Just, Some Nights …

I have been known to be a little obsessive over things. Sometimes, obsessions are good. For example, when I obsess that I have to smell good. That is an obsession that inadvertently makes everyone else happy. No one is offended by Gail’s smell. Gail is not the one who leaves the foul odor behind in the grocery store aisle. However, when I obsess over the fact that I think I was rude at work accidentally, and spend the rest of the day literally feeling nauseous because I don’t want people to think I am an insensitive jerk, that might be an unhealthy obsession.

Another unhealthy obsession is thinking you are a horrible mother, when in fact, you know you are not. Just, some nights … after a day of being nauseous at work (see above), you might feel like the fact that the only thing that is making your night bearable is that cheap glass of wine you love to drink. It relaxes you. It takes the edge off. It makes you able to not feel the need to correct everything out of your beautiful, intelligent, sometimes frustrating teenage girls’ mouths. It makes you more of an accepting person.

But then, you start to obsess that you drink too much or that you are a horrible mom just because you have a glass or two of wine at night. This, my friends, is not a good obsession. This is a spiral into the pits of self-pity and self-hatred, obsession. A.K.A. a bad obsession.

I say, enjoy your nights. Take a little edge off. Have a drink or two if your oils, meditative breathing, and self-talk aren’t working.

Feel free to tell me I’m wrong. Feel free to tell me I’m a horrible mother because I don’t enjoy listening to my daughter’s argue over You Tubers. (Should that even be capitalized??) But know, that I toast your admonishments with a glass of cheap, low-carb wine. Care to join me?

Wanna Be

There are a lot of people in the world who just seem to know and understand their identity. Falling into easily identifiable groups is as natural as breathing to them. They associate themselves as a “mom” or as “someone who likes to live in a big city” or “I have always wanted to be a doctor” et cetera. I, for one, am definitely not one of those people. In my very first blog post Simply put … (written all of yesterday, haha), I mentioned that I do not know what my passion is. I don’t know where I fit. Many times I feel like the majority of other people have it figured out, and I am just over here bouncing between identities like a ping-pong ball.

In high school, the identity I created for myself, at least in my own head, was that I wanted to be true to myself. That I would always be honest, and that if I said something, I had to stick with it. I was loyal to my actions and comments to a point that made me afraid to change, because obviously, if you change your mind about something … you are a fraud or a wanna be. Obvi, right?

Holy moly was I wrong. If we don’t learn new things, explore new experiences, and let these ideas penetrate our being, we never grow. We never evolve. We never find our niche.

The problem for me is, I have now experienced and learned about a fair amount of things and, like Pink, I want it all! I can listen to Tim McGraw’s, “Where The Green Grass Grows” and fully immerse myself in the fantasy of living on a large piece of land, the tall grasses are swaying in the breeze as my husband and I sit in our rocking chairs, listening to the peaceful river. Sigh. That sounds heavenly. Time will just slow down, how I look in a bikini will not matter, I can bake homemade bread, and cookies, and our family will come back for holidays, and I just won’t have a care in the world.

But, I will! I will have a care in the world!

The song changes to Jay Z’s, “Empire State of Mind”. I want the streets to make me feel brand new! I want the big lights to inspire me! I want someone to have to slip me an Ambien because my city never sleeps! I want to put on my Christian Louboutin heels (which, for the record, I do not even own, but this is my fantasy … leave me alone!) and my black pencil skirt suit, and walk the streets of downtown Manhattan to my high-powered job! (Another confession, I have never been to New York City and I am not even sure if there are “high-powered jobs” in Manhattan at all, but it sounds good in my fantasy, so I am rolling with it!) I can see myself having “business dinners” or “meeting clients for cocktails”. My apartment is amazing. It isn’t too modern, because that is not my thing, but it is clean, and comfortable, and of course it has a view that most of us only get to see in movies (Um … yup, that would be where I got the idea from)! And my husband comes home from work with the kids …

Wait … I don’t want to have some high-powered job that takes up all of my time so that I cannot spend quality time with my family. I don’t want my kiddos to live in a place where they do not even have a yard to play in. And what about my dogs? And my chickens??

