Too Many Tabs and Batches of Insomnia

It’s a little past midnight and I’m wide awake.  Most of the people I’d talk to at this hour are in bed already or about there.  It’s a work day tomorrow for some of them after all.

 

I tried to close the tabs on my browser several times today and got lost.  It happens frequently.  Sometimes too frequently.

I get lost in pages of inspiration.  It’s what breeds more inspiration.

But it has its drawbacks too.

 

My mind resembles my notebooks.  The words run together and twirl and dance.  Sometimes it’s just too fun to play in the rain.

 

Hours drop off like nothing.

Five o’clock becomes eight o’clock becomes midnight becomes…

 

I think I’ve seen as much sunrises as I have sunsets.

(…Well… when I am not sifting through tabs.)

There’s too much to do.  There’s too much information I need to absorb.

Too much.  

Too many.

I wish I could just get some sleep already.

Stupid broken overactive brain.

Criminal Complexity: Hard Knocks Back and Forward

It’s nearly four o’clock in the morning and I am not quite ready to sleep.  I have an article that I want to write.  That I should write.  That… I might not write until… well, at least after this.  This is my treat to myself.  I’d like to think that maybe I’ve deserved it.

Last year was really difficult.  Or rather, the year before were really.  It’s been that way for quite some time.

Oh “time…”

Life has hit me hard.  The top photo was actually taken during a relaxed moment last year… before it all happened.

After it all happened.

Same difference right? Heh.

The inside kitchen wall of my then loft just outside downtown but not quite in an artist colony might make me look like a bit of a hard ass criminal.  Rest assured, that is not true.  You can even check my record if you’re curious.  The funny thing, however,  is that I seem to get the criminal label quite frequently.  Confused?  Read on and hopefully you will understand a bit more.

There is a quote by Butch Patrick (aka Eddie Munster) which just sort of stuck with me since that first time it came into passing:

“I may be little but I’m odd.”

At four foot, ten inches in stature this rang true for me on all sorts of levels.  It’s been the blessing and curse that has followed along beside me each step of the way.

I could potentially have to go into labor tomorrow.  This pregnancy has been an abundance of surprises and complexities.  A test tomorrow at 1 will determine our fate.  So why the hell am I even awake at this hour?

My exes would lead you to believe I’m crazy.  The entourage of potential clients in the background might believe that I might be…

And I think about how much different my life is today than it even was yesterday.  Reeling back to a month ago.  To six months ago.  To a year ago. To two years ago.

And so on.

And so on.

“You wanted this.”

I found scrawled on a piece of paper.

I did.  

I didn’t know it.

I didn’t plan it.

But it was likely there… waiting.

Like that first day I saw my son on that screen.

In the following months that would come into fruition after that night I finally got the guts to leave I would be amazed at the wonders of the heart.  Of the wonders of all of those around me.  Complete with their flaws as well as their peaks.

Nearly a full day week has passed since I started to write this draft.  My doctor’s appointment has come and gone.  Thankfully I am not typing this from a hospital bed.  I’m still at home on my computer… thinking about how to tell those potentials that I might not be available for a week or two to talk, plowing through Amazon looking at strollers and car seats (that won’t be here until after I have my son thanks to crappy customer service and shipping deception), thinking about the next few days hours… and enjoying a bit of the quiet and introspection.

He’s going to be here soon.

I was glowing as I left the appointment.  I am excited.  My doctor let me decide when I’m going to be induced.  Due to the complications with this pregnancy (of which I feel has been about the entirety and theme of it), I have one week day maximum before he must make his exit.

It all started a  couple of weeks or so ago when something just seemed a bit odd.  I didn’t know what it was and I barely mentioned it to my doctor.  Why the heck was I itching so much? Was I just nervous?  Surely it wasn’t all those nonexistent hikes I’ve been going on.

I was told that I have some uncommon liver issue that makes my son’s exit necessary or I could potentially lose him.  They call it cholestasis.  Feel free to click the link and read about it further if you dare.  I won’t be boring you with all the nitty gritty medical details.

My due date wasn’t for several weeks.  I remember joking about it during my pregnancy how funny it would be if he came before/on Halloween.  And now?  Well, hopefully he will.  I go into the doctor later tonight in hopes of potentially having that Halloween baby.

The debatable crazier part?  I might be alone.

Even crazier?  It’d be my choice.

Papa bear will not be present.  I didn’t give him specifics nor will I.  After he’d told me several times about how he wished this baby not to exist, I fought with my heart to tell him anything more beyond my diagnosis and planned induction. Hours left to go and… I still wonder if not telling him more than that is the right decision.  But I can’t be stressed to think about it more than that.  It’s admittedly somewhat selfish but after all that has happened, this is a special moment going to be shared with the one person who always (didn’t know) wanted him to exist.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about my upcoming birth.  He asked me how I was going to get to my appointment tonight.

“I’ll take a bus. No big deal.”

He seemed baffled by this.

