Five Minute Friday-True

Linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five Minute Friday

One word, Five minutes, no editing, no backtracking, just writing...

This weeks word: True

Sometimes the truth is scary, sometimes it is overwhelming, sometimes it is heartbreaking, sometimes it is joyful.  My truth is all of the above.  Right now my truth is scary and overwhelming, it is heartbreaking and stressful, and there isn’t too much joyful truth right now.

The truth is, life sucks sometimes.  Sometimes it’s too overwhelming. Sometimes it’s too stressful. Sometimes it’s too scary.  The truth is I’m tired of living in this truth.  I want an escape from my truth, because sometimes it’s too much to handle.

The truth is my step daughter attempted suicide three weeks ago. I am heartbroken watching her struggle.  She moved back in with us following her attempt, and the truth is I’m scared to death she’s going to try again.  I lay awake at night and just listen and pray that she is okay.

The truth is I have had little, to no support from those I considered friends over the past three weeks.  I’m drowning in stress and fear and sadness and depression, and have no one there to hold my hand, offer a kind word, or just a simple hug.  

The truth is I listen to her talk about being bullied, and alienated, and talked about at school, and how she just wanted it to stop, and I understand that pain more than she can know.  The truth is I can’t offer her anything but lies about what the future holds, because the truth is girls never change, the truth is, she will deal with girls like that for the rest of her life.

The truth is my faith is shaken right now, I don’t know where I belong anymore, I don’t know who I can depend on, or who I can turn to, or who I am.  The truth is I’m drowning.

Home Is Where My Heart Is

Home is where the heart is, well if this is the case, I haven’t been home in over seven years.  My heart resides in the beautiful foothills of the upstate of South Carolina.  My heart is nestled there in the land of the Tiger.  Where everyone knows the rally cry, and everyone is a fan, not just of the team, but of the camaraderie, of the life style, of the tradition.  Tonight I struggle, because I miss home so much, I miss the views, the memories, the electric feeling of football season, the smell in the air when fall is approaching, and my family.  I have days where I just want to go home. Where I just need to be in South Carolina, because things are different there.  It is unexplainable; South Carolina is like no other place I have been. Us South Carolinians have so much pride in our state, in our football, in our people and in our landmarks.  

We go to Myrtle Beach every year for our vacations, despite the fact that everyone down here says Panama is better, or the gulf is better or Destin is better.  I will always go to Myrtle Beach on my vacations, because it’s a slice of happy memories.  For a week or so I am complete, I feel whole, and I can sit on the balcony of our room and breath in that wonderfully salty air and know that I am home, even if it’s just for a little while.

I always said growing up that I wanted to get out of that small Podunk town, I wanted to move as far away as I could because that’s just not the lifestyle that I wanted.  I never knew that one day I would miss that Podunk town, I would miss the Hardee’s biscuits on Sunday mornings, the homes decorated with beautifully colorful lights at Christmas, the sound of the train passing through in the middle of the night, the pride of being a South Carolinian, a warrior, and a tiger.  My heart will always reside in the golden corner, and until the day that me and my heart are reunited, I will be a little bit broken.  South Carolina is where I was born and raised, and hopefully will be where I breath my last breath.  I miss my home.

Women Hell-Bent on Destruction (this one is for you "Samantha Rein")

