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So, A Chef, His Wife, and His Girlfriend Walk Into A Rehab…

Posted on by Standard 32
everyone 2

Everything came to a head last night, and I’m sitting here both laughing and crying because I think that I can see an end of some sorts in sight now. A real end, this time.

Now we're gonna do it my way... :-)

Now we’re gonna do it my way… :-)

greenThis whole story began and has now ended, with a lie. A lie that is called meth. Meth promises its user an escape. And, like most of the promises from hell, it is seeded in the truth, but it is warped and twisted, deceptive, and evil. Meth makes you forget about your problems; it gives you some added strength to get things done (you think); it bestows a sense of happiness (ignorance), power (over absolutely nothing), and hope (in getting your next fix). And then, like only a true enemy can do, it seeps out of your body, taking with it all the gifts it had lent you, and leaving in its wake even more chaos, destruction, problems, and hopelessness than you had had before.

In October 2011, Chef had a friend die in a motorcycle accident. Chef had struggled with drug addiction as a younger man, and except for a brief skirmish with it when we first got together over 23 years ago, he had remained clean all these years. But coupled with some health issues, a midlife crisis, and a general dissatisfaction with his career choices, he succumbed to the temptation to just use a little pick-me-up to get him home from a very hard funeral. Unlike the first time, the drug took a firm hold on him almost immediately, and he was simply unable to stop.

All prayers are appreciated; so will the rehab.

All prayers are appreciated; so will the rehab.

Throughout the time since then, I’ve been completely dumbstruck by just how different the man seemed. While he had flaws all along, it was terrifying to see those same flaws turn so completely confuse themexaggerated. I’ve always thought that he was a bit selfish, but meth would take that flaw and magnify it out of all proportion, and some of the things that I watched this man do and some of the words that have come out of his mouth have left me struggling to comprehend how someone could ever justify it to themselves, no matter how strung out they were. I was even more dismayed when he completely stopped even bothering to justify himself to anyone at all anymore. Bernice was what Chef called meth, and the affair that Chef & Bernice had was tantamount to a very warped Gone With the Wind, with Chef announcing that as God as his witness, he’d never be sober again, and Bernice announcing that “Frankly, my dear Bird, I don’t give a damn”. Bernice ruled his every word, thought, and action, and over the year and half I watched them, I learned a great deal about the verse : Out of the heart, the mouth speaks. Every slimy, crappy, evil thing that can be laid up in a person’s heart came pouring out of Chef’s mouth, and after months of allowing it to hurt me, I was finally able to look Bernice in the eye and let her know, I’m on to you, beeotch. I see you. More importantly, God does too. It ain’t over till it”s over, babe.

The Bible tells us that God works all things to His good, and this story is no exception. Since the split up, T and I have come to understand, forgive, and then to work together, to try to help Chef. Where I came so close to hating this girl for the pain her part in all of this had inflicted on me and my family, I’ve now come to rely on her as a partner who cares about Chef too, and she’s been invaluable as another soldier in this war against this horrible drug called meth. It would seem that our efforts have finally paid off, and today I can happily and hopefully announce, Chef is in rehab!!!

shadow of deathAfter a particularly nasty week involving Chef, I had pretty much withdrawn from wanting to see, hear, or even think about, him at all. I had heard all the same rhetoric from him about getting the help he would need to stop a million times, and yet he’d never followed through. I’d already lived through his affair with T, and the roller coaster ride of him saying all the right things to people, including me, that we so wanted to hear, but yet were in direct conflict with what he told someone else. He would tell T she was the love of his life, then come to my apartment and call her names and say he was stuck but was trying to find a way to come home again to me, the only love of his life. But my hope in him had eventually withered away, and it had become much easier to accept that he was truly gone. The more I pulled away, the more he would fight to keep me. And he was doing the same to T. It would seem that once we were both gone, that would have left him truly alone and desperate enough to finally get the help he needed. Ah, but no. Instead, he started a relationship with Sassy (not her real name) the Drug Dealer, instead, and when I found out he was getting the crap for free from this winner, my head about exploded. At least T was clean, if naive. But a drug dealer for a girlfriend, though?