“No one is taking you?  Who is bringing you home?”

“I had offers but it’s not that big of a deal.  I can get a bus there. My friend is going to pick me up since she has a car seat already and mine hasn’t come in the mail yet.”

He wouldn’t let me do that.  He offered to take me.  So did others.  I wasn’t going to take any of their offers.  I was ready to do it alone.  I feel like I have been alone for a majority of this pregnancy anyway.  I’d made peace with it.

But I caved.

“Well maybe we could get dinner or something before I go in?”

“Ha.  What do you want for your last meal?”

“Poutine. And maybe some [famous named] ice cream.”

“We should post a FB invite for people wanting to have dinner before you pop!”

I couldn’t really go that far.

And while poutine is magical, there’s still a part of me that wonders if I should just take the bus.  I have some wonderful people around me and… I just think I want to be alone.

 

Going back to how things were once upon a different time ago…

Last year I turned 30.  My then best friend moved up North to Seattle and… I nearly almost moved there myself.  I was doing fantastically.  The year before that had been.. an absolute nightmare.

(I haven’t talked to her much since I got pregnant.  She has mysteriously disappeared from contact…)

Most people enter their thirties and freak out.  I did the opposite.  So much so that I remember that last airport train back when someone asked me about my boyfriend back home and I was glowing when I answered.

“I don’t need one.”

That was, of course, before I met bear.

Fast forward to a few months later.  To coffee shop visits in the early morning and later to that day I let this guy I knew help out with some work around the office. (With results so disastrous I had to fire him only an hour later.)

“That’s your boyfriend isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

To the yearly Halloween party at The Studio Bar.

(I wish I had those pictures.)

Greg and Janet (pictured below) host the most amazing holiday parties every year.  Little did I know it at the time but the man I brought to that party (dressed as Hi from Raising Arizona) would be the father of my future child.  And while I wasn’t dressed as a cop to that party, perhaps the baby part was the one thing missing from that costume.  Lord knows that I could imagine that’d be the look on his face when our son (not named Nathan Jr) would have garnered from him if he… actually was going to be present.

 

haha Jena is going to be pregnant

But that’s the way life goes.  It’s unscripted.  And as much as these past couple of years have had their down points, there has also been a tremendous amount of glory in it all.

And maybe that’s why I fight so much.

I get a lot of flack on a nearly daily basis for why I stay here in Los Angeles despite all of the hardships and struggles.  During my pregnancy I was told by several people (including and especially family) that I should just “move away and be a better mother” and that staying was “selfish” of me.  I get talked down to like my choices are that of some sort of criminal constantly.  I have learned who my real support system is.  Who my real friends are.  Who… I was wrong about.  Who… my REAL family is.

So why is being an individual with out of the box ideas something to criminalize?  Why does society constantly feel a need to punish those who are educated in ways of… perhaps the full effect.

Mind.

Body.

Soul.

(I swear I showered and am not a hippy.)

It’s a constant struggle with the world to tell them to… just open their damn eyes.

When my children were here this summer we analyzed the word “monster.”  Our Disney experience was filled with laughter as I asked them why they were not scared of people like Sully from Monsters Inc.

“Because monsters aren’t real mommy.” they told me.

“Oh but they are.”

They didn’t understand.  I talked a bit more about it with them.

“Monsters are real people.  They can be anyone.  They can even be me or you.”

“How?”

“Everyone has a monster living inside of them.  It’s not always a bad thing.  But anyone is capable of being a scary horrible monster.  It’s a choice. “

Later in their visit, my father would start talking down to me condescendingly in front of them.  I said the word again.

“Monster.”

The kids understood.

The same could be said about this criminal complexity.  Anyone can get the title just like anyone could be a criminal.  (Or so at least the Joker tried to prove ala The Killing Joke)

Being an actual criminal though is a choice.

There is so much magic in this world.  There is also so much disaster.  Our society has not “grown up” much as we’d like to think.

We are embedded to think that different is bad.  That it must be squashed, medicated, criminalized, and otherwise reprimanded.

But then there are some lucky, wonderful, amazing people who see through the bullshit and know better.  And these are my friends.  They are the music makers.  They are the dreamers of the dreams.  They are part of my inspiration to keep going towards these dreams and why I am closer and closer everyday to actualizing them all into reality.

One by one.

Day by day.

It’s all happening.

All because I’m making it happen.

Alone.  

that’s ok I don’t need it

…And it’s the best place I’ve ever been yet.

The Gift of Not Gifting

Over the course of time I have become enamored with the idea and action of gifting.  There are so many rewards to the heart with the act of giving.  What people tend to forget is that there are also so many potential setbacks.

Here’s an  image you are likely familiar with if you have been on the internet longer than five seconds.  It is a silly but accurate reminder of what I will be alluding to with this post.

