Four to go........

There were other relationships here and there, all of which were abusive in one way or another. Maybe the person I was with wasn't abusing me, but really me abusing myself.  I dated one person who was a drug addict.  He was a genuinely nice guy, he just had a problem. I was abusing myself by believing that I could cure him, abusing myself in putting up with all of his drug fueled antics.  Those relationships really aren't much of a conversation piece, because it all leads to the fact that I was an emotional cutter without the actual cutting...if that makes sense. 

After I sent the last winner packing, I was on a roll.  My job was going really well I was making really good money for my age and I didn't have many bills to pay....I was set really.  Except now I had turned to food, it was my new best friend.  People who struggle with addiction usually say the same things about their drug of choice.  The same can be said of food addiction.  I hadn't hit rock bottom or anything but I was in the middle of my addiction.  The beauty of being addicted to food is that it all tastes so dang good! This is going to sound so cliche but I ate my feelings. 

Every emotion was cause for eating, and boy was I good at it. I was an equal opportunity eater. In the midst of the eating I would go through bouts of hating myself for gaining weight, so I would go on one fad diet or another, I would see results from the get go, get excited and feel like it was OK for me to have something that wasn't on my diet.....from that point it was just a downward spiral of gaining all the weight back plus some.  It continued like that until I would hit a plateau.   During all of this I had gone to the doctor because I was always tired and never seemed to have energy to do anything, was either angry at everything or crying at anything.  I figured I needed to find out what was going on. Usually before you see anyone there is this painfully boring  little questionnaire to fill out asking about your health history.    I marked all the appropriate boxes and then got to the mental history........

Am I the only person out there that sometimes has no clue on how to answer some of the questions...like has anyone in your family ever had...insert weird random health problem, and I'm like, well my great great great great grandfathers uncle's nephew had that, so do I mark it??!!

I had heard things about my family, but nothing was ever confirmed.....or really denied for that matter. I had heard through the grapevine that depression ran in my family, so I said what the heck, I'll mark it yes and then talk to the doctor about it.  After getting labs done and ruling out that it was health related, the doc put me on Prozac.  I was also told by doc that it may help with weight loss since my moods would be more regulated.  Woohoo!! 


After being on the meds for a while, I hadn't noticed any change but everyone around me noticed a big change.  When one of my co-workers had mentioned that I seemed happier, I made it a point to track my own changes, and I was surprised at what I found. Things didn't make me angry instantly, I didn't cry at every little thing, like someone looking at me cock-eyed.  I was actually happy for the first time in a very long time....or was I??  Was I genuinely happy or was it the medication sending me to happy land??.....

I struggled with that question for months. I enjoyed feeling more like 'myself' but couldn't shake the feeling that somehow I was turning into a sort of happy zombie.  Whatever the answer I wasn't ready to stop taking the meds just yet, I wasn't done being happy.  Chugging along my yellow brick road, I didn't experience any weight loss....I had hoped it would happen but the bottom line was doc never said it would happen, just that it might.   In order to loose weight you have to eat the right things, exercise ..yadda..yadda...yadda....the problem with that is, I was happy....and I was enjoying food for the taste and experience, not because I had nothing better to do. 

I had a conversation with a friend of mine a few years back and we were discussing our food likes and whatnots, she is a sweets lover and I am a salty lover. I can pass up a brownie any day of the week for a box of french fries. Don't get me wrong, I do like sweets too, because as I said I am an Equal Opportunity eater, I just prefer fried foods, breads, pastas...all the yummy starch filled goodies! 


So how does this all involve my daddy issues and addiction?? When you break it down it really is so simple.  My father is an alcoholic,  the only thing that really matters to him is his drug of choice, not his family or the destruction of said family.  I was rejected by him.  From the gate I felt like I wasn't good enough for my own daddy, why would I be good enough for anyone else??

Three to get ready......

I was home just a few short weeks, when the happy, excited feeling of my last visit with my daddy had started to fade.  I hadn't heard from him since I got home. At first I thought nothing of it because I was getting back into the groove of my normal life in California.  I got hired at my very first job, an exciting time for a young woman. After getting settled into a routine I began to wonder why I hadn't gotten a call from Darryl. After all didn't we have such a wonderful time together?? Maybe he was busy.....maybe I needed to call him.....maybe........