Over.My.Dead.Body.

If you read my last post, you know what my opinion of this person is, so I won’t bore you with all the details. Let’s just say that it took me about 4.2 minutes to trash that happy little budding romance, and I don’t feel a tad guilty about it. I know there are now a few human beings on earth that say my name with contempt, but frankly, I couldn’t care less. You mess with the bull, you get the horns, my friend.

Last night, I got a panicked message from Chef saying he was dying. I didn’t freak out or anything. He’s always telling me that. But this time, I felt like something was actuallyother white drug wrong, and I headed over to his house. After meth-induced psychosis drama, I was able to get his schizo butt to the hospital, and because of his suicide threats, I was able to get him committed involuntarily to treatment, for a whopping 3 days. Both T and I prayed, and held our breath to see what the psychiatrist would determine. If the psychiatrist recommended he stay longer, he would have to. Sure enough, he was told today that he’s in for the long-haul.

T and I are working frantically getting his home packed up and his affairs in order so that once clean, he can walk out of the doors to a well-managed, well-organized life that won’t overwhelm him. After speaking to him today, I feel even a little more hopeful since he sounded somewhat more like himself, and while sad and ashamed, he was able to crack a weak joke here and there. I feel a lot of sadness for him right now, knowing myself how hard it can be to laugh again. But he will.

In the meantime, Sassy has been broken up with via text message from Chef’s phone, kindly but firmly. I doubt ole Chef is going to thank me or T any time soon, but he did let Sassy down gently and kindly, yet firmly, thanks to T. :-) Today, another dealer and I came to an understanding about how things will be going down next time someone offers him a free date with Bernice. I figure by the time he gets out, T and I will have cleansed the leeches and junkies out of his life permanently. Man, I love technology…Thank you, Mr. Alexander Graham Bell!!

I want to ask everyone who prays if they would keep Chef in their prayers, and thank you all for hanging with me. Hopefully, we’ve finally arrived at how this story ends.

Sincerely,

Bird

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All Talking Donkeys Aren’t Messengers From God

Posted on by Standard 10

Occasionally, I’ll look at the dashboard of this site, and one or more of the search terms will catch my eye. Mostly, even after the hellacious year I’ve had, the search terms that are the most likely to drive traffic here are “three boobs”, “motorcycle gangs”, and my personal favorite, “nipple shirts”.

Let’s face it.

Three Boobs and Nipple Shirts are subjects that aren’t really good foundations for a serious conversation about life. It’s just appalling to me that men wear shirts that showshrek and donkey their nipples. Ugh. I’d like that to stop immediately.

“Motorcycle Gangs” is more interesting, but again, I doubt I have much to contribute to that subject anymore.

Ahhh, but today, I found one in my little collection that made me stop and say “hmmm”. The term was this;

meth spiritual enhancement

So, to the person who typed in this awesome search term, this post is dedicated to you.

In my quest to understand what Chef was going through, I studied everything I could find about this creepy drug. What I found out could fill up volumes, but for this discussion, I’ll boil down some things I understand about the drug that I believe should be considered directly in connection with spiritual enhancement, or any kind of enhancement, for that matter….physical, academic, cultural, etc.

Bird Fact #1: Enhancements when you are high are only Huge Brain Farts when you sober up again.

To my understanding, the drug affects the pleasure center of your brain. This magnificent computer we carry around inside of our skulls works like a file cabinet, storing stop dudeand categorizing things constantly. If a memory makes you happy, it tends to store that memory close by for future quick reference. If some memory makes you sad, it gathers that clutter up, and safely keeps moving it back into the recesses of your brain, out of reach of accidently being hurt by it. It’s the same for things that give us pleasure. Those things that give us pleasure are  stored safely within reach in our pleasure centers of our brains.

That being said, I do wonder if people actually stop and really examine what we each have stored there. Meth is an excellent way to find out, except who really needs to know that badly? The bad side of this drug greatly outweighs the good, so no, I’m not saying you should try it even once so you know what really makes you happy. Figure it out..You’re smarter than that!!

