I'm really trying to be positive here, but this whole thing sucks. What can I do about it?

And that is the main question. What can I do about it? What can I, freakin' Amy M. Cazares, of the world at large and now living in a state of limbo, freakin' DO about it? About any of it. 

It feels like nothing. It feels like I can do nothing about it. It feels like rain. Like rain of purgatory and yet negative consequence from making one decision and multiple decisions, whose outcomes I do not get to control  and were always with the earnest effort to be engaged in my own life, no matter HOW stupid the outcome in retrospect. 

It does make me feel lost. Okay? Yes. I do. I feel absolutely lost with impatience some days. There, I said it. Happy now?

But not just that. All of it. All. Of. It. All of the rest of my experience. It is linked in every single way that my rational brain (as well as the words of others banging around my head) has told me it is not. "Oh, those things were separate." "Oh, you didn't do this." "Oh this is your fault." "Oh, you were thinking about this wrong." "Oh, I'm just so opinionated I can't shut my mouth but will cover my flaw by telling you that you asked for."

"Well, thank you, Captain Hindsight!"

It is about the summation of no-excuses, bracing-the-consequences decisions I have made in my life that, even if not always full-hearted, were always accompanied with a full-on brace for the consequences.

Even with all the stupid shit I have ever done (and what, exactly, was all that again?) and "I-never-thought"s and deafening blows of some of the most unkind things I have ever heard from people I loved and trusted, I still held the belief I have always made decisions, fully embraced for the consequences. 

But yet, here I sitting still, trying to listen for what God wants from me; and all I get are the voices of close friends and family past overriding--with much negativity, mind you--the voice to my own soul, banging around the insides of my skull like a record that's skipping.

Those decisions might have been made out of wanting to take the path of least resistance, they might have been impulsive, they might have resulted in a range of choke-on-your-own-spit results, but no matter how wiggly or squiggly or panicked or occasionally peppered with "WHATTHEGINORMOUSFUCKARE YOU DOING, Amy?!", nothing has even come close to the barrage of rocks that are people who you never realized were so judgmental throwing every kind of insulting commentary over the surround.

It is humiliating. 

It makes you feel incapacitated. It makes a sane person feel insane.

And now what of it? What came of their jeering and judgment, their opinions and their beliefs? Nothing! I get empty, cold, fruitlessness coming up every time in the immediate gall of my stomach because I cared so much about another person's opinions, that I practically sold my soul to get their approval. 

But when I crawled into the mutilated constitution of my soul, trying to reconstruct it and make the foundation more deeply entrenched in the spirituality of my God and NOT other people's opinions (of which there is a grand variety and of which I had managed to let affect me way more than I'd intended), I found there the tiniest pearl of reprieve and forgiveness that allowed me the space to make better decisions in my ardent desire to unite with the Lord one day, and in the meantime, decisions that were made by me for me.

Extreme? Hell yes. Necessary? Even more so. There is only one chance, one life, one moment to being on track with God. That is right now. It doesn't have to make sense to others. It never had to.

People just have to shut up about it. I'm not asking them to get on board with me I saw its brilliance and experienced the first cool drink of water I had tasted in years of wandering in the desert, I knew what anyone else thought did not--and would not--matter. Not in the way I had let it matter in the past, to be sure.

So then, to try in vain to quell the anger that comes from feeling such merciless, plain ignorance, I go back. I review what brought me here. And do so with even more righteous anger because all . . . I have ever been trying to do, no matter what, is fight for what I want. And I wonder, since when, on God's green earth, were a single one of them, in the tiniest of accolades or experience-drenched, good-willed-but-not in my shoes? 

When were they ever dealing with what I have had to deal with? 

How were any of them being influenced and exposed by the things I was exposed to, by choice or by mere witness? 

I have never whined about this for the majority of my life! But still I am being subjected to the opinion's of many, like a barrage of rocks thrown from catapults surrounding the castle wall. It is true as my dad said that if "three people tell you that you have a monkey on your face, you'd better start looking," but that does not, in any way, apply to the hords of people over my lifetime

There is one thing and that thing and this other one over here---a collage of things people have said that I have earnestly deliberated on, took to heart

And taking it down a few notches or a hundred, in the far less caustic approach, I really feel that that those passing down the advice did not realize how caustic their "help" was. And not because it speaks to my defensiveness (although it did in the beginning), but because it shrieks wild banchee levels of sound how little

And I never had the skills that so

And the thing that rustles my jimmies so bad that I have the crawlie of the century is about/how/that NO one's supposed to talk about it. Just. Hush-hush, there now. We don't talk about a mother's pain. We don't talk about our pain like that. It's negative. It's wrong. Just supposed to shut up and take it, I guess? Is that right? Suffer it and swallow it down because it somehow was begotten of our sins? Isn't that the biggest load of horse hooey you ever heard!

Oh, I've heard it, boy. Mm-n-yehhhp.

I put the two baby photos I had of the girls in the bathroom, and it made me feel a lot better about the situation of them living not here, living away.

I'm glad I did it, and it couldn't have worked out any better. Both photos are of the girls around 1 year of age. The one with my oldest was taken backstage of a band concert in college. The one of my youngest is of her smashing her first birthday cake, the mess covering every inch of her chubby little legs, arms, and face while sitting in her high chair.