I finally got up the courage to give him a call. It never ceases to amaze me the fear that pops up when I think about talking to him or seeing him, even though he has never been outwardly mean to me.  So I gave him a call after work one day, and the conversation felt forced on his part and at the end of it I was left with my feelings hurt.  I was hurt because I wanted to know what had changed in those few weeks since our reunion, I mean wasn't he happy like I was? It had been 10 years!  I talked to my mom about the conversation and the fact that the feelings of not being loved and not being wanted had surfaced again and I had no clue what to do with them.  She suggested I write him a letter or email and let him know how I felt.  I really didn't like that suggestion....I didn't want to be open and vulnerable...again.....but she was right. I needed to tell him my feelings. 

I sat on it for a few days before deciding I would send an email, I sat down and just poured my little heart out, telling him exactly what it feels like to be left twice. I wrote in the letter how much I wanted him to be in my life, and to share the things I was going through.  I pictured him getting the email, and crying...and feeling like he just had to call me up right away to straighten it all out. I pictured him being my Superman. I was naive. 


For days I checked my email religiously.....obsessively......nothing.  I finally gave up on it and on him.  I went on about my daily life trying to push him and my feelings to the back of my mind. All the while making up excuses in my head about why I haven't heard back from him. I opened up my email one day and there it was. I couldn't help but smile. I desperately wanted to open that email  and have the response I wanted....the response I needed.   I sat and stared at it for a good while,  as much as I wanted to open it and have it be everything and so much more than I wanted, I also felt like I could pass out at any second.   I finally gave in and opened it. Of course it was nothing I wanted and nothing I needed.....but it really was what I expected to get. I expected, because at that point in my life I had started to feel like I didn't deserve anything but that response. I deserved nothing more than that slap in the face...again.

I don't remember the entire email back to me, but I do remember a couple of lines : "I'm sorry you feel that way." ......really.....you're sorry I feel that way, because I could have sworn it has been your actions that made me 'feel this way' and my personal favorite " I've lived my life the way I wanted to, and not the way everyone else wanted me to and I don't regret it."  So you're telling me, you don't regret not having a relationship with your first born child....you don't regret leaving us stranded......you don't regret not being there for me as a daddy should be,  you don't regret the fact that you never paid any child support and that my mom subsequently had to work hideous hours just to make ends meet for us? You don't regret that because of those working hours she wasn't always there when I needed her?  It must feel good to not regret the way you lived your life........................


I should say now, that from this point I start having a series of awful relationships with guys that were less than stellar.  I felt like I didn't deserve any better.  I should also say that this is also around the time that my love for food developed.  I was never a skinny kid, so it's not like this love for food is all that new, but it was a different kind of love now.  

I didn't speak to Darryl again for a couple of years. At 21 I entered into a relationship that I thought was perfect, but painfully unhealthy to everyone on the outside.  It was during this relationship that my daddy issues crept up on me like a scene from a horror movie, or at least it seemed that way to me....I was the poor girl hiding in the closet from the masked killer. I was with a man, and I use the term man very loosely there....who was several years older than me, who had been in jail for domestic violence.  Should have been a red flag right?! Like so many other men who are abusers, he knew all the right things to say to me, and explained away why we had actually been in jail, and like a moron....I believed everything he said.

  The beginning, was wonderful he showed me attention and was affectionate...he wanted me and I held onto that for dear life. Those were the things that I needed so much from my father and I found them in this guy.  The abuse didn't start right away, it was a slow process......first the verbal abuse, kept to a whisper so no one else could hear.....words that cut like a knife, down to the bone. He knew exactly where my sore spot was and would push it like a button every chance he got.  I stayed.  I was young, felt like I deserved it, felt like no one else would love me for who I was....and every time he would say something hurtful to me it was followed up with..."I don't want to say those things to you, but you made me do it" this kind of repetition is what makes the abused woman really believe that it is all her fault and she is the bad seed in the relationship. 


