives. Whatever the case, it sent me into a calm, comforting place within myself. 

It was something I needed. 

The past few months, my job situation has not been great. I work in retail & it's hard enough to find childcare as it is. I've felt so much pressure to give more of myself & my time then ever before. I've given all that I possibly can & it's caused an unbalanced shift in my life. All my time for mere dollars? It seems so cruel to work such crazy hours & make for two weeks what some people make in a few days. But I did what I had to do in order to pay keep a roof over our head, food in our bellies and the bills paid. At least I had a job, I would tell myself. Then the hours at the store started to get cut. And here I am, off more than I usually am & angry. I am angry I allowed myself to settle for this when I know I am so valuable. I made a resume & have been consistently applying for jobs. In a few months, my child will be going to school & I'll be damned if I don't try my hardest to get a job that will allow me to see him when he gets out. Where I don't have to send him off on weekends to family because I can't afford a babysitter that weekend. Where I don't have to work nights most days of the week. I've had a few interviews and are looking forward to more until someone can see the capabilities in me & decide to take the chance. I already enrolled in school & I'm hoping to take some classes when my son is away on vacation this summer. Not hoping, I AM going to take classes. I have no choice but to better myself to help get myself and my family out of this life that we don't really want. 

I will always be grateful for my job but I cannot afford to work there anymore. As a libra, if my balance is shifted and I don't have any family time, I am completely thrown off. I am a sign of balance and that couldn't be more true. 

When you throw me out of whack, I'll get all Mommy Dearest on you. We don't want that now, do we? Because personally, I like nice, loving Jennifer. I don't want to hiss at everyone I come into contact with because I think they are out to hurt me. It's too much energy & emotion to give out & quite frankly, I'd rather give my time & energy to my family & myself. Be mad? Ain't nobody got time fo dat!

My best friend, the newlywed

The other day my best friend, who just got married, asked me to take a few pictures of her and her husband because they were going to use them on their invitations. They eloped & are having a wedding in the near future. I really don't like taking pictures of people in groups because I'm not that good but I obviously told her yes. When we finally decided to do them, the sun had already started to set and it was pretty dark. Not to mention, it was really gloomy & there were clouds everywhere. Nonetheless, I told her I would do what I could with what I had because I know she was eager to have them now. We actually got about 6 good pictures out of those 10 minutes and 1 would have been good enough for us. These pictures look a bit more gritty online than the actual files do on my computer & I was working with a Rebel Xsi & very little sunlight. I even tried to warm the pictures up, like below:

but it just didn't feel right. I plan to take more of them again. I have a few more good shots but I'd rather not post them because it's of her family as a whole & I'm not comfortable showing those online at the moment. Anyway, I'm so happy for my best friend, the newlywed. Her husband is a good man and I know that she's really happy. Cannot wait to be in her wedding in months to come. 

An Atheist Mom

After a lifelong struggle to avoid putting a religious label on myself, today I've come to realize that I am an Atheist. Just because I hope that God is real & I know in my heart that he isn't, still means I'm an atheist. While driving to pick up my boyfriend from work, I started thinking about mental illnesses in the biblical time period. That all led up to asking myself if I really was deist, like I claim to be. 

So I looked up the literal term of atheism: a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. Damn it. I do believe in the natural flow of the universe but I don't believe in an actual being or deity. Hard to explain but God, in my terms, is everything in the universe. Oh man, I'm an atheist. Agnostic but atheist none the less. I had been fighting it my entire life. I spent years searching & joining different religions in hopes that one of them had the absolute truth; that one of them made actual sense. None ever did. I always had my doubts or didn't agree with some things that religion represented. "Naw, I'm not an atheist," I'd say. Something is out there watching over me. I refused to take responsibility for my own life & hoped something out there could do it for me. 

It never did. Every time something happened that I prayed for with all of my being, it was because of me. 

I've spent years guarded by religion and beliefs. I spent many years intentionally misunderstanding atheism. The only atheist I knew scoffed at religion. Made me think all atheists were assholes. The older I got, the more atheists I met & they were not evil. They were sweet, understanding people. Which was great because I've always thought religion could be beautiful & they agreed with me. 

After this reflective discovery, I started thinking about being an atheist mom. I've always told myself that I'd present all facts (unbiased) to my child if he ever asked me about religion. Recently, my little sister claimed she was a Christian and that we were all Christians. I politely corrected her and said that I was not a Christian because I did not believe in God. My son asked me what that was & I explained to him in the best way that I could. All he said was, "Well that's not me. I don't believe that." And he's absolutely right. He is too young to worry about that stuff, in my opinion. Before he makes any decisions, he likes to be thoroughly informed. He's a smart kid & he knows it. He might play video games & watch Johnny Test but he loves to learn. He takes every opportunity he can to ask us questions. No exaggeration on that. When the religion topic comes up again, I'll be excited to discuss things with him. For now, all he asks about is space. 