Society has taught us women that we should battle one another, that we should search out and destroy other women that have different views than we do, about breastfeeding, or diapering, or whether to work or stay home with the children, or whether public or private school is best, or homeschooling.  Society has taught us to fight with one another over the affection of men, over the friendship of other women and over the favor of a boss.  Society has taught us that our biggest enemy is another woman, and sadly it’s true.  You don’t see men trying to destroy one another, and you definitely don’t see men trying to destroy women.  Us women, we like to kick other women when they are down, it’s like we can smell the vulnerability, we can see in their eyes that they are injured or broken, and our animalistic nature kicks in.  We go in for the kill, we add a little salt to the wound, we grind our heels in a little harder and watch as they squirm under the pressure.  Women are downright mean, and it starts as early as elementary school.  I had hope during my high school days that I would one day get out of those walls, out into the world of grownups, and it would be different.  It’s not. I feel like I am still trapped in those awful brick walls with the same bitchy girls that I so desperately wanted to get away from. Except now it’s grown women acting like high schoolers.  It’s grown women running around and flapping their yap about me. It’s grown women that dig their heels into my wounds and try to make me squirm.  Here’s the thing about me though, I don’t squirm.  I’m so immune to the high school bull shit, the war, the battle wounds, and the pain inflicted at the hands of other women that I don’t squirm anymore.  I feel nothing.  While the words of a certain someone were posted in anger towards me on one of my other posts, Healing is Hard, I have not squirmed under the pressure.  I will not give in, I will not break anymore.  I have every right to express myself on MY blog, I have every right to write about a journey of healing a wounded soul on MY blog, and I have the right to have a sob story.  We all have sob stories, we all tell our sob stories to someone, and it’s time we started understanding that other women around us are hurting and breaking inside and they too have a sob story that they need to tell someone, and it’s okay for them to express their hurt and anger.  They should be able to tell their “sob story” without the worry of being looked down on by the eyes of other judgmental women, or being gossiped about, or being seen as vulnerable or weak.  There is only one person on the face of this planet that knows my true sob story, my true journey and the inner workings of my soul, and that is my husband.  No other person under the sun, besides God, will ever know the things that I have been through in this life.  I do not share the things in my life that have hurt me, that still hurt me because I don’t like for people to come along like this “Samantha Rein” girl and belittle that hurt or that experience.   My testimony is one that will never be told, because I refuse to be looked at as vulnerable or weak.  It took a lot for me to write the post about my healing process, that was the first time I had ever posted anything on my blog, it was the first time that anyone heard about the feelings that I had been harboring for the past 6 months, it was the first time that I allowed my raw emotions to show through, and I felt so much better after I posted it.  I felt better because I had finally shared with someone that I was struggling, that I was not okay, but that I would be okay again soon.  That post was all about me, it was all about the things that I had been through, it was about how I was trying to find a place of peace and healing.  It was not about the wrongs that had been done to me or the betrayal that I had dealt with, it was simply about healing.  My momma always taught me, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” (maybe that’s why I’m so quiet all the time! HAHA), I feel like, if you read a post about someone being hurt or you can see in the post that they are hurting, and you have no words of encouragement to offer them, then you need to keep you mouth shut.  The last thing a person needs that is trying to find peace in her life is someone to come along and try and tear her down, so this is for you “Samantha Rein”…

To “Samantha Rein” or whoever you really are: You do NOT know me, you do NOT know my family and you do NOT get to belittle the hurt and pain that I have been through. Since you do not know me you could have no knowledge of whether or not I make up stories, or whether or not I am good at telling my “sob story”.  You referred in your comment to my sibling having done something and that I would not acknowledge what he or she had done.   My “sibling” has done nothing in which I could accuse your said “friend” of doing, and anything that my sibling has done, I assure you, I have no problems acknowledging.  You say in your comment that you won’t be remarking again because you don’t want to expose your friend to this ignorance, but darling, you are the one that is exposing everyone to your ignorance. The things that you said in your comment were a grasp at some form of failed retaliation that just made you sound quite foolish.  Like I said the first time, if you do not like what I have to say on my blog, I suggest that you not read it.  If you insist on continuing this charade, that is fine too, you will not break me down, you will not make me feel belittled, and you will not hurt me.  I will continue writing my blog posts, and I will continue speaking the truth, and I will continue living, despite the hurtful words that you have spoken.  You will not bring me down.

The "Glow" of Pregnancy

I have a lot of friends and family that are expecting little bundles of joy right now.  In fact I have two cousins that were like sisters to me growing up that are both expecting their first child.  It’s pretty amazing and wonderful that they are getting to go through the experience together.  In talking to them, I have remembered a lot of what pregnancy was like for me, and what it was like for some people I know. 

Everyone talks about pregnancy like it is the most beautiful miraculous time of your entire life, and I’m just going to go ahead and call bull-shit on the whole thing.  It is just bull-shit, yes pregnancy is a miracle, and the way a tiny little person is growing inside your body is pretty freaking awesome, but it is far from the beautiful journey that it is made out to be.  For me pregnancy was HELL, and I don’t mean I was just a little uncomfortable, I mean that I was so uncomfortable that I would have done absolutely ANYTHING to get that baby out of me, just so that I could actually sleep at night.  In fact I remember throwing some pretty harsh words and my OB towards the end of my pregnancy, something to the effect of “if you don’t get this damn baby out of me, I’m going to go find someone that will”, he knew I was full of it, but I was SO done being pregnant at that point, I just wanted it to be over.  And forget about eating, everything made me want to throw up, I swear the only thing I could keep down were Tums, I should have bought stock in them, because I’m pretty sure I bought enough of them to allow some senior exec to buy that multi-million dollar beach house they were wanting. 