After a while, the verbal and emotional abuse wasn't hacking it for him, so the physical abuse came into play. I make no excuses for this person because what he did was not right in any way, but I will say I was never punched...slapped or kicked.  However, those aren't the only means of physical abuse.  I remember the first time it happened.  I made 'him' mad, and we started arguing, I knew I pushed a button because the look on his face went from a mild anger, to sudden rage.  I was shoved into a chair and like a flying squirrel he was suddenly in the air flying at me ( obviously he didn't actually fly....) before I could move he was sitting on me, one hand on the top of my head and his hand clenching my hair just hard enough to where he could move my head and I would have to look in that direction...which was straight up at him.... and the other hand clamped down over my nose and mouth. I was so scared I couldn't see straight.....I tried not to move....he got really close to my face and started that awful rage filled whisper with spit running out the sides of his mouth.  I have tried so hard to remember what exactly he said to me, but I can't. I can only see the vivid mental picture in my head of his face...I can only feel the fear rolling off my skin ......that was the first and last time he would do that to me.....or so I thought. 


Shortly after this incident, I found out he had been seeing another girl and I sent him packing.  I was so proud of myself, because it took me weeks to get up the courage to break it off with him.  I was done, I was washing my hands of this nasty person and I would move on with my life, and no one would have to know the disgusting things he said and did to me.

Take two......

I know it's out of order here, but I feel compelled to say some things that I left out in the first post.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was 6 months old, so from birth until 6 months Darryl was actually a part of my life, if that is what you want to call it. I also want to say, that in the times I wasn't with Darryl my mom never said one bad or unkind word about Darryl to me, she wanted me to form my own opinion of him without any influence from her or anyone else.

The other thing is, I had a wonderful childhood with my mom, grandparents and close friends. The point of me getting this all out, is to A. Let it go...and B. to show how all of these events have led to the issues I have as an adult and working through those issues to be a better person, with better understanding of who I am. Lets get on with it.

I resumed my normal everyday life back in California with my grandparents and my mom, we ended up moving into a house down the street from my grandparents. I made friends with the neighbors, and to this day I still consider one of those awesome ladies a very good friend. I thought everything would be fine and I would move on from the recent events. Too bad that never really happens right away. From that point forward, it was always the same questions. Why doesn't my daddy love me, why am I not good enough for my daddy....you get the point.

These questions are left unanswered, and it is 10 years before my next contact with Darryl. I was getting my graduation announcements together, and decided to send one to my Aunt and uncle in Oklahoma. I can't really tell you why, but I lean towards the fact that my subconscious wasn't done with Darryl. In the mail they went, and I also sent an extra for Darryl, since I knew he was back in Oklahoma. I only knew this because my mom did keep in contact with my aunt off and on. Just about two weeks after I sent the announcement I received a phone call from my aunt, it was so exciting to hear from her and she wanted me to come to Oklahoma to visit and see everyone again, it had been far too long since we had all been together. This is where being torn on what to do comes back into play. I wanted so much to see them all again and relive the wonderful memories of my childhood stay. I also didn't know if I wanted to see Darryl, so I said I would love to come as long as I saw Darryl when and if I wanted. The plans were made, the flight was booked and soon I would be on my way to my Oklahoma home. I say home because it does feel somewhat like another home, that is where some of my family is. Just like the saying..."Home is where the heart is" a big chunk of my heart still resides in Oklahoma.

I get off the airplane and am greeted by my cousin Mellissa, looking exactly the same and yet very different. I was on a high...the kind that makes you feel like you are on a roller coaster just about to go down that huge drop...excited and stomach feeling like it will jump right out of your mouth at any second. We get to my aunts house, hugs going all around and feeling like I wanted to cry and throw up at the same time. I was relived to see that Darryl wasn't there, and yet found myself wanting to see him. This is all very confusing as a young adult, and sometimes it still feels confusing. We were getting ready to have dinner, when the door opened and there he was.............I wanted to break down and sob right then and there and scream at him WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO ME?! WHY DID YOU GIVE ME ALL OF THAT TO TAKE IT AWAY?! ....I couldn't because behind him stood a blond haired blue eyed girl....Ashley. My little sister.

I can't even begin to tell you how painfully awkward this all was, and still feels for me. I had wanted siblings my whole life, and often viewed my friends as surrogate brothers and sisters. I wanted for us to instantly connect and have it be like we had known each other since the beginning. Sadly it wasn't. Like I said it was painfully awkward, not just for me but for the three of us, daddy and his two girls. I can't speak for Ashley on her feelings, but I can only assume she was feeling as confused as I was. At that moment I decided I just needed to push the questions I had aside because I was more afraid of the answers than anything, but also because I wanted to be that 8 year old again, and have all the good times, and make happy memories.

