Broken Hearts and Healing and Three Steps Back

I think it’s weird how you can be going along in your life just fine…doing things that make you happy…keeping busy….surrounding yourself with people who love you…and then BAM!!!!!...sadness hits you like a ton of bricks. I’ve been doing a lot of running lately. Or shall we say hiding. I’ve been hiding from my feelings. I don’t want to feel. I want to be happy. I don’t want to be sad. I want to have girls’ nights and wear high heels and do photo shoots and watch football and dance to Go Cubs Go. The last thing I want to do is cry.

And today I’m crying. I feel like such a fool. I did the one thing that I KNEW I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO DO!!!! There’s one person in this entire world who can get under my skin. He can find his way around all walls of defense I have built up. He is the only person who I’ve been completely and totally and utterly myself with. And you know what? He doesn’t like myself anymore. I’m not good enough according to him. But oh gawd do I want the man that I fell in love with…the man from my memories. And so when he talks to me and says be my friend and we’ll start slow and we’ll have fun and this and that….I can feel my resolve weakening. I can feel the yearning that I’ve drunk into numbness fighting to come out.

And then he does the flip and tells me I’m a lesser person and a horrible person and a miserable person. I can’t really get mad at him though. I mean, this is him. This is who he is. No. The person I’m mad at is myself. I know better. I know that in order to remain happy and in order to not cry…I have to stay away. No contact. No nothing.

It’s hard. And today I feel like all the progress I’ve made has become undone. I want to go home and crawl into bed and hide.

I have some amazing people in my life, and the Universe seems to know what I need before I even need it, and I’m truly blessed. They aren’t letting me crawl back into myself. They’re not sitting here telling me what an idiot I am for talking to him. They don’t tell me that I’m doing this to myself. They would be correct if they did, because it’s true. I am doing it to myself. I want to heal, but I don’t want to let go. He’s unhealthy for me. He’s bad for me. Communicating with him is the equivalent of playing Russian Roulette.

I let him break me once, twice, I don’t know how many times. I don’t want to be broken anymore. What do I want? I want my sweet man back. And since that’s impossible, I want my brain and my heart to understand that he isn’t ever going to be my sweet man again.

I guess taking three steps back is what I needed to do…life was moving really fast and I wasn’t dealing with things. I admittedly was hiding from my feelings. I don’t like to hurt. I don’t like to cry. But I think in order for me to be complete I need to get a move on and process these feelings. And then….maybe I’ll be whole.

not this time

no more hiding from it

It's time to close the book

Life has been CRAZY lately. I've been so busy...running running running. I feel like I'm a brand new person. I feel so enlightened. Things that I never wanted to see, never wanted to accept, never wanted to admit...now it's like I'm waking up and the blinders have come off. I'm able to see things for what they were.

Take for example, a relationship that ended. No, no, no, I'm not going to sit here and badmouth this man. That's mean. Obviously he had some very good qualities otherwise I wouldn't have fallen so deeply in love with him so long ago. No, what I'm going to talk about is the way that I treated him for a short time. This morning I was walking down the steps at the train station and I saw this woman with a brace on her knee, slowly trying to maneuver down the steps. FLASH BACK. Early last year I was in the same position. Only the then boyfriend was kind enough to drive me downtown in shitty weather when he had no reason to be there to begin with. Anyway, part of my flashback was remembering the song that was on the radio and the thoughts that went through my mind at the time. I stopped in mid-step on the platform as that memory played in my mind. It was not one of my finer moments. Anyway, I sent him a text acknowledging and apologizing. I know, it won't make up for the way I made him feel, but it's a lesson that I finally learned that, if faced with a similar circumstance in the future, I'll behave differently.

I've been really happy lately. I could attribute it to the new people in my life, but I really think it's a combination of so many things. I'm back to being silly again....which reminds me of the days when my nickname was Rock-in-Roll Jenn. I'm laughing a lot. I'm spending time with my friends. I'm doing things with my kids. I've adopted two new kitty cats. I'm flirting. I'm having fun.

For so long I was so very sad, and now it's like....I don't know. I'm genuinely happy. But you know what the best part is, the part that shows me that I'm growing as a person? I can look back on this relationship that ended, and no matter all the bad things that happened, all the ways I was destroyed, I can look back and appreciate the things that this man gave me...the knowledge, the courage to love, the ability to take chances, the desire to follow my dreams. I don't hate him. I can't. He'll always be a part of me.