When my children were here with me over the summer, I wanted to do so much for them.  Any parent should understand how hard it is to be apart from their children even for a short time.  So, when the time came that they were finally here, I wanted more than anything to give them the world.  To get them here in the first place meant the world to me.  In that regard, I am thankful that I was privileged with the company of good friends to facilitate that visit happening including getting them here (despite my ex husband moving cross country without any notice so he could be with the newest woman he met in a video game) and even getting them to Disneyland.

While the material things themselves were wonderful, especially as I was beyond broke and having to tell my children that unfortunately I could not buy them everything, the act of it was far more meaningful to all of us.  Or… at least at that moment.

As more moments passed where my children have been distanced, I have began to abhor giving.  Not because I don’t want to… but because I see the little acts of bribery and compensating techniques that are actually happening.  Giving, especially to children, gives less when it is done all the time.

Both of my sons have had birthdays since my last postings.  I have found myself taken back with disgust for the reactions to giving and lack of giving done to them.

A little bit of a super personal background:

My oldest son is currently living with my father.  It was a decision made years ago as a temporary solution to my ex husband essentially leaving me in a very desolate space.  So desolate, in fact, that I am finally gaining the momentum to…

My younger son and daughter are living with their father.  That situation is extremely delicate and frustrating.  The man stole my children and ran off with them after emotionally and physically abusing me.  My last visit was the first one I had been able to get in YEARS as the man had: told them someone else was their mother, refused to take phone calls, and jumped states and cities several times while he leeched off some woman.  I have been working on this- without assistance- for a long time now.  As you may know, however, Los Angeles (and most of California in general) is a very difficult place to get on your feet.  I have suffered and learned so much from this grand place.

Since that visit, things have been progressively different.   My children know again that I am their mother.  They are very young and are starting to question the world around them.  This is something I have been encouraging and my ex has been discouraging.

(No guy like that wants to hear: Why did you keep me from a mommy that loves me so much and wants to be in my life?)

As the years and bits of time have passed, I have seen first hand how damaging both of the environments are for them.  One of the biggest reasons?  It’s the one thing that I haven’t been able to do a ton due to the lack of free flowing finances… as I have been working to recover from the financial shackles I allowed my ex husband.  Giving has been a cross to bear actually.

My younger son, when here, showed a major addiction to video games.  This is not completely surprising.  I met his father at a gaming company I worked for years ago.  His father has met two women in online gaming since me.  He is clearly focused on gaming…  it is… at a frightening level.  I fear that my son might…

A friend of mine loaned me a Game Boy for the plane ride and while they were here.  As my son didn’t have a portable gaming device, he was enamored with it and didn’t want to let go.  Combined with his learning and developmental problems, this only made me more nervous.  Near the end of the visit, I didn’t want him to have anything to do with the device.  He couldn’t handle the responsibility on even a sharing level and would break down when it was taken away.

As his birthday approached, he voiced to me on a webcam visit that he wanted a portable gaming device for his birthday.  I told him no.  I explained that he had not been able to handle it and, when and if he could show me differently, I would reconsider it.  At this point, he broke down.

“I don’t like you Mom.”

Can you guess what happened after that?  Yep his father and his latest girlfriend bought him one.  They had overheard the conversation.

It was one instance of many with regards to gifts that has bothered me.

When the calls were to initially start, and the kids had left here, the gifts and things I gave them were mysteriously lost.  I sent two cameras out to even get the visits.  They never arrived and there was an excuse for several weeks paired with talking down to me and telling me that my confirmation slips and testing of equipment were simply not true.

Something important given to my daughter also went missing.  One of my grandparents sends jewelry found at thrifts every so often. I found two butterfly pins in a bag of jewelry and decided to do something special for the two of us.

I gave my daughter a pink butterfly pin and I kept a green one. I told her where the butterfly came from. That it was from her great grandmother.  It would be a reminder of each other no matter how far away we were each time we wore it.  I told my daughter:

“No matter how far away we are, when we have these on especially, remember how much your mother loves you and that you are always with me, even if you’re not physically there.”

“You’re not just my mommy.  You’re my friend.”

It was a way to remember the love we shared no matter how much distance was between us.  It was nothing fancy material wise but it was a special bond between the two of us.

In addition to the butterfly pin, I gave her a jewelry box with other little costume jewelry. I told her to make sure she kept the pin safe in the box.

For a couple of weeks after the visit, it was a wonderful and special shared moment. She told me that she had worn the butterfly to her first day at the new school.  I wore it en route to a prospective client.  It was the magic and love of giving.

Not too long after she returned she told me that her father lost the pin.  We had talked about it on our phone calls prior.  He had to have known how special it was to us.  But there it was, coincidentally missing.

Another instance with my kids has been that the kids are always showing me gifts on my weekly webcam visits.  They then ask me when and if I will be sending them things.  It happens every single week.  Items are shoved in front of the camera.

“Mom look at what Tuffles got me.”

“Mom look at this [thing given by my ex husband & his girlfriend]”

It’s always something.  And it was always followed by:

“Mom when are you going to send us more things?”