The visit, for me seemed to have flown by and I had a wonderful time with my daddy again, and even went to a small family reunion where I was greeted with family I had never met, who all seemed to know who I was and wanted to make sure to tell me they loved me and missed me. What a nice feeling, to see so many people and have them say nice things to you. The time I spent there, Darryl's drinking hadn't changed, and this time it wasn't hidden from a child. I was an 'adult' so there was no need to hide it anymore. I had so much fun with my cousins again, and was again left with the feeling that I wanted that life....the life that included my daddy.

I was on my way back to my California home before I knew it. When I got home I was bombarded with questions....how was your trip, did you enjoy it, and the inevitable question of ....How was Darryl....are you OK? That is a hard question for me to answer at a mere 18. I thought I was ok, and I thought everything would be ok....again.......I spoke to Darryl a few times after I left and he asked me to come back and visit him, so we could spend time together just the two of us. The moment I had waited so long for had finally come. Darryl was starting to show me that he did care and he did love me........back to Oklahoma I go, I think it was only a month after my first visit. This visit was somehow different. In a way that I really started to feel a connection to him again. The awkwardness was gone, and it was just a father and daughter trying to catch up. That visit went by even faster than the first! Before I knew it I was back in California. This time I wasn't bombarded with questions, because I was so excited about it that I talked about him as soon as I got off the airplane.

I really wished at times after those visits that my mom would have sat me down and just told me the honest to goodness truth that he WILL disappoint me and it WON'T have a happily ever after ending. The reality of it is this, as a parent you don't want to, and can't hurt your baby like that. Seeing your child hurting, be it physical or emotional is down right gut wrenching. Why would you cause that pain by crushing the hopes and dreams of your baby? I understand now why she didn't say anything to me like that, and only because I have my own baby.

Daddy issues and addiction

It's hard to try and compact your life story into one blog post. I could type up a huge long novel hoping to keep readers attention, but that isn't the reality of it. So what I think I will do, is just break it up into several postings and go from there. I had an intense heart to heart with my mom the other day, it may not have been intense for her, but it certainly was for me.

It all started a couple days before that, when I was laying in bed ( thanks to a slight case of insomnia) and I really started thinking about what makes me tick, what makes me do or not do for that matter, everything, and I believe it all boils down to two things: Daddy issues and Addiction.

I am starting this series of blogs because I need to let go. I need to let go of everything that is holding me back, and not letting me be the person I want to be, let go of every nasty thing someone has said or done to me, let go of all the negative. I don't want you to think this is a pity party, because for me it isn't. This is my way of letting go. You either want to read or you don't, and I understand that.

I'm not really sure on where or how to start, because it is all a maze of things connecting in different ways that lead in different directions but ultimately ending in the same spot. I suppose I will start with my earliest memories........

I was never aware that something was different with my family until the age of about 5. How lucky we are to be young and oblivious. My first memory of Darryl is one of the few happy ones, I don't remember everything from that very first visit since I was only 5, but what I do remember is vivid. My mom was there, we were at McDonald's and it was different than the other McDonald's I had been in, it was like a train, and it had a gift shop. Meeting my 'daddy' was so exciting, he gave me a big hug and a little present. A pink pencil with a little pink bear charm that hung off of where the eraser would have been. From that point it gets fuzzy, maybe because I just honestly don't remember or maybe because I've blocked it out. I can only describe the memory from that very first encounter ( first that I remember anyway) as short and sweet. Later in my life I was told that on the drive home with my mom and grandpa, my grandpa asked me what I thought of my daddy, to which I replied...."I have the best daddy in the world" Little did I know what the best daddy in the world would actually do to my emotional health and stability later on in my life.

I didn't see him or remember any phone calls from him until about 6, when I received a birthday gift in the mail from him. It was a pair of jeans about 2 feet too long for me and a little set of bubble bath and lotion, which I didn't use, not because I didn't like it but because it was a treasure. I kept the jeans for as long as I could, until one day they were gone. I don't think my mom or grandma ( I don't know which one) got rid of the jeans for malicious reasons but simply because I couldn't wear them. I received and made maybe a handful of calls after that with Darryl. One of which was to inform me that I had a sister. Boy was that weird for a 6 year old. At that age I was confused as to HOW I actually had a sister when my mommy didn't bring home any baby. Of course, it was explained to me what that meant and I was over the moon! I was an only child until that point and all of my friends had brothers and sisters, to me it was the best news a girl could get! I couldn't wait to meet my little sister.........that didn't happen until I was much older.