Everyone talks about that beautiful glow that pregnant women have, well here’s a secret for you, that glow, is not what you think it is, it is a mixture of vomit and sweat that for some strange reason leaves a remarkable shimmer on your skin, however, if you had witnessed that pregnant chick in the bathroom puking her brains out a few minutes earlier, you would understand a little better about how that “glow” got there.  I stayed sick during my pregnancy, everything made me vomit, from the way a restaurant smelled, to one of my kids, or husband ripping one in the car (yeah that really happened, had to pull over and throw up on the side of the road). 

Pregnancy SUCKS.  Between the constant peeing, nausea, indigestion that would kill a fire breathing dragon, back pain, lack of being able to take a real breath, constipation, horrible gas (yeah I said it), acne, and the crushing pressure on your who-ha, pregnancy is just not pretty.  And then there is the almost uncontrollable urge to punch people in the throat, whether it be your husband, children, mother, or some complete stranger that gets in your way in the grocery store. They don’t really have to do anything either, just the sound of my husband breathing made me want to kill him in his sleep.  Then there are the ass holes that insist on making remarks about your growing belly, it’s almost like they just don’t know what to say, so they say whatever comes to mind, like “oh wow look how big you are, is it twins?” or “wow you are getting huge”, these kind of remarks are like fuel for an already burning forest fire, these comments are enraging, and quite frankly it is a miracle that I didn’t punch some people in the throat during my pregnancies.

                                                 This is me towards the end of my last pregnancy, 

                                                                 you can almost see the misery on my face

One of the only good things about being pregnant is being able to eat what you want, and blame it on the baby, and when people make big eyes at how high you have managed to stack the food on your plate at family holidays, you can just smile and say I’m eating for two, and they don’t judge you anymore.  I learned the hard way that doing things this way only sticks you with a fat ass and cellulite for days in the end. 

The thing that I enjoyed most about pregnancy didn’t happen during my pregnancies, it happened after I had the babies.  I had to have C-sections with each of my pregnancies, and afterward I was given a morphine drip for about 8-12 hours, those were the best hours I had had in months, I could breathe again, and rest and I did not want to kill anyone anymore.  That time spent in the hospital was the best for me, to be able to rest, and lay in the bed and have my husband go down to the cafeteria and get me a grilled cheese, and have the nurses bring me medication that took all the pain away every four hours, and if the baby wasn't sleeping, the nurses would come and get him for a few hours so that I could rest, that time was better than any part of my pregnancies, and that is the only thing that I will miss about having more babies.  I am happy to be at the end of my baby having journey, to not be faced with the possibility of having more children in the future, because if I had to do it again, someone would die!  And if for some reason my tubes being tied does not work and I do wind up pregnant, someone is going down!!

School Is IN For The Summer

School starts back tomorrow, and while I have heard a ton of moms say that they are dreading the start of school, and will miss their children like crazy, that is NOT ME.  Since school let out back in May I have been waiting on this day, quietly waiting and counting down the days to take them back to that glorious brick building and drop them off, and drive away!  It’s not that I don’t love or enjoy my children, because believe me, I do, it’s just that, dear God, they are freaking crazy! Between the constant fighting that my two oldest do, and how incredibly insanely crazy and hyper my four year old is, and how in to everything my sixteen month old is, I start feeling a little crazy, okay a lot crazy.  I look forward to the day they go back to school so that I can have my house back with a few less cheerios in the floor, and a few less toys lying around for me to trip and fall over.  I look forward to having a few hours to myself every morning where it is quiet enough that I can hear myself think, and think about real stuff, not just what I’m going to feed my kids for lunch or dinner.  I look forward to being able to take a shower without a four year old wanting me to draw stick people on the shower door with conditioner, so that they won’t fade away.  The first day of school is the beginning of my summer vacation.  I have worked my ass off all summer trying to entertain and take care of my four children  When school starts I have time for myself, time to write, time to draw, time to sit down and watch TV that doesn’t include Spongebob or a Disney movie.  After a few weeks into the school year, however, I will begin to miss the chaos, miss the crazy, miss the interrupted showers, miss the cheerios in the floor, and miss the Disney movies.  I will miss my kids, and will continue missing them throughout the rest of the year.  I will long for the day when I pick them up from that horrible brick building for the last time of the school year, and then I will remember how bad the summers really are, how crazy and exhausting they really are, and then I will long for August, so that I can take them back to that glorious brick building.