One is a magnet that adheres to the metal outlet cover on the left-facing wall. The other is a ceramic frame that sits just below the magnet on the counter.

I wasn't exactly thinking about those details or of how the arrangement of the photos in the bathroom would actually serve to soothe my aching heart, but they did exactly that. I look at those babies and remember the most important thing. I remember something that can never be taken away from me or from them. Something which will ensure the bond that each girl and I have enriched upon since their births. It is the fact that I am the one who gave birth to them.

Why I have stupid fears and doubts about that bond diminishing: comparison. Comparison to how I grew up, which I see as always having both parents in the house. Comparison to a quick glance of the mothers of their friends, who live in their homes with them. Assumptions and facts and probabilities in my brain which include statistics of adults who are dysfunctional because their mothers were not involved in their lives, the significant difference it makes to have the mother in the home during the most critical years of a child's development (the teen years), and the entire stigma of being the mother who does not live in the children's home.

Parenting books, magazines, articles, and an abundance of scientific as well as theoretical garbage on the world wide junkyard are primarily written with the assumption that the mother is in the home--and--the one reading the book.

There is a LOT of material--situations, comparisons, generalizations, and/or assumptions--out there enough to help a mother flog herself verily.

But here is why I keep from spinning out: I remember that my parents were awful together. I don't know if or how I would have dealt with my mom being out of the house had they separated then and she had been the one to choose another domicile. But I do know a lot of divorced/divorcing people who work it out. And I never chose anything over my girls. My choice to live without them was only a secondary consequence to choosing to support them going with their hearts. Which meant them wanting to live with Dad, who is a good, kind, loving father.

You never know what other people are going through. You never know what goes on behind closed doors. Those other mothers who are still living their children's homes who even seem like the primary caregivers and perfectly put-together women still have their own misgivings and go about their business, which may or may not be working against or for their own child's well-being. And. They still share the responsibility with their husband.

In the case of mothers who are primary care-givers who are divorced or separated still have to share custody with the father.

And, as I am finding and gathering pieces of other mothers' stories, not all mothers are the primary caregivers, even in the case of loving mothers, because of the way things panned out between parents and children.

Why else: Not all mothers are totally clued into their child's well-being, their spiritual development, and yet there still exists a bond between mother and child.

Even mothers who don't deserve to be called moms are bonded to their children, if for no other reason than being the person who labored to bring them into the world. Even the most deeply disturbed kinds of people who conduct their lives out of issues stemming from their mother still have that bond.

This is nothing like that. I have been engaged with them and their lives since before they were born, which I contribute to having outstanding morals and ever-growing faith, instilled into me by my parents from birth. I have realized that my ardent desire to have them with me because I am their mother and no one can love them like me blocked me from relenting to seeing that I could rely on the good man and father that my ex is.

There aren't a lot of single mothers who can rely on the father of her children, even when she wants to. But I can. Even though it is humiliating as hell to realize, even though they are there and not here, my reliance upon higher powers has brought me to an acceptance that is able to override a very easy place to spin out: what I'm doing with my life.

Finally: I believe with such depth and founded concreteness that the One who loves us and died for us has seen fit to show me these things, in this way, with such clarity because of His grace, on which my reliance depends. He has blessed me with beautiful, clear, understanding daughters. He has blessed me with the thoughts that have turned, realizing my reliance upon His Aid, into sheerly clear and full understanding of my pain of living without my girls. He has blessed me and surrounded me with the presence of His Spirit through the love and support of others--my family, my friends, my real reality.

So when I see those pictures, I feel better. That is my reality. I see them every day, many times a day, whether I'm thinking about other things or I'm thinking about them. The pain in my heart for their absence is never far, but putting those photos in a place where I spend time doing one of my favorite things--putting on makeup--I see them right there with me. And in that instant, for every instance there is, I think of my two, very bright, very beautiful adolescent teen and pre-teen, what they are doing, knowing they are happy, knowing that they have been accepting of their new world. And it quells the need to call my girls my babies all the time, lest I become a mother who cannot grow herself.

The edifying bottom line: I am none of those and conversely, none of those people or two situations are alike. My situation is my own, my arrangement and my relationship with my daughters is individual. I am grateful and I am thankful.

This morning, I thought I would take the time to actually write down some major-to-minor goals. It's really no big deal for someone who's always been goal-oriented. But I am not that someone. I am someone who is dealing with the layered wake(s) of her own impulsiveness for years.

Before I do that, I want to tip my hat to the writer's group I joined last night. Yes, it's possible, nay even probable, that I will find myself some new readers today, but not without me acknowledging the talent of every single person who read in E's living (sitting?) room last night. I had never been part of a group like that and had been waiting for some time to be a part of the writing world, without it causing great discomfort or distress to my fragile ego. And lo, there it was. Five people, five distinct styles, and no one getting their pannies in a bunch about a single thing. Just pouring, solid, super-welcome feedback.

In the words of the great Pinocchio: "I'm a real writer!" Oh, wait. No. That's not it. Well. Close enough. You get that I was excited, right? And that this was the first time I've shared my writing in that capacity? And that it was definitely a first to get that level of feedback? Yay!