The phone calls became increasingly fewer and farther in between, until I was 8. My mom told me after school one day that we would be going to see Darryl and my other family members in Oklahoma for a vacation. School wasn't out for me yet, so I had to do school work on our little vacation. On an airplane with school work and mom in tow, I was excited once again to see my daddy. From the moment we arrived until the day we left, was nothing but fun. I met my cousins, and we did everything together. There were trips to the zoo and a children's museum. Those were fun, but the absolute BEST memories from that trip were of spending time with my daddy, and having so much fun sitting around my Aunt's house while the grown ups would play their instruments and sing songs. Something out of a movie really. All the while being oblivious to what was happening between my mom and Darryl. When we got ready to come home, I didn't want to leave all of that, I didn't want to leave my daddy and this new found family life and all of the fishing and playing and music. Brings me to tears even now....but for completely different reasons than that of an 8 year old. I had the most wonderful life at home in California with my mom and my Grandma and Grandpa, but this was different....this was new.....this was what I had been missing, but didn't know it until it was in my lap. Sad really that an 8 year old would realize something like this.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I am told that my mom and Darryl were going to take a stab at getting back together and in order for this to work, we had to move to Oklahoma. I was so torn. I wanted that life, I wanted to be a family, I wanted to be with my cousins and do all of those fun things, but I didn't want to leave my grandparents, my school and my friends. At 8 I didn't have a choice obviously and away we went. The day we left in the U-haul is a memory that is burned into my brain ......I had a plastic bag with cassette tapes and my walk man in it, and a few other things to keep me busy during our 2 day drive, but that isn't what sticks out most.....it was watching my grandparents cry. Had I known what was going to happen....I would have lied, cheated and stole to stay with them. To say I had a close bond with my grandparents is really an understatement, and to this day I really can't fully describe it.

When we got to Oklahoma, we stayed at my aunt and uncles house until we got our own house. It all started just as our vacation did, amazing. This was it, this was finally my time.....we went fishing, I started Cheer leading, we had those family music nights, just as before. I wanted to go to the same school as my cousins, but couldn't. I had to ride a bus to my school that seemed like it was on the other side of the planet! In reality it was probably 2-5 miles from my house. My aunt was a crossing guard at my bus stop and everyday after school I would see her, and my cousins. She would make deals with my cousin and I, that if we got A's on our spelling tests or report cards she would give us a reward. This was really the beginning of the end I just didn't know it yet. When we moved into our own house, I started to see less and less of my daddy and I had no clue as to what was going on, I was enjoying everything else, so why would I see it?

One day after school, Darryl was supposed to pick me up at the bus stop. When I got off the bus I went over to my aunt, as I did every day and she told me my dad wasn't there yet, mind you my house was easily only two blocks from my stop, but I was 8 and it was a new place. I wasn't sure how to get home walking by myself there. After waiting what seemed to be an eternity for Darryl to come get me, my cousin Candy drove up and offered to take me home. We pull up in front of my house, the garage door is open, the car is in the driveway. Well, at least he was home right?? Candy walked me up to the door , it was locked. She knocked for far too long and then tried the door in the garage, thankfully it was open because the front door would have never been answered because Darryl was 'asleep' on the couch. Yeah he was passed completely out from drinking all day, there was no getting him up. I ended up going to my aunts house until my mom got off work. This was when i realized something was wrong.

Darryl is an Alcoholic and always has been. The drinking just got worse from there, and never stopped. Christmas is here I am on an airplane going home to California to see my grandparents. Again later I found out that my mom wanted to leave me there because she had already seen where their short reunion was heading. Darryl said no, that I needed to come back to Oklahoma and be a family. A few weeks later I got home from school went to my aunts house ( this became the regular since Darryl was either 'working' or at home drinking) to find my mom home from work early. We were going home to California. Again...later I was told that he left my moms car at her job, with a note. The note said something along the lines of " I didn't want it to end this way, tell Jenny I love her" nice huh?? My daddy was gone, and so was my new family life.

Ice Cream scoop phone

I'm sitting at my kitchen table listening to music and watching Jackson be a complete goof ball. Everyday is an adventure with this little creature! Right now he is sitting on his MACK Truck with trailer power wheels and using an ice cream scoop to have the most interesting conversation ever. Now a days he seems to use everything as a 'phone' and it always cracks me up.