This is not to say I am not spiritual. I have such a connection with myself & the earth that it sometimes blows me away. When I die, I plan to donate all of my good organs to science (or someone who needs it) & have the rest of my remains be cremated & put back into the earth. That or put in a bio-degradable casket or just straight into the ground sans casket. I absolutely love to mediate. I love being at peace with myself and the world around me. It's a blessing to be alive. I also feel like I have all of this emotion because I don't believe in an actual afterlife. I appreciate the here and now with great intensity.

Here I am guys. I feel more relaxed with myself because of this. Dare I even say that I actually feel love for myself because of this epiphany? Because I absolutely do. So please, if you think atheists are bad people or evil, look atheism up. It's been given such a bad rep, much like modern feminism, vegans, environmentalists or anything else progressive & non-traditional.

So if you don't have an atheist in your life, you do now. An atheist mom from Texas.

3.27.2013

Hard Sleeper

Where do I even begin? Did I tell you guys that my boyfriend sleeps as hard as a rock? Or that he sleep walks & sleep talks as well? I've never experienced this with anyone else until I got with him. One time he got up to make coffee & didn't even realize it. Sometimes, he turns into a straight dick head. That's the only time I know for sure he's sleep talking because he doesn't act like that in real life. He's affectionate to me. One time, I woke up at 2 in the morning (I'm a light sleeper) to find our toilet overflowing. I yelled and yelled at him to wake up and help me clean it & he woke up being a jerk & fell right back to sleep. So I spent the next two hours running back and forth to CVS, on foot while it was drizzling trying to clean the mess up. Thank GOODNESS it was only water but it was up to my ankles. The next morning, Mike woke up to find our bathtub filled with wet towels and signs that something happened last night. He felt absolutely horrible. I mean, wouldn't that be horrible to wake up & find your woman had been under so much stress & you didn't help her at all? 

I was still mad at him, don't get me wrong. I always secretly think that it's his alter ego I'm speaking to while he's sleep walking/talking. That he really means what he says. Of course, I know better but someone has to be blamed for the way I felt! I mean, it's not like I was dreaming! ;)

Anyway, he has a history of this. Sleepwalking & sleeping hard as a rock. He always says that if someone breaks into our room he would hear it. I always laugh. I know darn well that if someone tried to break into our window while he was sleeping, I'd be the one that had to take action! But I love his wishful thinking. 

So let me tell you about last Saturday. Saturday nights, I sometimes stay really late for work. This particular day I went into work at 3 pm & didn't get out until 12:45 am. Well, when I showed up at home the door was locked. Which wouldn't have been a big deal if I hadn't given Mike my house key earlier. No big deal, he'll open the door. He didn't. He was dead asleep & probably on the couch. And as someone who knows her boyfriends sleep cycles, the next time to wake him up was going to be a few another few hours. And yes, he probably had a few beers. It was Saturday night after all. So he was knocked the heck out. I pounded and yelled for about 5 minutes before I gave up. I didn't want to wake the neighbors. So I went to my car and sat in the rain, while playing with my phone. I went up and tried one more time with that one failing as well. I ended up running across the street to CVS (because I was too tired to go to Walmart) and grabbing a few throw blankets and a pillow. Surprisingly, they were really comfortable. If it hadn't of gotten colder that night, I probably could have stayed asleep the whole night. Since you aren't suppose to sleep with the heater on though, I couldn't help but feel the gradual chill brushing up against my feet. 

I finally got up & decided to try again. It was 5 am and about the time his sleep cycle would lighten up. Knocked on the door, which finally opened. Went straight into my room, took off my clothes and fell asleep. Didn't say one word to him. He already knew he did wrong, which was why he didn't sleep with me that night. He slept on the couch, willingly. Ha!

The next morning he found out that it was 5 am when he opened the door. He felt like a fool, once again. And let me tell you guys, this isn't the first time this has happened! This is about the second time I've been locked out of the house. The first time, I actually spent the night at my Dad's around the corner & went home around 6am. I know there might be another night that this might happen so I'm planning to put an emergency kit in my car containing:

*a comforter

*my new favorite throw pillow

*my throw blankets to block the windows

*hand/feet warmers

Do you guys live with someone who sucks at sleeping? Pretty sure there will be plenty more stories in the future all due to Mike's sleep walking. He's also starting to rub off on me! The other night, I thought I was in a super secret agent dream where my boss texted me that Mike was there to kill me. You know, Mr. & Mrs. Smith style. I apparently was still sleeping & he asked to use my phone (in real life). My first instinct was to grab my phone and delete all my super secret agent texts! In real life, it looked fishy as hell. I was terribly embarrassed the morning I woke up & remembered! So now, I kind of know how he feels! But at least I don't lock him out of the house, while it's raining to sleep in the car, freezing for hours!