I found myself responding more and more:

“Gifts are not the measurement of love.  I show you how I love you in ways beyond gifts.  Material things are  great but they’re not important.  Hearts and genuine love are what matters.  Those are the real gifts.”

My ex husband and his girlfriend didn’t like this very much… and the consistency has not faltered.  I await tomorrow’s gift.

Now back to California and my oldest son.  My oldest son knows I have an affinity for fish.  After some casualties, I found myself with an extra small tank.  I wanted to give him this tank and get him some betas.  There had been a whole economical discussion about it and some comical adventures with his siblings (to be written about in a future piece).  He told me that he couldn’t have fish because his grandfather said no.  The tank topic stopped and we went to birthday requests.

My son’s birthday present came from some great timing as I assisted my friends over at Loot Crate.  The box included a Ninja Turtle action figure amongst other geeky treats.  Since this son was named after one of these figures, it was absolutely perfect.  To add to it more, there was a blind box key chain from Futurama in there as well.  There is a very embarrassing story of when my son was a toddler that revolved around the character Bender.  We didn’t know it at the time, but Bender was in that blind box.

For several weeks leading up to his birthday I tried to coordinate something to assist with it.  I wanted to have a pizza party and make decorations with my Preval vFan Airbrush System and center the experience around that (albeit small) gift.  It didn’t happen.  My father wanted to do everything and spared no expense to get the biggest, most unnecessary amount of tokens and gaming for my son and his friends.   Oh and about the fish?  I arrived at my father’s house to find that my son now had a goldfish… and that my father had bought a big tank specifically him now.

My father gloated about all of it.  My son was happy, but ungrateful.  It was frustrating.  I couldn’t say anything until after the fact.  I wanted my son to have an enjoyable time with his friends.  I watched, but kept my distance.  I wanted to allow for some independence and freedom.

When I was to go back to Los Angeles, my son had an attitude about him.  He was unappreciative and showing it.  I explained to my father that this was part of the reason I didn’t want things to be so extravagant.  He didn’t agree.  He just kept gloating about how much he’d spent.

My son and I discussed his gifts when we got back to Los Angeles.  There had been talk of me taking things away as a form of discipline for him being ungrateful.  The talk helped a lot.  I saw my growing little boy in there.  After our talk, he apologized and went back to tell his grandfather that he didn’t like how he was treating his mother.  He remembered that gifts, while great, were not everything.

I have a stack of material things I wanted to give the kids.  I wanted to share some small things with them to show them that I think of them constantly.  But now?  I am now in a position where the act of giving has soured me from wanting to do it… at least in one way.

“I believe more and more in the words I spoke to my children.  Of the importance of the heart and compassion that are far more material than any material possessions.  I struggle daily trying to get to the point where I can give them everything I dream they would want.  But perhaps, especially in this instance it’s for the best.  Perhaps the best gift for them is what I have been doing all along… the real one that they need the most…. and that’s holding back and not giving. 

Success is Being Able to Not be Afraid Successfully

For several nights, for several reasons, this has been the look on my face as I lay awake and thinking about… far too much and not enough.  It has also shown a bit about how I know that there are still pieces of the woman I was the day I was raped by my (now ex) husband.

Yesterday a friend posted a link to an absolutely wonderful project endeavor: Project Unbreakable.  It is my plan this weekend to add my voice to the project.  It is a voice that has felt so frozen and paralyzed… but doesn’t want to be afraid anymore. As cheesy as it sounds, I have learned through these years just how much success is the ability to not be afraid successfully… even if you are.

So many people have approached me over these years and said how strong I am.  So many people have said that they value my dedication to this city, my goals, my passions, my art, and…

But I feel like a phony sometimes.

People handle their pain in their own way.  It is not ours to tell them that their way is wrong or right.  It is, however, our duty as people to be there for them or not if they extend their hearts to us… respecting the ways that they would like us to do that.

Monday I nearly didn’t go out.  I was invited to attend a mini conference.  I have been feeling physically dreadful for the past few weeks.  Feeling physically ill does not necessarily make for the happiest of Jenas.  I have been on a fair amount of personal quarantine this week as I cope with it.

Going to that conference made me remember my strength.  I was just.. me.  Little did I know that doing just that was enough to be remembered in a substantial way I would find out later this week.  It is humbling to even think about… and perhaps, nearly as scary.

I think about those people who believe in me.  About the strangers that have me in confidence.  Of the new faces I met because I decided to shove the pain to the side and just… wake up and walk out there.

You motivate me.

You give me hope.

You give me strength.

 So why am I so damn scared sometimes?

A couple of wonderful things came into view this week.  Reminders of all the impact I have done.  Reminders that that girl laying in bed sick and scared is also bold and brazen and confident and… strong.  Reminders that… the scars are still there but they are not to be afraid of.

This is my day.

This is my year.

The scared girl doesn’t need to be forgotten.  She needs to be remembered as she is the reason why the strong one that exists is here in the first place.