"What Was I Thinking"

We all have those moments where we think “What the hell have I done”, or “What have I gotten myself into”.  I hit the “What was I thinking” moment this past Friday, when I decided to take all four of my children back to school shopping in Buford, GA.  My mistake- deciding I could handle all of them ALONE! What an idiot, there are four of them, and one of me!  It wasn’t until I was standing at the checkout in the new Carters store that it hit me.  I was standing there with my coupons, watching as the cashier rang up each item to make sure that they were coming up the right clearance price. The cashier was giving me dirty looks, as were the other workers in the store.  I wasn’t sure what was wrong, maybe I had a booger hanging out or something, but then I heard it, I tuned back into the chaos that was my children and I realized that it was not a booger that was the problem.  I turned around to find my four year old darting in and out of the racks pretending to be Wolverine, my eight and eleven year olds chasing each other around the store and yelling, and my 16 month old crawling around on that nasty floor, because one of his sisters had let him out of his stroller.  There were stacks of shirts thrown in the floor, clothes pulled off the racks and the nice little play area that they have to keep children occupied, yeah, they had destroyed that too. I had totally lost control.  I realized in that moment why I was receiving the “eat shit” and “you need to do something” looks from the clerks.  Any other day I would have been mortified, I would have wanted to crawl under something and hide from the embarrassment of how horribly my children had behaved, but not this day.  I was too exhausted to care.  I had wrangled them for six straight hours, alone, and I just didn’t care what anyone thought.  Then, I had an exhaustion induced epiphany; these people were looking at me through their judgmental eyes, because they had never experienced what it’s like to have four kids in a busy mall, all day, on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. They don’t know what it’s like to keep up with a four year old that loves to talk to strangers, and has no problems telling them off if they get in her way or God forbid, talk to her brother.  They don’t know what it’s like to have an eight year old and eleven year old fight all day about EVERYTHING under the sun, and when they aren’t arguing, they are begging you to spend money on anything they can get their hands on.  They don’t know what it’s like to have a sixteen month old that wants to eat all day, and hates riding in a stroller.  One day though, those clerks will get married, and they will have children, and whether it’s one kid or ten, they will hit that moment where they think “what the hell have I done”.  They will be standing in a store and see their children jumping in and out of clothing racks, and crawling on the nasty floor, and chasing each other all over the store.  They will receive the same judgmental eyes that I did, and then in that moment they will remember that frazzled mess of a lady standing at the register while her children wreaked havoc all over the store that they used to work in, and they will understand.  To all those out there that haven’t been there yet, your day is coming, I promise!  So next time you see a woman looking frazzled and exhausted, offer her some words of encouragement or support, because one day you will long for a stranger to tell you that it will all be okay, and that one day it will be easier, even though you both will know that it’s a lie, because it never gets easier.

Healing is Hard

Healing is not something that happens overnight, it’s not something that happens after a week or even a month, and sometimes it hasn’t even happened after six months.  That’s where I am, six months after I was stabbed in the back by my best friend, and I still haven’t healed.  I’ve said probably 200 times that I’m over it, I’m fine, it’s her lose, but in the end, I’m not over it and I’m not fine.  The wounds we receive at the hands of another through their words, actions, lies and gossip are a lot different than the wounds our bodies receive.  I have had my fair share of bumps and bruises, scrapes and stitches, but all those wounds began healing immediately after the wound was opened.  A wound on our soul is not so easy to heal, it’s not an automatic system our body has that just kicks into action as soon as it receives the message that we are injured.  When our souls are damaged it takes time to heal, it takes venting, and breaking-down, screaming and crying, and praying to overcome the hurt and anger that you have inside.  It’s been six months since my soul was wounded, I have had more bad days than good, I have felt alone and betrayed, I have felt heart break, and hate and anger.  I have struggled for six long months, I have broken down, screamed, cried and prayed, and I feel a little better each day, but there is still a long road ahead to feeling like I’m okay again.  They say time heals all wounds, and I agree with that.  Time does heal all wounds, but those wounds leave scars, they leave weak spots in our souls that will never be the same.  I’m hoping that my wounds are healed sooner rather than later so I can start having more good days than bad.  Today I went down during the invitation of our church service to pray for healing to take place in me, I had a sweet friend come down and pray with me on the steps of the alter.  That simple act helped me more than she could ever imagine, it gave me hope.