Anyway, I digress. I do more than digress. I jump all over the random place and bring your focus back to the goal thing. (Yes, you can see why I've trouble with goal-setting, can't you? The ADD-style of writing could be considered somewhat correlative to my style of living.)

Goals.

This is hard for me. It's harder to think about than it is to read it, where the words zip past your eyes, but have mulled for hours in my head. I think this is every writer's dilemma. Thus the need for setting goals.

First goal. Practice setting goals often. Practice makes perfect, yeah, yeah, my musician's mind is wagging its finger at the rest of me. Review the ones I've made, revise often, make amendments as needed. This may seem as "duhhh-uhh, Amy" as you can get, but you have to remember that this is a person with a history of me refusing to go with the masses, even if it was good for me. My adamant, stubborn (see: principle-istic) refusal to join any bandwagon has come with its detriments.

TWO. Be okay with being a dork. Whatever that means, however I've defined it, stop with the spazmatic, reactive behavior that comes from being so, absolutely, bizarrely insecure; stop going along with old notions and outdated-to-you preconceptions and make LONG term goals and SHORT ones. (You'd think I would have gotten used to this by now.) Time frame: rtf now.

Three. Own, or be working towards owning, my own bassoon. Maple only. Can't substitute. Within the next year. Maple bassoons are hella expensive. I could get a second-hand vehicle for the price of a bassoon. I could get a nice second-hand vehicle for what one can shell out for this instrument. The realization that this is what musicians do is what has made me realize just how hard I was trying to practical; and also: how negative I have been about getting one. I'm a musician who doesn't even own her own instrument. (I'm even borrowing the piano I loved for 10 years from my ex.) This is one part to why musicians are poor. The stereotype comes with good reason. We pay good money for good sound, pitch, timbre.

Four: Get my daughter's and my immigration cards taken care of. Projected time frame: summer. Projected time frame for filling out forms, getting the documents in line, and mailing off: already past due. Retry: Wednesday, next week.

Five: Finish my maid of honor's speech. Project goal line: No later than May. (The wedding's in July!)

That's it. Well, for now. I know I was thinking of a bunch to put down, but in between the time I wrote the first lines of this entry and this very moment of typing, an entirely 24 hours has magically elapsed and I need to move on. 

 (Life. It gets in the way of a writer.)

why does every other douchebag writer have to exist?

Whoooh.

Nothing like having your writing style under a microscope. I took the dive and decided to submit a few things I've done to Cracked.com. I really don't know why. Maybe I'm on coke. Maybe trace amounts of crack-cocaine are seeping into the water and I don't know it. Although we did just live through a third-world boil order here that was lifted, leaving me to assume that the water is, indeed, okay. Maybe I'm ingesting it through food or coffee---someone is spiking my intake.

Anyway.

I did get two responses from people who weren't even moderators or editors making a few suggestions on my pitch. I guess there's a certain way to pitch your material in a particular forum on the site, and then the editors go through every single one and decide which ones go into the "possible" basket and narrow down from that basket which ones will get a final go-ahead to write an article. That's just to write an article!

I didn't really do it right and my reaction to their reaction was one of immediate joy instantaneously followed by a plunge of discouragement. These sick freaks just know wayyy too much about whatever the hell is going on in between thousands of pages of forums. It's like the assprints on their computer chairs don't register whatsoever at all in their minds.

But they do tell you, rather nicely, how to reroute or edit your pitch as a friendly suggestion. I have only to wisely and for uppity-ly say: I already published it on a for-free blogging site, fool! Where else would anyone in the world contribute to the cesspool of internet and think they're pretty clever, dumbfacks! Haw-haww!


Guess who's a douchebaggy, dumbass loser wannabe writer on there, too?

Several months ago, I signed up for a Cracked forum user name and stalled on submitting anything because it was all kind of overwhelming. Then with the unfolding of taking a risk today evolving into an assessment and reaction to a mere pitch, it's left me feeling a little discouraged.

There is just so much info and forums to rifle through of how and when to make a proper pitch on their site, how high is too high when you jump, and how to position your balls if you had any. (Which I don't.)

There are straight out guidelines that border on college syllabus; and then there are ALL... the motherfuckers who really think they're something, pitching as many constipated turds of backwards assfucking ideas.

And even though my article pitch about the deep, passionate, hot-blooded Mexican ways of life is wayyyyy more better (and more classy) than half of the crap on there, I do stand corrected in the light that even the featured, fully published articles on the site's main page are still kind of stupid sometimes. (Oh yes I did. I said "more better." Suck it.)

I apologize to my moderate readers for my foul language. Whoever I pretend them to be.

I just finished an Irish article, but it wasn't in list form, so I scratched the idea of running a pitch for that. Then when I went to go check the forums (oh, God, the time spent trying to make sure you have nothing like the other thousands of countless pitches, articles, and trying-too-hard dickwads!...) didn'tcha know it: my searches turned up a whole bunch of Irish articles already done. I'm not even a dickwad I can be proud of. I'm a dickwad at the bottom of the totem pole of dickwads. Eeeeegh.