 

Editors side note: the movie images used in this post are from a movie which I knew would become one of my favorites before it came out.  It was, as fate would have it, a movie my ex husband would refuse to watch with me.  I didn’t end up watching it until after he was no longer around physically.  Perhaps that was a little sign in itself.

The book of Jena-sis: What’s God got to do got to do with it

And now for a reading from the book of “Jena-sis:”

Once upon another life in a land far far away from where I currently reside, I grew up Catholic.  My parents would like to believe that things I was taught by this exposure to ten years of Catholic schooling would be the best thing that they ever did for me. Some may say that’s part of why there has been as much “wrong” with me.

Religion has been popping up all over in my daily endeavors as of late.  As the book of testament would tell you to “Keep Holy the Sabbath” I figured what better day than a Sunday to talk about it?

There are quite a few reasons why “my path has been led astray” from what my parents attempted to instill in me all those years ago.  Many of them are based within the foundations I was taught by said religion is the very reason as to why someone should be religious in the first place.

Religion taught me about the bad people do as hypocrisy ran rampant amongst those who attended or found themselves “at the house of the lord”… almost as much as it did the good that resides in people.  That is, not to say that there aren’t genuine hearts that attend religious functions. But, like the rest of the world, I have come to understand that there are fewer and farther in between.  And, more so, that those who do good for others generally have an agenda a majority of the time.

Religion taught me there was very little that was actually wrong.  It showed me ten important things that were to serve as life reminders of the correct path… but that following these ten important “laws” did not matter anyway as all of the wrong I did would be quickly excused in a matter of moments as long as I sat in a box and told a stranger who technically couldn’t tell anyone about it anyway.

Religion did teach me some wonderful things that I wonder where I would be had I not gone to all those aerobic Sunday meetings of sit, stand, kneel.

Catholicism taught me about the real life application of the world itself being a stage.  (This was later re-confirmed as I found myself with copies of Shakespeare books.)  “Fame” was something completely attainable.  I could stand up in front of an audience and force them to listen just by being in the right place at the right time.  It also taught me about elaborate storytelling as talks about a man being swallowed by a whale heightened my imagination as I saw that so many people can actually believe things to be facts no matter how ludicrous things are.  One could argue that I therefore learned about marketing, manipulation, charm, charisma…

In other words, religion taught me sin and how to get away with it without the worry of actual recourse for my actions.  There was very little I could have learned from attending church on a Sunday and receiving a sacrament that I honestly didn’t understand at that age anyway, that I couldn’t have gotten had I had parents that showed me… books, the news (not just Fox News although my father regularly watches) on tv and taken me outside a bit to different diverse neighborhoods to expose me to world experiences.

Why, as a parent would I want my children to attend church to learn all these things rather than allow them to experience the world more naturally and learn these same lessons in the real world where they could then learn tangible approaches to these forms of people and… maybe actually learn that actions should always be accountable?

There are many other reasons as to why I’m opposed to the exposure of religion to youth.  I won’t dive into all of them with this entry as some items are…  a bit far away down the rabbit hole personal wise than I feel comfortable “confessing” in this box of text to strangers.  However, the main reason why I do not believe in following in my parents footsteps is that, with the knowledge I have obtained from personally going this path and seeing truth outside of it, it is that the mind is simply not developed enough to understand the complexity of a potential “higher being” whether its “God” or aliens, especially at that young of an age.

The word “God” is not a basic concept just as the word “love” is not.  Telling kids to read from the best selling book in the world and that these things are fact while a giant band plays on stage might make them excited and happy to attend but it doesn’t necessarily teach them things beyond using a scapegoat to get out of their actions the moment they do “wrong.”  Giving children material things or taking them to places like Disneyland (which I admittedly have done both of) doesn’t make or show a child the true meaning of “love.”  It is far more than that.

If anything religious could be said that could explain how I would even consider a religious context from a book being introduced to my children, it would be this passage found, ironically, in an interpreted version of suppressed text from the Gospel of Thomas, a text outside of the canon dictated by the Vatican:

“The Kingdom of God is inside/within you (and all about you), not in buildings/mansions of wood and stone. (When I am gone) Split a piece of wood and I am there, lift the/a stone and you will find me.”

If my children want to seek out some “higher being” as a purpose for their lives, I want them to be wise enough and old enough that they can understand its complexity.  I also personally feel that they will not find these answers without questioning the world around them… outside of a church.  You may believe that all the answers you desire are found within those walls but, as I have found, the only answers that matter or should hold any sort of weight are the ones learned from the within the heart.

Simply (my interpretation)-

“To find the world and all its answers, find yourself first and you will have all that you need.  Nothing will ever fulfill you like yourself.”

I failed

…because sometimes you just feel like this when stuff happens (sexy I know huh)

 

This weekend didn’t go quite as I’d expected.  It was supposed to go a lot more smoothly.  Today (or rather, now two days ago) you were supposed to come on here and find a brand new layout and all that.  It was supposed to be all shiny and pretty and full of zoom.

