100

So, I noticed the other day that my blog was getting an inordinate amount of hits -- and I haven't posted in weeks.

Again, it is the Russians -- alert Mueller!

Anyway, I noticed that I have posted 99 blogs...which means THIS ONE is the 100th.

Kind of momentous, no?

Actually, NO.

In 4 years, I have posted 100 times, which means I am a HUGE slacker -- do the math yourselves, I am too fat and tired to do it on my own..

For fun, let's compare then and now....



Four years ago, I had just moved back from California.  

I was: skinny, tan, happy, single, living with Jim in a mutually-satisfying very platonic, co-parenting sitch.  I was in love with one person, somewhat enamored with another one that I was having semi-regular sex with, and totally OK with the whole thing.
.
I was working somewhere I hated.  I was doing the best I could with Lexi, I had some really good friends that I never saw, and I was obsessed with Ryan Gosling.

Fast forward 4 years...

I am: 
Fat. 
Pasty. 
Prone to random anxiety attacks where I feel like my heart is simply going to BURST in my chest.  It happens when I have too much coffee on an empty stomach in the morning, but it is AWFUL!  I have never had them before 2016, and I literally WOULD NOT wish them on my worst enemy,

Still in love with one person.  Gratefully broken free from the other (sorry, TC, but it HAD to happen!)

I LOVE MY JOB.  I have the best tribe of friends, near AND far.  Ryan Gosling has been replaced with a Jason Momoa obsession that is somewhat troubling. (Paying $200 just for a pic with him next month, yo - can we SPELL 'desperate spinster'?)

Also, I now have 2 of the most ridiculously adorable, snuggly, silly, fluffy babes in the world to love on.  My little sister -- who is my best friend, my biggest advocate, and the most real critic of calling me about on the HEAPS of bullshit I use to obfuscate the real world about my life, had 2 babies in 16 months, and widened the joy in my heart by 2,000,000%. If I didn't have my little Harlow Grey Evelyn, I may not have made it thought the summer of 2016.  

Because of this:

Biggest change ever is that I don't have my wing man.
My "got-your-six".

And my daughter has no father.

I am a single mom. so I guess I join the ranks of a lot of women whose children have no father.
The problem is that he was her BFF, her co-conspirator against my no-TV-no-sugar-no-electronic lifestyle.  
Lexi and Daddy were partners in crime, and just had the most special bond ever.

Lexi's dad left us forever in 2016, and it is the biggest thing that has happened in my life besides the births of my 2 children and the death of my BFF my Junior year in high school, and the birth of Harlow Grey and Weston James.

I don't think I have fully been able to process losing my BFF.  And I know my little girl has not, although we are both trying mightily.

So, yes, I am super different now than I was the day I started this whole mess...

And I do mean MESS.

I have had employers tell me how much they loved this blog...like, WHAT??  I literally wrote about all of my drug-addled experiences, not to mention my raging promiscuity.

I have had my favorite child (not Lexi, FYI) call me out on my sex life (EW!) after reading this.

I have had good friends analyze me based on what I share here; ummm, NO, I am not "afraid" of my feelings, I just don't have any!  Deal with it.

I have had family members chastise me or try to make me feel guilty for sharing my truth.

Through it all, I have found it is really fun to write, get my thoughts out, and share things that I have had people (not the Russians, obvs) tell me resonated with them.  (Although I DO wish you would comment on the blog and not PM me, as comments help with the monetizing side! HUGE hint)

Anyway, I legit do not have anything special to report on this 100th blog.

I am still me.

I am still writing and working and struggling to be the best version of myself.

I fail daily.

I don't always measure up to the person I ask myself to be when I wake up in the morning.

The thing is this...

I am still here.

I am still doing my best, even when I fall short of my own expectations.

Here is where I am today.

I love my friends.

I love my tribe -- a group of powerful, crazy, hilarious people that came to me as a direct result of losing Jimbo.

I love my girls from NUHS....so much, and can't wait until 2023 when we are all together again.

I love my family, even the ones I can't even begin to comprehend.

I love my job, .  It makes me mad, sad, crazy, and tired, but I always find one person every day to interact with that reminds me why this is the best thing ever,

I love my girls.

I love....well, you know who you are.

I love Jason Momoa's abs and pecs and biceps.

I don't actually love myself, but I am working on that SUPER hard every day.

So, on this momentous (or not so much) blog post, all I can say is this:

I love.

Lots and lots of people and things, and that really is pretty frickin' awesome.


<3

Also, this.  Because why not??

The End Is Nigh! Or, TGID and Buh-BYE 2016!

2016 was a pretty messed up year.

I'm sure someone, somewhere had a great 2016. 

Somewhere there were promotions, new babies (more on that later--literally the one bright spot in The Great Year of Suckage is my baby niece Harlow Grey), lottery winnings, multiple orgasms, successful diets, etc....