Now that I have my mommy mush moment out of the way, the reason I sat down to attempt at writing anything down is because I heard a song that I like and it made me think of all the times in my life where it seems that music has made me feel a certain way. I have always loved music, and have always had what others would describe as eclectic ( however I would describe it as diverse) taste in music. I have an affinity for Classic Rock and 80's music.....please keep the laughter to a minimum. When someone asks me what my 'all time favorite' band is, I honestly can't answer that because I have so many favorites!

There are so many songs that touch me actually, and I think it is a combination of the lyrics and the person/people singing it. So I figured I would do two things, first I will list some of the songs I love and why. The second thing is, ask everyone if they have special songs that make you feel a certain way or trigger a vivid memory. So here it goes! ( I should note that these aren't in order of my preference, I'm just getting them down as I think of them)

1. Grandpa (tell me about the good old days) - The Judds- Hearing this song brings me to tears almost instantly! I can't even really explain exactly why, I just love this song!

2.Careless Whisper - George Michael ( Seether has done an awesome cover of this one!) -When I hear this song, I have to crank it up, this one makes me feel sad! The song is about betraying trust in someone, and I think we have all done something to a friend or loved one that we've regretted, and wished we could say to the person how sorry we are.

3. Faithfully- Journey- OK I'll be honest, pretty much all Journey songs are awesome to me, but this one ...just gets me....again this one is always cranked up when on, I love this song because it so sweet, he is singing to his lover and telling her she is it. Who doesn't love a love song as epic as this?!

4. Apologize- One Republic- I feel like this song represents a few different times in my life, I've dedicated this song to soooo many different people in my head ...hahaha..now I just sound like a crazy person!

5. Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison - Wow. Whenever I hear this song, I have a very vivid memory from when I was a freshman in high school. Instantly I am 15 again, at the local roller skating rink with my two best friends and their boyfriends, as well as the boy I had the BIGGEST crush on. We had been skating for a little while when we decided to sit down for a little bit, I was sitting on one side of my crush and my friend was sitting on the other side of him, this song came on and my crush put his arm around me and started singing the song to me, I was on cloud nine! I came to find out later that this gem had his arm around me singing "return of the mack" while he had his other arm around the waist of my best friend. Nice huh?? Oh to be 15 again =]

Just to name a few of the MANY on my list. What are your songs and why? Maybe you just have one in particular, maybe you have 10! I'd love to know and have a listen! Will you share???

....Insert deep meaningful title here....

As I am sitting here thinking of something brilliant to chat about, my mind is a big fat BLANK! I'm not sure when this whole blogging thing is supposed to feel natural but it hasn't hit me yet. I do enjoy practicing though! I can't tell you how many journals I have throughout the house that I seldom use, but can't help but browse the Journals section at Barnes and Noble because they are so beautiful. I buy a new one with every intention of getting home and making a pact to write in it every day, but it never happens that way. I will write in it for about a week then everyday life gets in the way....we all know how that can be right? .......

There is one thing that keeps coming to mind the last couple of years, and that is how oblivious we are as children and even young adults as to what is going on in our families. The last couple of years has been traumatic to say the least in my family, immediate and extended. Which lead me to think about my younger days, when family 'happenings' were confined to the adults, and I wasn't affected. Now I wonder how much I actually missed.....what important things happened? Was there as many deaths and traumas then, as it seems are now? I'm sure there were and I was protected to a certain point of those things as a child, thankfully. The first memory I have of a traumatizing event was when I was 11 and my grandma died. I was lucky in the fact that for the previous year she had open conversations with me about being sick and death. I was in a sense "prepared" for her to not be with me anymore in a physical way. She talked to me about her idea of heaven and what she thought would happen to her after her body was no longer willing or able to continue on.

All of these things lead me to the questions I have, that have been unanswered for as long as I can remember, questions about what I really think lies beyond my physical life....I can start out by saying what I do believe, first that there is something out there beyond my life on Earth. Do I know what that is yet? Have I figured out what my Heaven is? The answer is always the same....No. Second I believe without a shadow of a doubt that our spirits and souls stay on Earth even after their bodies betray them for however long is necessary for them to feel they can move on. Do I believe that sometimes we as a whole are faced with things that seem impossible to overcome but somehow we do? Absolutely. Sometimes the answer we come to has to be more than will power or survival instinct right? I have no clue...sometimes I think yes and sometimes I think no.