Can't wait to work on something else. Maybe a series of Cinco de Mayo pieces. Or Top 5 Reasons It Sucks To Work Your Way Through Cracked.com.

>>>>message truncated due to broiled monkey dysfunction<<<<<

Dia's Muire duit! Lá Fhéile Pádraig!

Ah. Ye good ole day of green is upon us. St. Patrick's Day. Several years ago I wrote an article for the Cottage North Magazine as a contributing author about this day, trying to dispel some of the confusion or just plain ignorance of this holiday.

But that article was shit. It didn't even cover the HALF of real Irish pride, though I managed to inject some random ignorance into it and bring up points in the closing paragraph that weren't even touched on in the body, despite how hard I worked on that article. (Obviously, not all THAT hard.) 

I have stated that I don't like to alter original works, but I can honestly say I don't understand how that article was allowed to go published. The sophomoric attempt with which I wrote it with so audibly laughable it almost makes me worry about the integrity of the publisher. It totally deserves a rewrite. 

The original is around here somewhere. Maybe I will post it later for poking fun at and tearing apart while cackling loudly. Over a couple pints o' Guinness.

 

So, yeah, Saint Patrick's feast day. He lived in the wee years A.D. and is recognized for converting a multitude of people to Christianity in a time where the countryside was under pagan dominance. A.k.a the Apostle of Ireland due to his numerous conversions during such oppositional times.

From what little information to be gathered, he escaped imprisonment and studied in a monastery, having been a converted pagan himself.  The great successes that gained him the title Apostle of Ireland most likely contributed to the lore surrounding him driving "snakes" out of the land, as snakes were not a native species there.

Tales have told of his use of the shamrock for visually aiding his explanation of the Holy Trinity, which would have been a very appealing to pagan Celts. Shamrocks were, in Celtic tradition, considered to be lucky or magical because of the powers found in threes. 

So using the shamrock to point out one-two-three beings in one, it worked pretty good. The simple pagans just oohed and aahed their way to being saved.

"Oooh. Aah. Three-in-one. Got it!"

But, like many holidays to have metastasized into the current, bastardized versions that they are, St. Patrick's Day is yet another ancient holiday that blended religious and secular values, and changed shape with various customs, over the years.


As the Irish began to spread out to various parts of the world and customs wholly unrelated to Catholicism eventually amalgamated into the day most reminiscent for ex pat Irishmen, a hodge-podge of culturally- and memory-rich customs individually made their way into to blob of behavior, nostalgia, and humor that was distinctly Irish in flavor. Or at least desperately wishing it was.

I bet she's not even Irish.

Like pinching, for example. An old schoolyard game that evolved and trickled down from the days when wearing green could actually get you killed.  Wearing the color that most vehemently objected to the blue and red of British dominance was a rebellious thing and could get you shot. I'm guessing the pinch served to remind to Irishmen not standing up for their pride (and against all the years of British invasion and rule) that they should try and remember where they came from.

Unless, of course, you got shot in the face.

It served to remind good, proud Irishmen (and kids) what wearing green stood for. Which brings me to...

Why they must have drank so damned much. 

I really don't know if this is just a stereotype beaten to death by the movies, but if it bears any truth whatsoever, who the fuck could blame them? Between British oppression---and I'm talking heavy British oppression (long periods of great genocide by starvation, disease, and emigration)---liquor is probably the only thing that saved them from, or at least placated, their grief. 

At least in the pubs and various taverns, strains of a fiddle, a pennywhistle, or bodhrán could transport them away from every day shit life in "An Gorta Mór" or the segregated barrios in the New World, or their shit lives as slaves for a few hours in their day. 

Libation. Mm. Yum.

And they could really lament their troubles because Ireland was a lush garden already steeped in history, with known settlements as far back as the Neolithic period (aka Stone Age), long before the Vikings came and started setting up camp in their usual, plundering way.

 "Heave, ho. We're off to take over Ireland, yo."

Ireland's history predates Christianity and the New World, involved thousands of years of invasions by the Vikings, Celts, and Normand rule, and also included a patchwork land of varying kingdoms all before Ireland was more unified and certainly ALL before genocidal British rule.

Not to mention giving Irishmen and women the dire need to escape to the New World would find them having to struggle just as much on this side of the pond with segregation, racism, and in some cases, forced slavery, right around the time Africans were having problems with the same fucked up thing.

This is not a joke. This was really published. You can find more information here and here.

Speaking of which...

The etymological background of the leprechaun screams patchwork of influence and derision. The word as it currently stands resembles its Gaelic roots now (leipreachán), but the word itself went through the ringer just about as much as the rest of their language and culture did, taking on Latin and English changeovers.  

This spritely, mischievous character (neither "not wholly good nor wholly evil") comes straight out of Irish folklore, but is yet another item in the Irish bag of culture that went through a couple of transitions changed because of Latin influence and people not largely conforming to Gaelic. 

Awww, now who could imagine suppressing this little guy?

Which gives you the chance to understand just maybe why...

They drink so much. What? I said that already? Oh yeah. Well I guess I needed another drink myself just researching this stuff. I don't understand how any single Irish person wouldn't just flip their lids, galled with exhausted incredulousness just listening to any single thing any other person of any other mix of ancestry could have to whine about in their fluffy little lives. 