Bird Fact #2: Don’t be an idiot and try this drug because you want to know what really makes you flush with happiness. You might not like the answer, and you can’t unlearn what you already know. Frankly, neither can anyone else who finds out either.

If singing show-tunes on top of your roof in your birthday suit for the entire world to see is something that you derive real pleasure from, chances are this drug will enhance that desire in you, and your filter which considers consequences of such an action will be bypassed. You’ll dance, sing and traumatize the neighbors to your heart’s content, and you’ll feel good about it…

“I finally get to be me!”  you’ll be assuring yourself.

wrong if it feels good

Wanna Bet?

And then,  your filter comes slowly back to life again as you sober up, and you find yourself  in jail for public nudity, dressed in a discarded moomoo that smells like someone died in it, holding an eviction notice in your hand. To make matters worse, your best friend not only recorded your spectacular plummet from respectability, but then uploaded your shameful experience onto YouTube, and the creepy perv down the street that no one makes eye-contact with, has baked you a cake with a shank in it. Suddenly, the problems you were trying to escape from in the first place don’t seem as bad as the ones you’ve just created during your “mental vacation”.

See how that works? If God, spirituality, religion, or some such thing is something you get pleasure from, you bet your booties, it’ll come up when you are high. I know, because when I used this drug, God was foremost in my thoughts and actions. And yet, even in my intoxicated state, while I felt like God appreciates all the publicity He can get, my conscience kicked in at the same time, imploring me to wait until I was sober before launching into whatever ridiculous thing I was poised to do for Him, like what I’d learned about Him while I was high. I’m pretty sure He’s grateful I didn’t try to “help” the cause during those moments.

It is my opinion that most people, especially men, tend to have sex in their pleasure centers, and women tend to have love in theirs. Meth is considered a sex enhancement drug, but it didn’t work that way for me at all. Because of my complicated relationship with sex, it didn’t actually take up residence in the pleasure center of my brain; but love did. As long as Chef made me feel like he loved me…high or not…I was on board with the sex thing. But if he didn’t, he was on his own. Meth is a very selfish drug. Right there, you can almost see why this crappy drug ruins marriages. One person wants to feel loved; the other wants pure, animal sex. And for most people, there is the ability to love someone without having sex with them, and to have sex with someone you don’t love.

Hence, breakdowns occur.

Bird Fact #3: I’d always be very careful about anything that you “learn” on meth, or any drug. Without that consequence filter, we are susceptible to accepting lies, and turning them into truths in our own minds, which invariably leads to being slapped on the side of the head with our “Oh-Crap!-What-Have-I-Done” brain-gag reflex instead.

Can you learn spiritual truths when you’re high? Sure. You can probably learn anything on dope if it’s important enough to you.

Once upon a time, God made a donkey talk but just because you see the Donkey from Shrek  jabbering at you while you’re high, it doesn’t mean you actually a) saw a donkey physically speaking to you or b) that you’re a character on the next Shrek, or that c) all donkeys secretly know how to talk and are laughing silently at us clueless humans, or even that d)  God had something special to tell you from this lively donkey. It just means you burned your brain a tad too much, and you’ve hallucinated a fake donkey singing a Tina Turner song  to you.

My advice: Render that little nugget of experience to the mental trash can it probably deserves to be in.

If it was so important that God get a message to you that He’d use a donkey  or even more unbelievable, a Tina Turner song, He’d have probably waited until you were sober and there could be no question it was a miracle of God instead a miracle of Dope.

We all look for reasons to excuse something we’re doing that we know we are wrong to do, by finding something positive enough to justify it to others, and mainly ourselves. I’ve found that the “I’m spiritually awakened” excuse is pretty common amongst those of us that tend to like to have a little chemical uplifting from time to time, and frankly, it’s a pathetic one.