The problems I have encountered when it comes to religion or spirituality lie within the person/people I have talked to about these things. I should start out by saying a few things about me, my beliefs and feelings:

1. I firmly believe in equal rights for all human beings, regardless of religion, race or sexual orientation, because in the end we are ALL humans.

2. I have a problem with "Sunday Morning" anythings.....I don't believe it is right for a person to spend the week being a bad person and then say they are forgiven of their sins after a few hours in church. If you want to be a good person you should try to do that everyday of the week for your whole life. Knowing that there is no perfect person it is easy to assume that people make mistakes and that is not what this is about, this is about Hippocrates.

3. Judgment. No matter what I have said about my beliefs I was and still am met with someone telling me I am wrong and will be going straight to you know where for it. This just isn't right....because at that point I feel it races past the opinion line with a home run slide into judgment.


I thought that by now I would have answered some of those questions or felt as if the answers were on the horizon, but most often I feel like they are no where to be found. In a sense I am lost, but isn't everyone from time to time?

I do know this, until those answers come to me I will continue to try and be the best person I can be, have a positive outlook on whatever comes my way and have faith that I will come to know what my heaven is going to be.

So my question to you is, where are you in your journey? What do you believe?

Toddlers and .......what?!

So I watched "Toddlers and Tiaras" on TLC the other night, and needed a couple of days to digest that absolute nastiness of that show.

I have many problems with it, and I just have to share them!!!

What the hell is wrong with people first off......I know every mom thinks their child is beautiful and/or handsome as they should, as well as instilling in your child that they should feel the same about themselves...HOWEVER making your child a ego-maniac from the gate is garbage. One mother had twins, and was completely doting on one of the girls, even saying on camera that one was prettier than the other!!!! DISGUSTING! SERIOUSLY?! .........

One mother went on and on about how her kid always won, and usually the big titles....OK we get it your kid is cute and has charisma, but what I am seeing of your "princess, angel, darling....yadda yadda" is a spoiled, entitled, little brat. Blatantly acting out and sending major cries for help, the kind of help only you as a parent can give...try this on for size: take your baby out of the pageant scene, give your child discipline, guidance and some unconditional love and see where your little human ends up. This same woman stated she spent between 65-70K YES THOUSAND on her 5 year old's pageant dresses and misc......do you realize that money could be put away for an EDUCATION?!

Now I do realize though, that there are many scholarships available through these pageants, but do you really want your child to grow up thinking that if she puts on stage make-up, spray tan and fake teeth, that she is going to get whatever she wants? Including an education? I hope these women aren't so ignorant that they don't realize how many kids out there either don't receive any education or struggle to get the most mediocre education that you could hardly call them literate. You know 65-70 thousand dollars would be a perfect amount to put into a college fund, or perhaps a scholarship for underprivileged kids??????

I've know people who have put their kids in pageants, and when their children said "I don't want to do this anymore" they took them out, unfortunately the people in this TV show don't seem to be that type.

I am sure that there is a lot of editing done on this show, as on all the others but I can't help but think these people's true colors shine through the obnoxious things that come out of their mouths regardless of editing.

The woman who had the twins, was at the pageant and the "prettier" one was a complete BRAT, the dad stepped in and said "that's enough, her attitude stinks, she's done" THANK YOU!!!!! Later on in the show the girl who wasn't as pretty( or so momma thinks) won a title and was soooo excited and even offered to giver her sister all of her balloons, the whole time saying "I won, I'm so excited" .....then they cut to a clip of just the sisters talking to the camera and the brat girl is hamming it up while the other girl was sitting there ....then the one girl says to the camera "I won today( or something along those lines) and the brat girl says " NO I won, mommy told me so"

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

As parents it is our responsibility to make sure our kids are given the tools to become decent humans, and when they get to the age where they choose the person that they are going to be, we can only hope that WE as parents have done everything in our power to make sure they become the best they can be. Our kids are so innocent to the world around them, so trusting of everyone it makes me sick to see people exploit them as if they are property. Well guess what...when your daughter becomes pregnant at 15 or 16 or gets some STD because she had the need to get validation from some punk because you made it so painfully obvious that she wasn't as pretty as her sister or wasn't as good as her sister....you have no one to blame but yourself.

I am so lucky to have the mom that I do, and I am equally lucky to be surrounded by people that are wonderful parents.