But they don't. They're just as friendly or grumpy or as racked up with issues as the rest of us. Hard, sturdy survivors with distinctly rich and embedded culture constantly fighting to keep the blanket of crap that would cover their heads. 

Ireland rose her head above the worst and cruelest kinds of indignity, prejudice and segregation, the horse manure and stench of politics, and soul-crippling abuse and infused a cultural centerpiece for Irish expats and their descendants to enjoy. And, like anyone who has suffered the brunt of humiliation, we know we relate best with those who've been through the worst. They are the champion underdog.

Yes, Ireland, this one's for you. 

You always have a reason to celebrate their heritage. 

You damn well deserve to party.

May God, Mary, and Patrick bless ye!

living in the past

Dont do it.

Like, ever.

Especially if it just mulls you over with guilt and regretful reflections that you've already had.

Just sayin'.

Getting married was an event that forwent all of whatever girlhood dreams I had about getting married, save for the ooey-gooey yay-ness of it.

I had met my ex my first year of college. I had originally written him off as not being serious enough for me, thanks to the music department's freshman orientation meeting, where the chair was lecturing us all in the smaller performing hall about the do's and don'ts of campus and of the music program. 

The chair of the music department was recounting a story involving beer being found in one of the upperclassman's' lockers the previous year and, in trying to make an impression on us as to his personality, told us we didn't want to be stupid like that. Told us he didn't want to name names. Then promptly followed that comment with the link "like" and then the name of the student.

I took note, figured I knew at least one person to stay away from, but then was so promptly dealing with being pregnant, such menial worries got swiped from memory.

In the interim, I stressed big time over a whole bunch of other shit, not the least of which was academic life taking a hit with pending and real-time motherhood. Then, the father of my child and I split and I started to stress out about providing for my kid because, true to form, when he left, everything left. Including support.

However, I did start to lift my head about my options.

I was struggling to hold onto whatever little dreaming I had left, even though it was altered. By the time my daughter was approaching her first birthday, I had been disenchanted with life. I mean, I was still the emotional, dreamy Latina underneath and I wanted everything for my daughter that I would not be getting, but... I was kind of a clusterphuck loss for what to do with myself. Nothing had gone like I had wanted, but I had not really figured out how to deal with it.

So, I did what any other disenchanted Latina of mixed heritage would do (maybe? I only speak for myself, really): I started to eyeball some guy friends in the music department for the upcoming Valentine's Dance. Narrowed it down to one. Told my BFF, who had been told "by a little birdie" that the one I was thinking about asking was also thinking about asking me, too. Cool!

He worked near the taco-slapping, hard-grinding fast food place I worked at, and would always come in for some food. After the exchange with my BFF took place in music theory class, he came in and awkwardly asked me. We went to the dance. He wore his tux. He made supper for all of us that night (3 couples going together.) He bought a rose. I made him dance every dance. I went home to where the ex-boyfriend was still taking up space in my bedroom. I fell asleep on the couch.

In the midst of the bizarre set-up that was having my ex in my home, this guy really made me feel special. And man, was he tall! After the dance, we took several opportunities to hang out. Coffee, music ed student parties, various low-cost/no-cost activities like his friend's friend's pontoon boat, jamming with friends at his apartment, watching movies. One special night, he even took me down to the river and pulled me up the hill, taco-grease-smelling monkey suit and all (because it was right after work), and read me two poems that he wrote. 

He even explained the beer incident on campus and was pissed that the chair of the department had brought his name up in that freshman meeting. A couple of his buddies put it in his saxophone locker as a joke, only the joke ended up getting discovered, and the music chair had his own thoughts and opinions, various ones of which led him to arbitrarily mention names in that meeting a year and a half prior. I don't want to name names, either. Scott Prebys.

Ooops.

So yeah, I think I'm figuring out things! 

I have a lot of things on the go, and they're keeping me busy. Or at least out of trouble. That's good. But it's part of being on track. I do feel like the "track" itself is not well-defined, as in with absolute goals and micromanaged footsteps, but I do feel like things are looking up and would like to attribute it to a change in attitude. 

I was wondering about why I'd want to define it for anyone in the first place because it doesn't really matter to anyone but myself, so what difference does it make if it confuses the hell out of people or keeps them on their toes or whatever. I know where I'm going. It's with my gut. And for all the so-called paper qualifications I'm lacking for anything of elevated job status, I don't need a paper to know that I'm following something true and real. I've done a lot worse than that.

I really can't say if school is in that track or not. I hope in some ways it is. But honestly, the idea of incurring all that debt scares the hell out of me, completely independent of whether or not the music education sector is really good or dwindling. At least trade school is another option. My love of all things auto-motive really is turning out to be a passion, and not just some way of being cool, or getting daddy's approval, or any weird shit. It just is what it is.

And in figuring things out, having had much occasion to think about what it is I want, what I used to dream of, what I imagined, and what I can do with my reality, and I remember that when I was a kid, I imagined living in some urban-mixed-with-old-world studio apartment with my pet Bengal tiger and white grand piano, edges painted in gold with a red rose airbrushed on top, near the music stand side of the lid.