Here’s life choices in a nutshell — you don’t owe anyone a reason or excuse for what you do or want to do; but by the same token, you’re the one stuck with the consequences, so don’t be surprised when you’re eating a bucket-full of guilt, shame, and general self-loathing. Own your crap, pay your dues, learn from it, and start a blog or something. Most importantly, forgive yourself and move on.  Don’t waste a whole lot of time on coming up with an acceptable reason or excuse that people will buy. Nobody really cares about that but you anyways.

I’ll leave you guys with one more observation that I’m pretty sure everyone can identify with.

learnBy a show of hands, how many of us know at least one old hippie-wanna-be who’s burned out his/her brain so much, we roll our eyes when they head down Enlightenment Lane?

Yeah. That’s what I thought… :-)

Don’t be that person. Find your enlightenment and spirituality with a full set of brain cells working. That way, you’ll be prepared to defend your opinions and views, and not have people rolling their eyes as you walk away, telling their little children to stay away from you because you think you’re Shrek or something. I’m just saying…

Hope all the mothers had a wonderful Mother’s Day! Especially you, Diane! I love you!

– Bird

PS: I want to wish DJ, my son, a Happy Birthday! You’re my favorite son, little man! I love you!

Know Your Role

Posted on by Standard 13

Tonight, I’m kind of going through something tough, and I’m going to ramble a moment about the reasons I’m not going to dish the latest A-Marriage-Going-Down-In-

Right?

Right?

Flames dirt on my public blog.

I tend to get at least one or two thank-you’s from time to time for being so open and honest in my posts about what I’m doing, or saying or thinking during a various crappy situations. When I write about the latest turn of events in the sinking Titanic that is my marriage, I do tell a lot and I present it as honestly as I can, as I understood things to have happened.

That being said, there are parts of all of this drama that I don’t talk too much about, if at all. It isn’t that I want to spin a different tale or make myself or Chef look a different way, or that I’m just too embarrassed to share how things really went down. Believe you me, I’m not really sure I can be any more embarrassed than I already have been on here.

(If you guys weren’t around for the wisdom and tact that only vodka and a broken heart can give, you missed out on some truly memorable – and temporary– posts!! You snooze, you lose!)

No, the reason I can’t share everything is because some things that happen in my life aren’t only my story to tell. How much of what someone else’s story should I feel free to hold up for the world to see and sit in judgment of; especially if, in my story, they are the villain causing me all the trouble?

I’ve always seen my life as a series of different, yet related, stories; all linked together by the star of each one…me. And to me, everyone else’s lives are stories starring them. People in our lives have supporting parts, and they are important, but in the end, when we look back, we are the common thread in our own lives. We are the star in our shows, and hopefully, we were the good guy. And if we weren’t, we’d like to believe that at least our motives were understandable, if not honestly good ones. I know that I myself cringe when I look back and find that I was just a rotten creep in someone’s story, with no excuse other than I was a selfish snot. I try not to be in that role too much.

I truly loved Chef once upon a time, and even now, despite everything, I feel a certain responsibility to tell his part of my story with care. When Chef is remembering this particularly tragic story later down the road, he will still be the contract-bound star of his own story, and the whole sordid affair will probably look much different through his eyes than it did through mine.

Even if he is the villain in this particular drama, he isn’t guilty of always being my nemesis. I have volumes of stories where he is the hero, and only one in which he was my enemy. How he understands all of it will, in my opinion, shade his interpretation of his role in his own book. Messed up on drugs, he won’t, and doesn’t, care a lick. But sober, this particular chapter of our lives is going to hurt him tremendously.  And that will decide how he classifies himself – the good guy everyone roots for or the bad guy everyone roots against. This is super important to most people, if not all of us. It’s tricky territory you’re getting in to when you have enough power that you can actually shade someone else’s own perception of himself. Given the set of circumstances we’ve been dealing with – memory altering drugs, big, angry emotions floating about everywhere, questionable motives on all the major character’s parts, and my own penchant for writing on a public blog – it isn’t all that unreasonable to believe that I could possibly influence this man’s opinion of himself, and I don’t take that kind of responsibility lightly.