However, in general, I think this year was one of those fulcrum years for most of us.....universe teetering on the brink of disaster, BLM, police officers murdered (and murdering), an unbelievably vile, negative, horrifying election year in the US that exposed the slimy underbelly of human nature and the tragic separation between all of us....

Yeahhhh......2016 sucked balls for me, and I couldn't be more pleased to watch the sun rise on the final month of this awful year.  Seriously, 2016 was so bad that even Fidel Mother-Fucking Castro took a powder rather than sticking around to see how this year would end. 

Mama La Pinga, 2016!!!  Dueces!

In addition to Alan Rickman

ALWAYS <3

Prince,

and Elie Wiesel

dying (YES, those were the 3 'celebrity' deaths that I actually wept over and had a hard time processing--judge away), I lost my platonic life partner, the occasional bane of my existence, and the one person that always had my 6.....My Little Roo's Daddy, James Van Geyten (more on that later as well, I am not done processing that, and will likely devote yet another blog post entirely to my buddy Jimbo).

Daddy and Roo...BFFs

Watching your child suffer through the loss of a parent is a form of torture that I really can't imagine wishing on anyone (more on that later).

So here we are, on the first day of the last month of The Great Year of Suckage, and I find myself oddly filled with hope....


I say 'oddly' because I was prepared to spend this month like Eeyore, lugubriously plodding through the days, waiting eagerly for the psychological boost to happen on 12/31/2016 at 11:59:59.  I wasn't prepared to shoot out of bed (well, roll over and grope the phone off the nightstand, but you get my point!) at 2:30 am and think, "Yesssssssssssssssss!!!!  12/1/16!  Here we go!"

But I did.....

That makes me feel pretty good, which made me smile, which released some endorphins (I'm flippin' serious, it's science!!), which made me feel even better.  Which, of course, got me thinking about how I could hang on to this feeling and, hopefully, end 2016 on a bit of a high note.  Because I used to do that....try to end everything on a high note.  I used to be irrepressibly enthusiastic.  Once, there was a Mary that -- once you got past my painfully-shy-hard-candy-shell-that-I-built-from-years-of-self-loathing -- everyone always asked (or accused) 'You were a cheerleader at some point in your life, weren't you?" 
(Answer--DUH!!!!)

I used to be really excited about a lot of things...about everything.  I used to be full of fun, fabulous advice -- now I just tell people to drink it off, walk it off, sleep it off, or.....I don't answer the phone at all. (That's mainly because Lexi killed the battery and didn't put it on the charger, though....seriously.  More on that later). 

Well, I felt like that Mary this morning.  I felt like the old me, the happy me, the me that looks at each day as a new chance to....do.....something.

Working on getting back to this.....

I don't know if the feeling will last, but I am definitely going to work on it.  I have a lot of exciting changes coming up in the next few weeks (probably not more on that later, it's all realllllyy personal you know.... not at all like the impersonal stuff I usually share here!! ;)  ).  We'll see.....

I just know that, right now, today, I feel hope.  Hope that I am doing an ok job guiding my Roo through this awful mess.  Hope that the changes I am making will turn things around for us a bit.  Hope that The Great Year of Suckage will end on a high note....or at least just fucking end quietly.  Hope that on 12/1/2017, the blog post I write will be full of all the fun, fabulous things that happened in the last 12 months, that kicked off with this surge of faith and optimism I am feeling right now.

As The Great Year of Suckage winds down, I hope all of you that didn't win the lottery, or get a fabulous promotion, or have multiple orgasms, or even just have a peaceful year, find solace in the fact that it is December 1st!  We have 31 days to wander, wade, slog, and trek through.....


AND THEN 2016 is DEAD!! 

Does the change in the calendar mean your life will change?  Maybe. Maybe not.

Will you be a different person in 2017 than you were in The Great Year of Suckage?  Probably.  We all change, we all grow, we all learn something from our mistakes....I hope, anyway! 

I just know that looking at a calendar, or writing the date, or whatever other way reminds us that it is a different year and NO LONGER The Great Year of Suckage, is going to make all the difference to me -- and that's not science, just the cycle of the moon and stars, the hubris of Julius Caesar, and the intercession (interference?) Of Pope Gregory Whatever....(If that confuses you, more on that later.....well, here, actually!)

I suppose I should have started this at night, so I could end this by telling you to raise a glass to the end of The Great Year of Suckage (just realized The Year of Great Suckage may have been the better moniker, but I am too lazy to edit beyond spell check!), and I am sure some of you would probably raise a glass anyway, I mean it IS 5:00 somewhere!  So, all I have to say to end this is as follows:

 WOOOO-HOOO!!!! 
YIPPEEE!

So glad this dreadful year is almost over!!!  Roll on 2017!

Almost!!!