Father Time, I want more time.

It makes sense, you age then your parents and grandparents are aging as well. Just because it makes sense and that is the truth of the matter it doesn't mean I have to accept it.

This past week has been a serious slap in the face that my parents are getting up there in their age. My mom just turned 60 earlier this month, my dad is 58. Both of them have arthritis, my dad has had three back surgeries (plus numerous others) and my mom has diabetes and is starting to have nerve issues because of it. They can feel it in their bones when bad weather is coming. Both of them have issues walking because of everything 'getting older' in their bodies.

Then to add insult to injury my Grandmother was admitted to the hospital on Christmas for congestive heart failure. She is trying to play it off like nothing is wrong, but we hear differently in her voice when we talk to her. I grew up with 2 grandpas and 3 grandmas. Both my grandpas passed away before I was 17, one grandma died when I was 20, the other died earlier this year. All I have left is the one that is in the hospital as I type this.

I was extremely close to my dads dad, when he passed it hit me very hard. I was unable to even talk about it for two years without crying. My dads stepdad died when I was too young to even know what was going on. I remember him being very sweet and always sliming. My moms dad, I never knew and my mom didn't know him much either. My moms mom passed when I was 20 and I couldn't stand her. She treated me like dirt and I refused to accept how she treated me. My dads step mom passed this year and I never got along with her. She made it obvious that she didn't like me. I only went to her funeral out of respect for my grandpa. My dads mom is the last grandparent alive. I am not as close to her as I wish to be but I love her to death. I call her when I have the chance, I go see her when I have the chance. She is also the only great grandparent my son has ever known. He loves going over to her house because she always has candy out and won't let me tell him to stop eating it.

My grandma has one lung and it is only 1/2 functional. There is oxygen being pumped through her house. The summers are so hard on her. She can barely leave the house without getting weak. I called her this morning to see how she was feeling and I could hear the slight fear in her voice and how hard it was for her to talk. It hurt my heart. I live 15-20 minutes away from my grandma. I need to make a harder effort to see her once a week or once every other week. I don't want to feel like I could have spent more time with her like I did when my grandpa passed 12 years ago.

I want to rewind the clock so I have more time with everyone. I don't know how to imagine my life without my parents in it.

Dream from Hell

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you wake up and go "What the hell?" Well, that happened to me the other night.

My son and I were back living in a homeless shelter. Because of where we were living my son had to go to the school that the shelter was in contract with. It was something I didn't understand but I knew he needed to go to school so I didn't say anything. On his first day of school I decided to ride the bus with him and the other kids from the shelter. I had to get to school myself and there was a bus stop down by his school that would get me to school faster than catching the one by the shelter.

We get to the school and they offered to give me and my son a tour of the school so we could see everything they offered. I am always curious about what the schools are like that my son has to be in. When he has been in more than 8 schools in his short little life I always want to make sure that the school is up to par and that my son will benefit from being there.

After the tour my son and I are standing around talking to some of the adults from the shelter that came with us. Then out of nowhere this woman walks up and I hear her say "Oh my God! He's the one! I want him!" I turn around to see her pointing at my son. My response was what the hell is she talking about? The woman walks up and takes my son by the arm and starts to walk away with him. Before she could get more than 2 feet I grab my sons are and tell her to get the hell off my son. She looks confused and turns the to person that was standing next to her. I couldn't hear everything they were saying to each other but I did manage to hear "these kids are for adoption, including him, right?"

HOLD UP! Adoption? Before anyone can say anything else I scream "He is my son, he is NOT for adoption. This is supposed to be a school. What the hell kind of school adopts out the children in it without telling their parents?"

The shelter we were in takes all the kids to this one 'school' and while the kids are in school they get adopted out. It may not happen their first day there but by the time their parents are ready to leave the shelter the kids are gone and there is nothing their parent can do.

I grabbed my son by the hand and ran as fast as I could out of that building. As soon as we hit the front door and were about to make it outside a hand touched my shoulder and I woke up.

I was in a cold sweat when I woke up. I had never been so happy to be awake but everything felt so real in my dream at the same time. I wish this dream was one of those that I could forget, but that hasn't happened yet.

The night I saw "Darkness Falls"

I was 19 years old and went with a group of friends. I love scary movies so I knew there was no way in hell this movie was going to scare me. I was WRONG!

My friends dropped me off at my place after the movie, I was living on my own. I was fine walking in, but then as soon as I unlocked my door I started to panic. Before I even opened the door I am mapping out my place and where are my lights were. I was trying to remember if I left any of my lights on or if my apartment was completely dark.

I push the door open to see that my apartment was TOTALY dark. Thank God the light in the hallway was bright enough that I was able to walk into my place to the first lamp and turn it on. Once that lamp was on I closed my door and locked it. I stood in that spot for a good three minutes trying to decide if I could turn on the other lamp and get to my room if I had enough light from the first one to turn on my kitchen light.

Then I remembered I had my broom sitting next to the fridge because I was too lazy to walk the 5 extra feet to put it away earlier that day. So I grabbed the broom and held the broom part to use the handle and flick on the kitchen light. Once the kitchen light was on I went back and turned out the first light then ran as fast as I could back to where the kitchen light was shining. Then I reached in the bathroom and turned that light on while pushing the door all the way open.