If we have learned anything from movies and television these days, it’s that it’s all in the way you tell the story. Any mafia movie like The Godfather or television series like The Sopranos is a prime example of what a villain/star looks like, and it isn’t much of stretch to apply that same method to our own lives. Ironically, it was Chef who taught me this clever little saying back when we first started out together – my perception is my reality. What I write on this blog about the capsizing and slow descent of my relationship in to the murky waters of divorce is just that – a story told from my perception, and of course, I’m still the star of my own little life.

There are things I’ve said and done in my own Book of Bird that I was very distinctly, and shamefully, the villain. I’m also the kind of person that thinks that if I admit my faults to the world, I’ve taken a weapon away from my enemies that they can use against me later. That, coupled with my belief that only Jesus has the right to judge me, has pretty much shielded me from allowing someone else’s opinion of me as the ultimate truth about what kind of person I am. I’m finding out, though, that I may be in the minority of people who think this way, and I’m positive Chef isn’t in line with that thinking. I have this optimistic approach to people that makes me think that they can relate with me on these bonehead levels and will show me some mercy. He just thinks I’m a bonehead for admitting to the entire world I’m prone to being a bonehead. I love differing perceptions. I really, really do.

From the beginning of the chapter of my story that details the excruciating pain involved with breaking marital bonds that have been in place for so long  until now, I’ve told a lot of stuff that if taken just from this blog alone, would give a lopsided view of Chef and who he is as a whole person, and that, to me, is almost as bad as telling a bald-faced lie. Chef, if taken as a whole book and not just this one chapter, would be classified as a really good man who lost control of a situation and ended up the bad guy in one chapter of a couple of people’s books.

The sum total of most people is never completely good or completely bad. I’m guessing that even our worst criminals had one or two qualities that were shockingly good, or clever, or even endearing. The human character is complicated, and complex…it’s a tapestry of a lot of different things, and as such, a good person can do bad things, and a bad person can do good things. And this, to me, invalidates anyone from being labeled a good or bad person at all. The key is that we’re all fallen creatures, and given the reins of our own lives instead of handing them to our Creator, we all end up in bad situations that mostly all started out with an understandable, and maybe even a good, reason.

To me, Chef, like a lot of people, didn’t want to grow old. He had things that he wanted to have done, places he wanted to visit, and goals that had slipped away from him. Time had passed by so quickly it seemed. He tried to change how he felt with something that he unintentionally lost control of, and the change in his brain caused him to act without considering consequences. He hurt everyone he loved, and has lost everything he worked so hard to get in the first place.

Say what you want, but as probably the one person on earth who truly understands this man, he’s paid for all of this in spades already, even if he doesn’t quite realize it yet, and if he does get well again, he’ll be harder on himself than anyone on earth could ever be.

I hope that my readers understand that sometimes I’ve written from solely my perception and my hurt, but I never wish to set anyone, especially Chef, up for ridicule, judgment, or condemnation. I still harbor a hope that Chef’s story will have a happy ending. And sometimes, the world just doesn’t need to be privy to every single thing a person has done wrong in a situation.

–  Bird

My Heart’s A Traitor Bastard

Posted on by Standard 34

I cried today. A lot.

Now, if you’ve been following this blog for the last year and some months, you’re probably saying to yourself, so what? This girl has

You moved a girl-chipmunk into our hole, gave her my nuts (and yours), and everyone saw. But these flowers make it all better, baby. Give me a smooch.

You moved a girl-chipmunk into our hole, gave her my nuts (and yours…tsk, tsk), and all our chipmunk friends saw. Now I live in a rundown hole in the ghetto. But these flowers make it all better, baby. Give me a smooch.

been crying for over a year now. But the truth is, I’ve been relatively content the last few months, and tears haven’t been all that common. But in the last few weeks, a lot of stuff has been happening around me, and today, I finally broke down and had a nice, long cry-fest. Sometimes, tears are the only way to cleanse a wounded soul. And mine is sparkling clean right now.