And for some odd reason, I never reconciled that picture with what was going on in my own life or worked on making myself be okay with it. Everything that occurred in my life after graduation was a gradual disenchantment with life in general because all I knew is that things weren't going the way I had imagined them, even to say those things compounded each other in rapid-fire succession; although I didn't know exactly what that was (just a feeling) and then purposefully grew bitter and angsty to avoid disappointment. I had my reasons.

So what? Now? I just laugh. Not really at myself or wanting to put down my former kid self or anything. And certainly not at any of the really heavy parts that caused great pain to myself or others. But at the sheer ease with which I just overlooked it. I mean, it's not hard to fathom, seeing as how I was dealing with some pretty major things right off the hop out of high school which continued far into my adult life.

It's just that I missed one tiny little detail in having known that my studio apartment with my piano was one of those memories you just put away with growing up: there was a reason I imagined things that way at that age, but there was no reason for why I had not changed it, or evolved it, or even entertained the idea that I could have a new dream.

Others? Oh yeah, for s-u-r-e! All the time! Ask me for advice and I'd work hard around every facet of your brain trying to inspire you! But myself? Nah. Nope.

So, you ask me now what that is, I don't know. It's still tricky for me to say, at least career-wise, to have a dream. My last career dream kind of flew out the window when we moved up north, because I was not willing to compromise on my education by doing something else through whatever other online programs they had up there, and because we were so far away from any institution that the older I got, the more out of the question it became to do anything that would upset the girls' lives like... leaving to go finish school.

Not only that, but my family was growing and my priorities changed. That is to say: get your frickin' head out of the clouds, out of missed opportunities, any of the "couldas and shouldas" and be a mom.

And before that, before I even lived in Canada, never mind way up north, was being a mom. I was always a mom. Being a mom was and is THE most beloved, treasured of roles I've ever been blessed or been allowed to have, but it was also the first thing I ever knew in the outside, real world. There is a whole world of raising up children to be ready for the world that I believed and avowed to engage before all else. 

My parenting style has been one about standing up against the tide, of doing everything in my power and with God's help to NOT let the "sins of the father pass onto the son", to break the cycle of pain, and never ever being an autopilot mommy. (My parents were good parents, but they had their issues, and I didn't want those passing on through to me to my girls, and thusly whatever issues I had to pass on to them, either.) Giving them the tools and teaching them how to instill their own tools, too, for the hardass world I'd already seen enough of at 22, 25, and 29 was far more important than whatever I was going through. It didn't take a genius to know that their worlds were mine. I put them on like a mantle.

But I did kind of hide behind that. I was glad to. I still would. Except I'm starting to realize what a disservice it is to them. The whole part of figuring things out has this right in there, along with my other contemplations, because I can see the possibilities of good in this new equation. I really can't reconcile me not having my daughters with me right now as a good thing. In fact, it feels very wrong. But this time, I'm not reacting out of emotions. 

I'm trying to be a grown-up.

"...got-the-job, got-the-job, yippe-yay, I-got-the-job..."

If you know the tune to "Be Our Guest" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, well then, you can replace the "..beef ragou, cheese souffle, pie and pudding en flambe.." with the title of this post and now you've got that little jiggy tune stuck in your head. Yes, yes you do. Now it's in your head because I put it there. Now you can have it banging around on repeat in your head, just like it is mine! Because the choir was running through their Disney piece this morning, and I've had it stuck in my head all morning just like you get to suffer now, too.

Anyway.

Yes, I got the job. Judy, who I presume is in charge of all things clerical at the dealership there called me this morning and offered me the job. It was so cute. Just the way and manner of her voice, the tone of the question. That was all.

I start tomorrow.

*eeeeee!

(Now you're wondering what the next words are on that verse, arencha?

"We'll prepare and serve with flair a culinary cabaret!..."

Nyeah, I had to look them up.

job

So I interviewed for a receptionist position with the Ford dealership here. What can I say, I would love to get a job like that. I don't know where it will lead me, or how in the world's half iota it brings me in the direction of music OR any trade (maybe automotive mechanics by a long shot,) but... really I care only secondarily about that momentarily. It's my first frickin' job in two years.

And it will work beautifully with my schedule as an accompanist at one of the local high schools I'm playing at here. Mornings at the high school, afternoons at the dealership. With a shot of luck, I could start putting away money, if for nothing else to start slamming back debts and the whole being behind on just about phucking near everything.

It would be lovely to start doing that, anyway, as I know that playing catch-up in this economy, yes, even Saskatchewanian economy (maybe it's just cost of living smacking us harder than anticipated,) will be a slow and possibly painful process. I am okay with slow. Slow is better than dead stop. Just like when you're in rush hour traffic? Ya know? Because every fractional turn of the tire is another inch under your wheels.

At any rate, the job sounds cool. I'd get to be the girl who you see at the desk, taking calls, writing down messages, operating fax machines and pumping data into the computer; but of course I would be soooooo smooth, doing it all with a flick of my wrist and a bubblegum smack-chomp, layers of mascara and hootchy mama shirts.

Or maybe just tackling the guy walking down the hall because he's some random criminal coming to steal my purse and turkey sandwich from the break room.