Standing next to the bathroom door I push my bedroom door open and just freeze. There are no over head lights in my room and the only lamp in that room was all the way by my bed. On the other side of the room. How in the hell was I going to get that light turned on? I figured I would risk it and hauled ass to the light to turn it on. The light was bright enough that I was able to go to my door and reach to turn off the bathroom light, just barely, almost fell on my face.

Once In my room I shut the door and got ready for bed. I climbed in bed. Pulled the covers over my face so I wouldn't accidentally look at any tooth fairies that might be in my room and turned out the light.

Thank God I was safe and in bed!!

NOT! Not even one minute later I realized I had to pee sooo bad! I laid in bed trying to decide if it was worth all the work to get the bathroom light back on or just say fuck it and go to bed and pray I don't have an accident. I decided to risk having an accident and went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and text my best friend about what I went through when I got home. She didn't let me live that down for an entire freaking year. Almost 10 years later I am no longer embarrassed by what I went through and am ready to share it with the world!

Are you sure you see me here??

My entire life I was the odd kid out. I have been shy for as long as I can remember. I am not big on talking to people I don't know. And I do not make friends easily. Once I make a friend and I get used to them I am a completely different person. I can open up, I can let lose (to an extent) and I have no problem being close to myself.

I got picked on a bullied a lot growing up because of how I acted, dressed, looked, and everything else under the sun. I always felt like the few friends I had were "to your face" friends, but that it was completely different behind my back or if I wasn't around. They would talk to me in school, a few would call me outside of school, two would hang out with me on the weekends and during breaks.

If I had a birthday party I would invite all my friends but none of them would show up 90% of the time. There were a few parties where people did show up and those meant the world to me. My 16th birthday, as an example, my friends planned a surprise party for me. They "kidnapped" me at my house. They put a blind fold on me and shoved me in the truck. Then they took me out to eat at Subway. I knew where we were because of the smell, but they kept the blind fold on me and shove me in the bathroom. Then about 3 minutes later they let me out and there was cake and presents on a few of the tables. They knew that was my favorite place to eat back then. Then after that they blindfolded me again and took me somewhere else. They took me to the skating rink. A lot of them loved to roller skate, but they knew I was horrible at it so they all made sure that they helped me out and got me comfortable. That was an amazing birthday.

Then when I dropped out of high school a week before my Junior year all except one stopped talking to me. One even turned against me and would treat me like absolute dirt every time she saw me and would tell me that I just ruined my life. They when I got pregnant at 19 she treated me worse. The one that stuck around has been my best friend since I was 14 and she was 13. Our friendship is going on 14 1/2 years now.

In August of 2009 I moved to a different state to get away from an ex boyfriend. I lost the comfort of having friends to talk to and hang out with. I was alone with an aunt that was more abusive than the boyfriend. I started college out there almost right away too. I would have kids I would talk to in class, but that was about it. All the kids were 18 and fresh out of high school and here I was at 25 with a 5 year old kid. We didn't have much in common with each other at all. When I started working there would be people I would talk to at work, but it never went past that.

Finally in March 2011 I moved home. Everything was different though. I was living 40 minutes away from where I grew up and my friends were. My best friend had her second child and was planning her wedding. She was spending more time with her other friends. I just lived too far away for us to hang out like we used to. We used to be connected at the hip. We still talk. We text a few times a week. I see her every once in a while. We send each other stuff on facebook. She is like a sister to me and always will be, but things are different. As it should be expected when you move a 4 day drive away.

With me not having my own transportation or money I have always felt like its a burden on people to want to spend time with me. I can't go and do the things they like unless they are willing to pick me up and pay for me. I can't go to them, they have to come to me. I feel like I have to invite myself to certain things. Or push people to come to something I am trying to do.

Now I am dealing with trying to make new friends.  I have lived in this town going on two years now. I must be wearing a sign that reads "Don't speak to me. I don't want friends. I am secretly a bitch. I hate all people, that includes you. I am younger than you. And you must pretend to be so cool you can't talk to me." because none of the moms even attempt to say more than "HI" to me, and that is as we pass each other when picking up/dropping off our kids. I have even gone out of my way to say things to these moms before and I get the whole "Cool kids" response. They look at me weird, reply, then turn their back to me, or just pretend I'm not there. I have never had an easy time making friends, but I have never gotten the cold shoulder from moms for two years in a row before. Its hard enough that I don't have friends, but they way they treat me prevents me from trying to set up 'play dates' for Elijah. The one mom that seems like she would be a good friend only speaks ASL, she has no speech at all. That makes it kinda tricky. I know "Hi, my name is _____" and "stupid pig" in ASL. Can't really repeat those over and over without her thinking I have lost my mind now can I? 

I thought cliques were bad in high school. They are TEN TIMES worse when it comes to moms. Maybe its because their kids grew up together and only being here two years I am still "new" and they don't want to talk to the new mom. Or maybe they are threatened that they are all in mid-late 30s and I am still in my 20s. Maybe they don't take pity on the "poor" mom. Or maybe I just ooze pure awesome and they are intimidated by my "so much awesomer (yes I said it) than you" oozyness. 

I mean I really do try to talk to the other moms during class parties or PTO meetings, but it gets passed over real quick. All the other moms text each other, call each other, are facebook friends, their kids hang out together all the time, they ride share with each other, and I have yet to see an "outsider" join their club. Our kids have been in the same classes with each other since 1st grade, but I am still on the outside looking in.

One of these days it won't be such a challenge for me to make friends. At least that is what I am hoping for.