I failed.

I failed big time this week.

But sometimes when you lose, you win.

What is it about this city?  About this life?  About my choices that I fall in love and crash crash crash and then… find a way back to new plateaus of love even higher than I did before?

It’s… very Los Angeles.  The city and I… we are lovers and the best of friends and… the worst of enemies.  I think that’s part of why stubborn lil ‘ole me just won’t accept failure.

I totally still really failed this week.

I failed big time.

But sometimes when you lose, you win.

In full disclosure: I initially started this blog piece on July 15th.  And, while you can see that I have changed the layout (unless you are a new reader, in which case- welcome) at least, I haven’t really blogged personally in months like this post and some of my updates on my personal social media outlets would like to say to be ready for.  But that’s not the only thing that’s changed and, has essentially kept me from posting this before now.

Let’s go back to more of what I had drafted then though–

There are stories five years in the making that will be coming true  came true instead.  What I thought was potentially impossible was indeed possible.  They just aren’t weren’t ready to be going to be on a shiny new blog format… just yet.

As you might recall from a past blog, I mentioned that my ex husband had taken my kids and has done so much to keep them from me.  He believes this is for them, but unfortunately it seems otherwise.

As the visit has now passed with this latest edit, I wish that I could say that my initial thoughts on the subject are different.  They are not only not different but they are worse.  So much worse that I have committed my heart to push even harder for the cause: them.

So much has happened in these past weeks of not posting.  So many beautiful and wonderful things.  There are stories that cannot wait to be written… but will have to.  Rest assured your patience will not go without its reward.  I know that five years later through all of this, mine was most certainly not.

There is so much hope for today and tomorrow.  More hope and magic than I even imagined.  Things are happening.  It is a flood.  I want to both cry and shout out and humblebrag about it in thanks.

I’m trying to do little of either.

I totally still really failed this these past few week weeks.

I failed big time.

But sometimes when you lose, you win.

That said, I look forward to telling you more about my failures and accomplishments as the days come…

when I’m able to…

when I’m ready to…

and that’s just.. going to have to be ok.  Ok?

(Get used to it and love you all lots.  Thank you for reading. Happy Sunday.)

Point of No Return

Point of No Return by LastGlance

“I wanted to call you to tell you that I’m leaving LA today.  I won’t be coming back.”

He wasn’t leaving me.  I had left him months ago.  But his recent trip back here originally planned for work purposes turned personal and…

“I knew better in February.. but it was already too late. Interesting.” I’d tweeted a few days prior to that day.

None of this was a surprise.  None of it.  Even the bad things that transpired and came into light on that fateful night.  This had been unhealthy.  I had let it continue too long.  We both had.  And now the hurt had to… at least be put on pause.

“My dad cares about the baby.  He hasn’t been the same with me since you told him.  He’s been on my case about things.  He doesn’t like the situation.”

I had liked his parents.  We’d met briefly back in April on this two day excursion where they visited.  They had been very welcoming and had offered to help us a bit.  I didn’t tell them then I was pregnant.  He didn’t want me to.  But it had to come out a bit later.  After a phone call where he cried to me about how much he needed help (this was not the first time I had seen how he’d needed it but it was the first real time he admitted it) after I’d left that night.  I looked them up online and found the information.  He needed the intervention and I didn’t know who else I could turn to.

Since then he made a point to make them seem like they didn’t care about anything and that the whole thing between us/going on/his issues were just… something they’d rather not deal with.  My heart was very broken about it.  In particular after a conversation with his father where… things had gone particularly out of left field from a previous conversation where he not only agreed that his son had needed help but they had essentially given up on him since “he’s done this for 20 years”, he’d “done this before and will likely do it again”, and “had been given help in the past but that hadn’t been enough to change it.”  I thought that his family did not care at all about the baby.  Hearing Bear talk about otherwise was bittersweet.

I essentially heard the words “hopeless cause” and… it really tore my heart out.  I can’t imagine how hard that was for Bear to hear.  I can’t imagine how hard it is daily for him.  I… too wish I had been able to save him but at the end of everything, I couldn’t.

He’d left me a message on my phone apologizing after five missed phone calls the night prior, a suicide threat and 911 calls a few nights prior to that, and an introduction and talks with another woman whom he had not mentioned prior but had a brief “affair” with back in December while we were together and… was currently with again previously unbeknownst that dreadful drunken somber night.

After.

After.

After.

Alas this was the “after” after the “Happily” and “Ever” portion of our relationship.  It was sad and broken beyond repair.  All hope had gone beyond lost.  And months later, I was still obliterated.

Rewind to a week prior-

I got the ultrasound and had found out the sex of the baby. He seemed “back”.  He was eager and happy to be a dad.  He didn’t want me to have an abortion.

“Don’t you dare kill my son.”

It was a complete 180.