But thankfully, that chapter of my life is over. It's time to move on, and with it, take the lessons that I've learned and incorporate them into my present...and future.

It's time to close the book.

Oooohhhhh....and Rock-n-Roll Jenn is back (and I still love Pink)!!!!

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na Na Na Na

I guess i just lost my husband
I don't know where he went
So i'm gonna drink my money
I'm not gonna pay his rent (Nope)
I got a brand new attitude
And i'm gonna wear it tonight
I wanna get in trouble
I wanna start a fight

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
I wanna start a fight
Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
I wanna start a fight

So so what?
I'm still a rock star
I got my rock moves
And i don't need you
And guess what
I'm having more fun
And now that we're done
I'm gonna show you tonight
I'm alright, I'm just fine
And you're a tool
So so what?
I am a rockstar
I got my rock moves
And i don't want you tonight

Uh, check my flow, uh

The waiter just took my table
And gave to Jessica Simp- Shit!
I guess i'll go sit with drum boy
At least he'll know how to hit
What if this song's on the radio
Then somebody's gonna die
I'm gonna get in trouble
My ex will start a fight

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
He's gonna start a fight
Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
We're all gonna get in a fight!

So so what?
I'm still a rock star
I got my rock moves
And i don't need you
And guess what
I'm having more fun
And now that we're done
I'm gonna show you tonight
I'm alright, I'm just fine
And you're a tool
So so what?
I am a rock star
I got my rock moves
And i don't want you tonight

You weren't there
You never were
You want it all
But thats not fair
I gave you life
I gave my all
You weren't there
You let me fall

So so what?
I'm still a rock star
I got my rock moves
And i don't need you
And guess what
I'm having more fun
And now that we're done (we're done)
I'm gonna show you tonight
I'm alright(I'm alright),I'm just fine (I'm just fine)
And you're a tool
So so what?
I am a rock star
I got my rock moves
And i don't want you tonight

No No, No No
I Don't want you tonight
You weren't fair
I'm gonna show you tonight
I'm alright, I'm just fine
And you're a tool
So so what?
I am a rock star
I got my rock moves
And i don't want you tonight
(wooooooooooohoooooooo!)
Ba da da da da da (*tongue spits*)

Pink

Is it almost "Someday" yet?

This morning I heard on the radio that after the Cubs played their make-up game in Milwaukee, some of the players wouldn't mind tearing down Wrigley Field and having a new stadium built. Oh, Zambrano, we love you, you made our hearts fill with joy and tears run down our cheeks...but replace Wrigley???

One of the things I've always loved, even when I was rebelling and pretending to be a Sox fan, was Wrigley Field. I remember when I was a little girl and my Mom took my brother and me to my first game. Thank you, Mommy, for letting me share the experience again with you this past Mother's Day..some 20+ years later! Oh Damon Berryhill , you started this love affair I have with baseball, the Cubs, and Wrigley. To tear it down would be, well, blasphemous. It would mark the end of the the world as we know it. Please please please....keep our ivy covered walls...the ambiance...the sense of being among family that we ALL feel every time we walk through those gates.

I leave you now, fellow Cubs fans, with lovely words from the famous Eddie Vedder:

Yeah, don’t let them say that it’s just a game.
Well, I’ve seen other teams and it is never the same.
When you go to Chicago, you’re blessed and you’re healed, The first time you walk into Wrigley Field.

Heroes with pinstripes and heroes in blue, Give us the chance to feel like heroes do.
Whether we’ll win and if we should lose, we know Someday we’ll go all the way.
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

We are one with the Cubs, with the Cubs we’re in love.
Hold our heads tall as the underdogs.
We are not fairweather, but farweather fans.
Like brothers in arms, in the suites and the stands.
There’s magic in the Ivy and the old score board.
The same one I stared at as a kid keeping score.
In a world full of greed, we could never want more.
Someday we’ll go all the way.
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

Here’s to the men and the legends we’ve known.
Giving us faith and giving us hope.
United we stand and united we’ll fall
Down to our knees the day we win it all.
Yeah Ernie Banks said, “oh, let’s play two”.
I think he meant two hundred years.
Playing at Wrigley, our diamond, our jewel.
The home of our joy and our fears.
Keeping traditions, and wishes anew,
The place where our grandfathers’ fathers they grew.
The spiritual feeling if I ever knew.
And when the day comes for that last winning run, and I’m crying and covered with beer.
I look to the sky and know I was right today.
Someday we’ll go all the way.
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

Never Make Someone a Priority When You Are Only Their Option....Part II

About a year ago, when life started to get really shitty, I came across this little saying and wrote about it. I still find that saying to be true, however, my perspective has changed.