  

Okay, okay. Yeah. The hell. Rii-i-iight. It's still a lot better than this:

Which I used to do. Except with tacos.

Seriously, what's in this job for me is respect. Self-respect, respect of what I'd be trying to accomplish, respect from coworkers, ideally. It's a pitch fork of hay in the barn. It's the first step on a path that contains goals. It's getting to do something new. Meet new people. Meet more people. Get exposure to the automotive side of my interests. Office job. Bringing in some flippin' cheddar, yo.

And the interview went well. I don't feel like I nailed it, but I don't feel like I royally screwed it up, either. I got a real sense of what I would be doing, where it could go, and that I would not be left out to dry. I perceived a real sense of teamwork gets done around there, that I won't have time to be bored. I answered their questions honestly and to the best of my ability. What I did not do was just say what I thought was the right thing. A new thing in my books at least. The one lady asked me if the phone number on my resume was the one I could be reached at. I said yes. The two interviewers shook my hand. I handed them my references and they thanked me for coming in. I'll hear from them within the week or so. 

I truly hope so.

headaches

The headaches I get today closely resemble the pain of my concussion. I had a friend once tell me that if you're still thinking about it (head trauma and it affecting you), that there probably is still damage.

Sometimes, when I'm spinning out or spiraling, I want to blame whatever unhealed portion of my brain is left. Whatever part that is. That's if there was any damage or damage remains. The portion that controls rational thought. The portion that controls feeling positive. Probably, mostly, the part that controls memory and retaining the positive and rational conclusions I already came to. Yes, the cause of spinning out is often not being able to get back to the positive and reasonable attitudes I came to because I struggled with remembering how I got to the good side. No, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, you can't have me.

Although you provide a great space for feeling sorry for myself.

Now, fuck off.

I don't know if there's truth to what my friend said or what I've thought, but it got me thinking anyway. It's had me pretty damned curious off and on over the years. If there was any truth to my wiggly hypothesis, it would only be because I haven't exercised that part of my brain enough, I'm sure.

What I've learned is that the brain can repair itself, but slowly, and you have to put all good things towards getting it healed: the desire to, memory exercises, therapeutic exercises, physical exercise, and diet. I wouldn't say I've been very good at any one of those things, save for maybe the memory exercises I got figuring out how to complete Sudoku puzzles when I worked at the crusher, even the higher difficulty ones, and waitressing.

But working and trying to eat healthy has helped. Every time I'm engaged in social settings, it helps. I used to be in the eye of too many social things, and that didn't help, because I needed alone time, too. But the needs of the brain for its health change as times change.

And, because there were many things going on in between the car accident in '99 and my job at the crusher in '05 requiring a lot of stress-induced, higher-level thinking while my brain was still processing the least of it, many impaired decisions were made.

And... 

"Impaired" can be taken however the hell it wants to be taken. A type of stoned or drunk level of thinking, wherein the person thinks heavily with their emotions. A type of light affectation, where whatever synapses that had fired with regularity before were not firing so fast, creating a slowed ability to process information. A type of excuse to fit any model of behavior, especially shocking or uncharacteristic behavior. A type of mental retardation that justifies ditzy behavior.

I was all of that.

Between the fog that everyone got sick of hearing about, the help I never got, the pain meds, and the gigantic fuck that was never given those days while I suffered in sheer frustration to find my classes on campus, remember my bassoon fingerings, start driving again, I was swimming--nearly drowning--in my own world.

But I was trying. I worked through it. Didn't make excuses.

I didn't lean on the least of those things. I never leaned on any excuses while trying to get my shit together. I wavered between wanting to throw up my hands in utter defeat and complained in the process, yes. I threw blame around, yes, then and later. I have done things that yes, ARE out of my "character," some of which are actually unfathomable, yes.

But it was always, always, always a bloody hard process, knowing that people were waiting for me to be me but it just not clicking. It was a world that was so very fucking real to me, yet enormously difficult to get the least picture painted for the least clueless person. But worse! The people who I cared the most about! Trying to get them to understand, to give a fuck? Nada! I know they all got sick of hearing about "The Fog" I was in. But I just needed a little more help, a little more spoon-feeding. Just until I got back on my feet.

And what the fuck IS my "character" anyway? What did people perceive of me?

I do know, no matter what any single person has said, be it family, friend, or foe: I have done everything in my power to own every fucked up thing I've ever done. And everything I have ever done, fucked up or awesome, I only did out of making a decision based on all the facts I could have possibly gathered and had in my possession at those times. At an impaired, fucking capacity.

Tell me what person alive hasn't done the same kinds of shit with even more supposed elevated cognitive function.

This is what I've been trying to get the people closest around me to understand for years. Since the butt crack of time and my skull (it didn't really crack, there were no contusions or fractures in the x-rays), I have been frustratingly trying to get people to understand this and back the fuck off. In some ways, it's been a theme in my life: people all around me, people since the dawn of time, having some kind of expectation of me and then coming down on me for their own disappointment because I did something that surprised them.