I’m only guessing, but I think every jilted wife in the world has this secret fantasy that their wandering husband will wake up one day, kick the other woman to the curb, and come crawling back, professing their undying love between the heart-felt regrets for what they’d done to us.  It’s a stupid daydream in all it’s simple-ness; by the time the wanderer has wandered, there is a mountain of crap to be shoveled through before reconciliation can even be considered, and mere words don’t even begin to cut it. If , that is, reconciliation is even something these broken wives hope for. I’m betting there is more interest in seeing their husbands having a high-heeled shoe surgically removed from their a$$es than any kind of sorrowful regret / let’s-live-happily-ever-after moments. But I’m actually not one of these normal, broken women. As pathetic as it may sound, deep down in the hidden recesses of my heart, I wanted my husband to come back some day. And for some added humiliation, I’ll go ahead and admit it. I still love Chef. So much for being a secret bad-a$$ ninja woman. I’m a sap.

I’m a person that holds logic in high regard, and it is with no small amount of embarrassment that I admit this to you all. Despite all the betrayal, humiliation, and dashed hopes, I still wanted my husband to come and sweep me off my feet again. And that deep desire has been the bane of my existence for months now. While it’s true that I haven’t felt that excruciating pain like I did in the beginning, and I’ve been able to happily believe at some points that I was over him, I’ve noticed this disturbing trend in myself. The less angry I feel, the more I can still feel that love for him.

Will someone please shoot me?

The Chef and T Love Fest has been going downhill over at the old Homestead for a while now, and even my poor dogs look traumatized by the rather quick run this relationship seemed to have taken, almost from the minute they moved in together. It is a sterling example of the very truth that the old cliché preaches — the grass is never greener on the other side. I won’t pour out the intimate circumstances of the up-and-coming demise of their relationship…It is their story, and I’m only a third-party spectator with limited rights to it, but I will say this. I can’t say with any real honesty that I wasn’t a little happy to see it all fall to crap, and so quickly at that. So much for the next Romeo & Juliet romance.  :-)

I know.

It is a very ungodly attitude, but as I told you all before..I don’t have this Christian thing down yet when it comes to my separation and impending divorce. I still suffer from being a fallen human with a fallen nature. And as T has had to experience, in lesser degrees, some of the emotions I had experienced when she and my husband decided they were in love, I’ve found a lot of that crazy anger melting away. Turns out, revenge loses some of its charm without that anger to fuel it.

I actually dreamed of the time when T and Chef would get a taste of their own medicine, and yet, when it really actually happened, I found myself less gleeful than I had expected, and rather a little more sad for them. None of the major players in this creepy triangle are happy for the most part. Actually, I’m the one who seems to be enjoying my life more consistently. How weird is that?? Satan must be having a blast at the amount of misery he’s been able to spread around in my little circle. What a douche.

Which has led me back to my original thoughts. Would I take him back? I think the answer is maybe. On the one hand, forgiveness isn’t a problem for me. I can forgive him. But trust, on the opposite hand, is a huge problem in my life. And the trust is gone, gone, gone. But, what if he and I were to get counseling? Oh, please. I’ve tried how many counselors for lesser things in my life? And I’ve stuck with none of them. And he’s worse than I am about that kind of stuff. Then, I’ve asked myself if he really loved me, how could he have done all the stuff he did? And here’s where I get stuck. He couldn’t have, could he? His words these days are perfect, as usual, but I’m not a fool enough to believe this man I’ve lived with my entire adult life doesn’t know just what to say to manipulate me. But, where are the actions to back up the words? Until recently, there were none, but he’s starting to do little things that make me wonder.

And I just hate that!

This cartoon sums my life right now perfectly. Chef is chasing Bird...but what will happen if he catches her? Fried chicken?

This cartoon sums my life right now perfectly. Chef is chasing Bird…but what will happen if he catches her? Fried chicken?

Let’s face it. As long as Chef and Bird live in the same city, we’re always going to be connected. We both find it easy at times to slip back into the comfortably worn routines we’d had with one another all these years, and while I can’t say what it does for him, I can say it makes me long for those simpler, happier times I was secure in his love. And anymore, he voices more and more of his regret over all that has happened to our marriage and family, and more importantly (to me), his dissatisfaction with his new relationship. And now that she is setting up her own escape route, I’m faced with the decision…move on without him, or explore the possibility that this marriage might have a tiny chance if we were to work on it.