My life has changed very quickly lately, and while it's all for the good, I can't help but feel a little overwhelmed. I told a friend today that I believe the Universe put her into my life for a reason. I told another friend today that everything happens for a reason.

A year ago I was making someone a priority and I was nothing more than his option. As much as I talked about it, I just couldn't grasp it. As unhappy as I was with him, I was too scared to leave him. I knew that he didn't care about me. I knew that I was always an afterthought for him. I knew that I hadn't been a priority for him for a very long time, yet still I stayed.

He set me free a while ago. It took a little while to sink in, but once it did, I felt, strangely....liberated!!!

So anyway, I've been learning a lot of things lately. Things about life, things about myself, things about other people. I'm finally becoming receptive to the lessons that the Universe is trying to teach me.

0ne of the lessons that I've learned is that life doesn't always give you a second chance. Sometimes people come into your life for a reason, and while you may not know why the timing is what it is, you have to seize the moment when you can.

Make sure that the people in your life know how important they are to you. Don't give them a chance to question where they stand in your life.

Make time to have fun. Play with your kids. Act like a kid. Age is only a state of mind. Take care of your body. Have a lot of sex. Lots of it;-)

Follow your dreams. Embrace your passions. Make new friends. Try something new.

I remember how sad and unworthy I used to feel when the person that I made my priority only considered me his option. I never want to make anyone feel that way. So, to all the people that I'm lucky enough to have in my life, old friends, new friends, sushi guides, family....you're not only my option.

You only get one life. Live it to the fullest.

Ok, yes, I finally did it ;-)

While I prefer to write on this blog, there are some things that I read or hear that are just so great I want to share them. I finally created a Tumblr blog that makes that so simple!!!

I'm having so much fun with it, it may become my new addiction!!!

Happy Friday to me.

Quote of the Day

Never dance with the devil. You'll always end up getting burned.

In need of some comfort...

It's been a rough 24 hours. My emotions are in an uproar. I'm caught with one foot in the past and one foot in the present. I can't stop the tears but I won't let them fall. Days like this (although, to be honest, I’ve never had a 24 hours quite like the 24 hours I’m going through now), I turn to comfort food. Unfortunately, I’m at work and unable to get to the Mexican restaurant whose steak flautas and fried ice cream bring me great comfort. However, because this is such a painful time for me, I turned to the ultimate in comfort food….Irish food. Bangers and mashed to be exact.

Did it help? For the moment. I was so lost in the experience of the soft, lightly fried, mild flavored bangers and the mashed potatoes made as only the Irish can, that the pain I was feeling was numbed, if only for a brief hour.

I’m so very sad. I’m so very broken. And I’m in desperate need of some comfort.

Maybe it’ll be Mexican food for dinner after all.

Love, Memories and Opening my Heart Again

Last year I had to put my cat of 18 years to sleep. It was probably one of the saddest days of my life. I know it was the right thing to do because she was so sick and keeping her alive would have been inhumane, but she was my baby. I loved her.

Since then, the kids have wanted me to get another pet. I wasn’t too hip on the idea for several reasons. What kind of pet would I get? I love dogs and I love cats. Do I want a baby or an adult? My workdays are very long, so my pet would be home alone for most of the day. Also, in two years I’m going to be traveling quite frequently. Who would take care of the pet while I was gone? I don’t have a fenced yard. If I got a dog, he or she would have to be walked and wouldn’t really be able to roam free. Anyway, my point is that there were so many reasons why I didn’t want to get another pet that I just didn’t.

I’ve been going through some changes in my life lately. I don’t want a boyfriend and it can get incredibly lonely when the kids are with their dad. I’ve been thinking a lot during the past month of getting a pet. Today an email went through the office of two 12-year-old cats to be given away to a good home. I sat here and thought about it and then I texted my Angel Girl asking her opinion. She said yes, but to be honest I had already decided to do it.

Hopefully, if everything goes right, this weekend the kids and I will be the new owners of two cats. Whiskers will always have a place in my heart, but I don’t think she’d mind me making some room for these boys.