So, I actually don’t have chickens. But I want them. I want to wake up in the morning and gather my own eggs for breakfast and put onions and spinach and tomatoes from my own garden, that is fertilized with compost from my worm composting bin, into my family’s omelets. I want to quit using most of modern medicine and try to cure the majority of my ailments with my essential oils and meditation and acupuncture. I want to quit my job, home school my children and be self-efficient. I want to live in a tiny house and

Where would I put the beautiful 11 foot Christmas tree we just bought last year? I need my big house with the tall ceilings so that I can fit all of our ornaments on our tree. I need space to get away from my children (I love them, so much, but let’s be real … we still need space) And I need the big house to decorate and put cute things on the walls and make it match my Pinterest boards.

But, cute things cost a lot of money. Well, to be honest, the things that my husband and I tend to like cost a lot of money and I don’t want to trap our limited funds in our house only. I want to take RV trips and go fishing and light campfires and cook with a cast iron skillet!

I also want to take impromptu trips to Mexico to lay out on the beach and be pampered.

I want to provide the best life for my kiddos by giving them experiences in life they can learn from but I also want to be selfish and give myself those experiences.

I want to hit Megabucks and prove to the world that I will still be a kind person and not let all of the money influence me

I want … ugh … do you see my dilemma?? I could quite literally continue this post for pages and pages, but it is starting to stress me out. I guess what I need to do is remember that I am me. I, and all of my contradictory ideals and fantasies, are my niche.

That’s it people! I AM MY NICHE! (Yay! Confetti is falling from the ceiling, people are cheering, tears of joy are cascading down my cheeks! A revelation has been achieved! One sticker to the blog! It is working for me already! Thank you for sitting next to me while I achieved this milestone!)

The song now changes to Whitney Houston’s, “Greatest Love of All”.

Haha, I am a little bit cheesy and a lot a bit all over the place, but can you relate? Do you know your niche? Do you belong somewhere or do you belong all over the place, like me?

Featured

Simply put …

Thanks for sitting next to me!

Well, maybe I am not exactly talking to you. I guess that is a rude way to start a blog, but when I was trying to decide on what my passion might be in life, I thought of sharing my ideas in a public space. When I thought about sharing my ideas in a public space, I thought of WHAT THE HECK AM I GOING TO TALK ABOUT? I tried to think of things that matter to me. I tried to think of things that other people might like to read. I tried to think of how I could be the best blogger in the world. I tried to think of what the word “blogger” even meant. I tried to think about not being completely and utterly scared. I tried to just not think about it and do it … and I am not very good at just doing things … so I thought of my husband who is always my “human Xanax” and I decided to just do it! Yay! ( Okay, between you and me, I am literally sweating right now that I just started this whole thing, but that’s okay … I think.)

Why the longest domain name (I think that is what it is called anyway) in the entire world? It is something I say to my husband. With all of the crazy in my life (which is probably mostly fabricated in my sweet little, over-worked mind), I have to remember that all of the good … all of the amazing things that bring joy and sweetness, can be narrowed down to simple actions. A man sat down next to me at my cousin’s husband’s surprise birthday party. Simply put … he sat down next to me. And minus one little hiccup, as my husband likes to refer to as his “shotgun approach”, we have been together ever since. He is not the person who grounds me, he IS my ground. He is simply my favorite.

I have three main people that I talk to about everything. My husband, my sister, and one of my amazing coworkers. I have other friends who get snippets of things going on, but I don’t frequently share everything going on because we all have our own lives and … dang it Gail, keep it simple! Basically, I need a place to clear my head. To put things into perspective. To remind myself that even though I have, what I consider to be, a whole lot of crazy (my husband always says it is just the right amount) up in my head, everything can be broken down into simple acts.

In other words, if you want to feel normal … read my posts. If you want to not feel alone because you struggle with the endless stream of consciousness in your head and you want to share them but are slightly afraid … read my posts. If you just want to support me because you are a kind person … well, I think you get the point.

I think I am supposed to start creating ideas for blog posts now, or something …