Today, all the stuff going on in my life, added to Chef’s very early morning visit to my apartment this morning, where he cried for hours over all that has happened, including hurting me, his children, and T, and his one, true humble apology added to his pleading for another chance, all culminated into a good cry this afternoon.

To my chagrin, not once did I even think about kicking him in the butt with my own high-heeled shoe. Instead, I just wanted God to take that lingering love for him out of my heart, or to just make this last year and a half disappear completely. I want a Do-Over.

And incidentally, God is completely blowing off my requests. I guess I’m always going to love Chef. I might never be his wife again, but the love is still there. And whether I like it or not, all of this really did happen. It isn’t just going to go away. Oh, my treacherous heart!!

Anyways, this is more of a mental health post than anything. I’d love to know if there are any other wives that wish they didn’t feel this vulnerable to their exes, like me.

– Bird


Keeping The Blogisphere A Beautiful Place – Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Posted on by Standard 21

I would like to thank blogventer, one of my newer friends, for nominating me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award!!  I will say, veryinspiringblogaward3though, that I’m pretty sure I’m not “Keeping the Blogisphere a Beautiful Place”. There are some other adjectives that come to mind…  :-) In addition to this award, I was also nominated for the Reality Blog Award awhile back from Water Bearer at Inner Angels and Enemies, and would like to thank her as well. I do appreciate you both thinking of me!

The rules seem pretty much the same for both of these awards, and I don’t follow rules for these things all that closely anyways.

If I nominated 15 people each time I did one of these, I’d never have time for anything else, and that would be 15 writers per award out there secretly cursing my name. I know at least one writer, Paula who has some experience with voodoo dolls, and I don’t like taking the risk.  Admit it, my fellow bloggers! These awards are so flattering and make us feel appreciated and accepted; but by the time we’ve linked back to all our nominations, our will to live has been severely weakened. realityblogaward

So, I’m going to wing it, and try not to bore you with yet another list of random stuff about me. Instead, I’ll share some dirt. Brace yourselves.

Six things about me:

1) I haven’t been writing about dating lately because I have been dating someone I really like, and though he’s read some of my blog, we haven’t discussed how he would feel if I wrote about him.

2) I’ve been torn about taking the parts about Chef out of the blog altogether. On one hand, I feel like people are helped by it, but on the other, even though he did some pretty crappy things, I can’t imagine it feels good to know someone just posted it on the internet. How do you tell a story about something that has so profoundly impacted your life like this has mine,  and yet maintain some of their privacy as well? It’s a slippery slope when you start throwing stones at anyone, despite their guilt.

3) A few months ago, I did actually hit Chef’s girlfriend. It didn’t feel as satisfying as I had imagined it would, but I do feel somewhat of a bad-ass now. I cried about it for days, though, kind of nullifying the Bad-Ass Badge.

4) I’ve had panic attacks thinking about spending the rest of my life with Chef in it, haunting me with glimpses of the happy past.

5) I’ve had panic attacks thinking about the rest of my life without him in it..

6) I’ve had panic attacks when my DVR hasn’t recorded a program I’ve been waiting for all week, so don’t read anything into the panic attacks. :-)

Nominate some blogs:

1) Sex, Spirit, Soul Mates, and Chocolate…Ivonne’s Journey – There are literally dozens of blogs written by people who have lost their marriages that I follow, but Ivonne’s way of coping is so close to mine, she feels like she could be related. Occasionally, she’ll steer me to an article about something I’m going through, and it patches me right back up. I simply love this girl.

2) Hometogo232– One of the things that I had wished I’d had going through all of this was my mother. Despite everything, I wish I could have crawled in her lap and just cried at how rotten things can be sometimes. Diane has more than once made me feel “mother-ed”, and I will always appreciate her gentle words of advice and comfort.

And that’s it, my friends. Thanks again for the recognition!!

– Bird

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