with my inexcusable behavior…
Halloween. My favorite day of the year. And my birthday! Love this day to have a birthday. Everyone wants to have fun on your birthday.
Wanda. 1969. Halloween. Truth be told, the only reason I was born on Halloween is because my mother’s OB didn’t want to miss the SMU football game so he induced her a day early. (Remember my blog about those too obsessed over their college football days? How fitting for my life from day one.) I was destined from the beginning to be one odd chick. My first tri-fecta of OMG…What’s she going to do and say and reveal now?
Halloween allows for all of us to be someone we’re not on a daily basis. Let your inner creative soul come out. It seems to me that most everyone I know is always someone they aren’t. Very few of us are real. I mean REAL. Reveal themselves on such an intimate level. Exposing their inner most vulnerabilities. Why would they anyway? Once you expose your weakness, others capitalize on them. Sometimes…sometimes, it’s worth the risk to show your real you.
So, I’m fed up. With me. My behavior. Hiding the real me. The real victims here have been my four children. I’m quite sure my children have been short changed the first half of my forties…sure, I was there physically. But where was I mentally? How can you ever be present when you’re constantly numbing your mind? Trying to escape yourself. Your current location.
I have news for you…no matter wherever you go to escape, there you are. Just like when you’re pregnant…you can’t escape your body. When your heart is on the mend and you’re digging deep searching for something you’ve never had, you’re still there. Stuck with yourself. Your mind. Your never ending thoughts.
“Sleeping at the Wheel” by Matchbox Twenty. Our hands are full but our lives are empty. I spent my entire decade of my thirties changing diapers. From one kid to the next. My hands were certainly full. But my life? I can barely remember those 10 years. And, now, they are gone. I was so busy taking care of them, I forgot to live.
As I turn 46 today, I find myself staring at the downside to 50. So, I have to ask myself? Do I start feeling my life, being present for me and my children, or do I continue to numb myself? Self medicating. Waiting for the day to end? So the next one can come and go and so on. Just so my forties can be a complete blur just like my thirties?
Or do I dump the pills? Dump the cigarettes. Dump the really bad day to day habits that numb me. Make me irritable? Short fused with my children. Is that fair to them? They get this monster that simply can’t cope with the day to day BS?
Fuck it.
Toss them. And, yes, that’s my toilet and those are my mind numbing pills and my cigarettes.
Say goodbye to your irritable, short fused, asshole self. Let your children actually enjoy you. You. The ever present person.
After all, it’s not the stimulants that I’m addicted to. It’s the stimulation. Two VERY different things. I know there are plenty of readers out there thinking, “oh shit…I pop those pills, too, to numb my pain.” First step is to admit you have an “issue”. Then you can mull it over for about 6 or 7 years. And miss out on a lot of life. Yours. And theirs. Your choice. I’m not you. I can’t make you do anything. I can’t open that bottle and throw them down the toilet. But you can. Maybe, when you’ve had enough and you’re fed up. Maybe not. I’d like to implore you to at least try. Or better yet, challenge you. I always love a really good challenge.
Are you up for it? I am. And, I did. For the sake of reality, I’ll still have a few drinks with my friends. Remember, I’m too vain to be a drunk. So no worries of alcohol consuming me. But not around my children. Except for today. It is Halloween, after all.
Maybe, I should just be my real self this Halloween? Seeing how I’ve been showing another costume for the past 6 years.