But things changed. Just as instantly as that picture had touched him and he’d felt connected, he disconnected again.  And even last week before he left he was finding him again trying to pressure me into getting an abortion.

I nearly considered it and I felt terrible at even the thought.

” I won’t be coming back.  What reason do I have to?  What reason do I have to stay at all?”

I shouldn’t have had to answer that.

It was wrong.

So very very wrong.

He doesn’t see what he did.  He doesn’t acknowledge the cheating.  He doesn’t care about getting mental help or quitting the drinking or “living higher than the poverty line”.  He only cares about himself… and protecting trying to salvage the relationship with the other woman who he had been with for six years prior to arriving in Los Angeles… a woman that… he had taken full advantage of her kindness and… loneliness.

(Another blog.  Another time.)

“I want you to be nice to me and I want to be nice to you. I am scared. I want to put my hand on your belly and feel the boy punch my hand with his little fist.”

I didn’t see him while he was here.  There had been talks about it but nothing had happened.

“Why did you tell me that if you didn’t want to see me?  Why did you tell me all the rest of those things if you didn’t want to work on things and come back?”

“I was drunk.”

“I wanted to call you to tell you that I’m leaving LA today.  I won’t be coming back.” he told me when I called him back after that message.

Here stands the official point of no return.  As of 22 weeks, Planned Parenthood will not perform an abortion on you in the state of California.  Last week was the last official time I could potentially go through with the procedure.  I think about how much has happened from that first message, ages ago when he told me he loved me.  From all the terrible correspondence that has transpired after many bouts with his erratic behaviors.  With my struggles to keep myself as composed as possible while going through everyday.  With…

There is no more returning to that sadness anymore.  That life is gone and a new one is officially going to be here in a few short months.  I don’t have much more time to prepare but… that’s too bad.  Life doesn’t stop even if your heart does… at least this way.

Editor’s note: I recently made a completely dedicated audio blog.  From there you can listen to voice mails left from Bear to me (for purposes of this entry) as well as found sounds and other miscellaneous dialogue from my adventures in the big city.

Cracked Lights and Cassette Tapes

Lately I listen to more Cohen than I do Waits.  I’m not sure how to feel about it.  Mr Cohen just seems to pop up more and more fluidly.  Like he did this morning.

I saw a word referencing a leak about a video game news story coming… down the Valve. And instead of following immediately to find out the news, I immediately thought of this quote and subsequent song by Leonard Cohen.

“There is a crack in everything.  That’s how the light gets in.”

This year has had so many life changing moments.  This past week… oh my… it’s been a shark week…

I woke up to a phone call from an office in a land of enchantment.  A land where, coincidentally, someone is returning to as if to take the other’s place.

I thought so much more of that one… and the magic that I thought he helped create.  Like the nuclear explosion in a white dwarf star that makes the world brighter by its occurrence.  And he was, if only for a moment at least.

It wasn’t good news about either non sequitor situation.  It was… a snag in progress.  I have hit so many snags with all of this.  I’ve been starting to lose a bit of hope throughout all of it.

The holiday weekend brought with it so much affirmation and perspective it was mind blowing.  My mind goes through it again and again analyzing each moment and trying to: make peace with it, make sense of it, and change it.

I feel like a jammed cassette tape.

My brain.. under the microscope

(Ps if any of you feel compelled to do so I also wouldn’t mind getting this t-shirt)

I’m about to hit the showers.  Analyze why the phrase hit the showers exists.

(I mean, what did the showers ever do to me beyond get me all clean and smelling good?)

Head downtown to a courthouse with a pen, several notepads, my computer, chargers, and… this heavy heavy heart I have as I trudge through it all.. on the bus system… with an entourage of naysayers strewn across my path.

I think about the words of Mr Cohen once again.  I think about the beauty of enlightenment.  About how the greatest things to happen and the greatest works of literature and art seem to have come from cracked places like this one.

Is it weird that I’m smiling through tears?  That it’s not just society’s’ force that guides me to that smile right now but it’s… this silly stupid optimistic heart?

Maybe I’m just stupid.  Hell I’ve heard that in the past before too.  Either way?  Fuck it.  This is important to me and it’s worth fighting for.  If I don’t, the potential for it to change really is zero.

So here goes [hopefully not] nothing.

I loved you at your Darkest

Half of me. Half of you.

 

And last night was a very very dark night.

I’m frankly ashamed of how it went.  It was not something to be proud of.  It was something that I hope that my coming child will never do to someone no matter how poorly they act to them.

I had had a very difficult few days.  Mother’s Day had come and gone… but not without leaving its own marks and scars.  I’d get into it, but I’d rather not get into it right now.  Perhaps I will when I’m ready.

Let’s just say that the events that occurred this year cut that much deeper as one of them relates to my unborn child and my current relationship (or rather near complete lack thereof) with the father… a man who I had no intentions on meeting and falling in love with in the first place…

But life, of course, often has other plans.

Bear and I have gone through some very difficult and dark points throughout our relationship.  We have been off again, on again, so often it’d make your head spin.