The hell? What were you expecting, then, dear sir, madam, friend, person of puritan-based ideological west? Furthermore, why do people gotta be on my ass about it? That's my thing: you don't know what you're going to get with me, so long as you're going to be an ultra-conservative, whitey, Anglo-saxon puritan who pretends that life is a white picket fence in the sheltered suburbs of western North America. I grew up in one and I am grateful to my parents for their love and nice shelter. But I will say this: it cost my deeply-rooted, Latina, passionately-craving side dearly. Very fucking dearly.

The bottom line is that my head trauma should have been at least a big, old red flag for people to shut up and cut me some slack, accept me at face value or whatever, but it didn't. This whole "we're surprised Amy has a brain and uses it for ideas different than we're used to" bit was old before I even left home; it was been going on long before the accident. It's a theme that runs back into my childhood quite a ways. 

These two elements are not actually completely wrapped up together, but for my life, and for my experience, trying to make sense of this, while trying to get my head wrapped around daily effing life with a concussion!, it totally is, and I really hope that those around me will start to think a little more open-mindedly, with a little more strength of heart, and a little less auto-pilot.

Infinitely and exponentially above and beyond that is my hope that I always have the strength to keep being me.

concussion included

So then...

I was fubarred beyond belief. Lucky to be alive. Blessed beyond measure that everyone survived. And relieved as hell that I was the one who got the brunt of the accident.

And our accident rendered us stranded in my hometown.

The Tracker was written off.

I won't even post the photos of it because it was a long time ago. I only relay these stories now to continue trudging forward, in a personal commitment to write them down. Why does it matter? I don't even really know now, but I feel that I must; and I'm pretty sure I'll figure out why later.

That entire time in my life, to this day, is almost completely blurred.

I cannot tell you the hell it is to have no sense about you whatsoever and everyone around you not really realize why you are acting like a fool. To be so mentally confused and disoriented that people around you think you are you and assume that because you like like you, you must be you, but you are not.

My ex, Aurora's biological father, was in town. He had moved back there after our hellacious break up that same March. He and his mom, a woman I trust exponentially, took Aurora in while I recovered. My fiance and I stayed at my grandpa's after I left the hospital. Somewhere in there, I visited my dad, who was already separated from my mom; and my mom, who had moved to Nevada, had flown in with my youngest brother upon getting the news of our accident.

I seriously believe that it was my incapacitated state and my daughter being removed from my care, even if out of love and compassion, that wreaked havoc on her already stressed little body and mind. But I was appreciative of my ex's mom's involvement and it was ultimately in Aurora's best interest.

But that would not be the highest majority of issues then.

Because, somewhere in between my dad learning of the wreck and getting to the hospital and my mom actually getting into town, there was some hissy, verbal scuffle between them which resulted in my mom's lividity with my dad.

They had not even gotten along during marriage.

Whatever they were fighting about---the focus of which shifted a few times then---it became the subject of that time period. Erik's wedding had been postponed to the Tuesday. I went in a wheelchair. A small ceremony. Aurora was being passed in between people. Mom and Dad started bickering at the wedding. Someone kicked the other one in the back of the leg while the other one was holding my daughter.

Later on during the stay, there began a discussion of my youngest brother not wanting to live with my mom. She had custody. He was 14. Dad heard his plea. He decided he was going to give my brother his wish. The details are a blur, but there was some kind of exchange. Soon Mom would be going back to Nevada but she could not find Michael. Dad, who was hated by all of my uncles, aunts, and grandpa, showed up at my grandpa's. I heard my uncle say, "here comes the horse's ass." I lit into my uncle, a man who was like my second dad, with the biggest, most uncharacteristic F bomb I ever dropped. I remember feeling very angry and pissy, twenty-four-seven. I remember that F bomb. I don't remember anyone feeling sorry for me.

I pleaded with Kyle to see if he could get his friend's discount at the local Holiday Inn. I remember being in the room. I remember it being dark. The next thing I remember was being told Grandpa had withdrawn his offer to let us take the ancient, old Zephyr back to Bismarck. And I remember feeling dismayed. But I only remember leaving town after that with the Zephyr. I remember passing by the accident site. And I remember the car breaking down halfway between Gillette and Bismarck, waiting on the side of the road for Kyle to go get help. And I remember not being fast enough enough to keep Aurora from wandering near the highway...

It wasn't until we got back to Bismarck that I realized that we had stayed in Gillette about two weeks. The pain was too great to think about taking care of school stuff, which was about to start. I hadn't registered for classes and knew that was lingering over my aching, bashed up head.

In the meantime I learned that my dad's little stunt to help his son get his wish landed his ass in jail. I have heard both jaded sides of this story, of getting arrested, of my mom going to see him in jail to figure out where my brother was, of the police being the ones who pressed charges and not my mom. Of how much evil they could see in each other's eyes. Yadda, yadda. Their stories juxtaposed one to the other. Just like they always did. Just like every time I ever played mediator when I lived at home. Just another of a million reasons they should have never made it 23 years...

I also phoned my uncle to apologize for my F bomb. Even though I was the one fucked beyond repair, even though I was the one with the head injury, even though my mom is a nurse and could have explained to everyone that I was not myself because that's what brain injuries result in, even though all of the crap that happened was because my parents couldn't get their shit together, I was the only one who apologized.