Oh how my head seemed to feel like I were spinning we were so in love.

Once upon our time.

We were supposed to have been broken up (again) when I found out that I was pregnant.  However, after the news, we “tried again” (albeit briefly) and… it still ended up failing miserably.

In hindsight, I know what went wrong.  We were trying to conquer the same problem but we weren’t actually doing anything differently.  It was, the very definition of insanity.

One night, several months ago, he came to me in a mess of emotion.  I asked what it was.

“Darkness.” he cried to me.

And for a bit we held each other tight throughout it.

I hoped it would be over.

I know you did too.

It continued to get darker as the months went by.

We fought and fought.  We thought we were fighting the darkness but we were mistaken.

The darkness enveloped us.

It blinded us.

It was so difficult on our own and united we were too scared to stand.

I know I loved you at your darkest.

Unfortunately, in the process of trying to save us both from all of that, things only got worse.  He slipped further and further into the shadows.

They consumed us both.

Especially last night.

Our love had hit its expiration date even if the child inside me hadn’t.  The killing blow had been on Mother’s Day when Bear texted and later called me.

“Happy Mother’s Day”

He did not seem to understand how this “kind gesture” could be taken poorly.

So yesterday I made some phone calls and worked on things.  I consumed myself in other things.  The things that transpired throughout the day continued to beat me down.

So this is what it feels like to be alive huh?

The day had been a repeat of heartbreaking events.  Little did I know that it would be nothing compared to how it was last night… to the wee hours of the morning.

There was more crying.  More and more darkness.

I’m embarrassed.

How did it get this bad?

In the morning I would text him an apology.  I got up and sat in the quiet.  And then there was beauty. First the music.  Then a call from a recruiter again.  I was smiling.  My world had changed and I was still so sad but… why the hell was I smiling?

A friend messaged me asking how I was feeling.  She had just recovered from strep and yet, she was curious how I was.  If I’d slept much.  It was like… she knew.

Today was spent at the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles.  Curious… the little girl in the big city that loved and had her heart broken downtown was… going home to surround herself with… color.

Today was a reminder that no matter how dark it feels there is also color. (*See pictures from it by clicking the link*)

A part of me will always love you.  No matter how much pain and hardship we have gone through together, and apart, nothing is ever going to change that.

Someone once told me a phrase that I, in turn, flipped it around. “Where the light is brightest, the shadows are the deepest.”

Maybe part of the reason it got so bad is that we are so alike.

My friend Karissa summed things up wonderfully yesterday in private.

“No one’s a monster.  We’re all traumatized in some way… some more than… others… just looking for a way to heal.  That’s ultimately the purpose of all relationships– to serve as a mirror so that we may understand what is unbalanced within ourselves.”

Maybe we are both in that darkness… but in the light at the same time.

No wonder it scared the crap out of both of us.

Feelin’ Fine

Time: current

On April 15th I started a post regarding the concept of modern romance.  Like so many things, it was never published.  All that was written was the following line:

I have resolved that there is no such thing as a modern romance…. or that maybe there is, but it’s not the way that you might picture it.

Months later, I have found that statement to be so very very true… and also wrong.

For those of you that follow my more regular blog- Little Girl, Big City, you know that I’ve been writing posts on Fridays in tune with another tune “It’s Friday and I’m in Love“.  Each story has been a memory of a time where…

But it really never was.

Until now.

I’m a fraud.

I’m a phony.

I’m Los Angeles.

But I’m the real kind.

And I’m fucking upset right now.  This post… is probably going to upset someone.  That sucks.  I almost don’t want to post it.  But it sucks and it upsets me and I’m going to fucking do it anyway.

I thought about how in the past I’ve hidden the pain.  How over time I’ve found ways to navigate through seemingly disaffected.

He and I talked about how the world wants and will only accept you to be one way.  About how good it feels to be validated with our social posts… but in reality people aren’t real.

“No one is writing stuff about how they wanted to buy a bunch of bullets at walmart and just…”

And even that statement, cut off as it were says quite a bit as well about everything.

I’ve hid behind glitzy walls to find that, while a well dressed suited persona is fantastic on the outside… the stuff that really matters is the heart on the inside… the little moments bbq’ing in the park with friends… the clinked glasses… the quiet moments that…

And then it happened.

I wasn’t expecting it.  I wasn’t looking for it.  It found me.. it found the both of us… and it scared the crap out of me.

I stumbled across the most wonderful man to enter my being in such a long time.  It was more than just carnal attraction.  It was…

But now I’m supposed to write an update that things are just fine.  I’m supposed to walk around my neighborhood like everything is fine.  Like nothing ever happened.  That nothing bad ever happens.

Because that’s what they teach you in today’s society.  Because that’s how they tell you that you should be when things are less than fantastic.  Because….

I’m a fraud.

I’m a phony.

I’m Los Angeles.

But I’m the real kind.

And I’m fucking upset right now.