leslieism

The following may or may not be a true story based on factual events.

Yesterday morning I woke up with a lot on my mind, but the most important thought…..no matter what, life is good.  I sat down at my computer and logged into facebook, checking in first with my gratuity challenge group.  A woman in the group had posted a picture that said, “I will be grateful for this day”…..oh how I needed to see that.  I snagged that gem and re-posted it onto my homepage…inhaling deep breaths of gratuity.

Well, my deep gratuity breaths shortly turned into a soulful, “oh shit” sigh, as my computer powered down….along with anything else in my apartment that was alive due to a source we call “electricity”.

M’kay, first of all, did this make you laugh or at the very least smile?  I hope so, and if not, I highly suggest getting your serious meter checked out.  I laughed because it’s hilarious!  I’m sitting there, in my child size, lime green, Ikea chair….tired and stressed out, but trying to have thoughts only concerning rainbows and cake….and out goes the power because I owe the power lord some money.

After I laughed, I wanted to get mad….but at who?  Damn it!  Me.  I am ultimately the only reason I am now camping.  Oh sure, I could give a few good excuses, sort of, but not really.  Out of all my current troublesome concerns, a $75 power bill should have been crossed off my list first.  Hard to cross stuff off an invisible to-do list.

Ridiculous.  The process of getting power turned back on is ridiculous….and I had to pay a deposit that was twice as much as the bill I ignored.  Silver-ish lining?  I got a brand new account opened with my new/old name, ‘McCue’.  I also learned a lesson.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade and make that shit quick!  Or shoot, if you are given an overabundance of lemons, find other uses for them.  Cuticle cure…zit fix…kill bacteria in open wounds?  I am no doctor, so I really can’t be sure if lemon juice is a good idea for curing cuticles.

What I now know is that I cannot pile my lemons into a basket and shove that basket in the back of the pantry until I’m ready to attempt making lemonade.  Lemons get mouldy and fruit flies will call them home.

Sometimes it’s okay to set problems aside…for awhile.  Sometimes it’s okay to let things work themselves out.  Sometimes however, it makes the smallest of problems grow rather large.  Sometimes it also becomes a habit, a “storing problems” habit and when it comes time to face them…you have no idea where to start.  Good news?  You/I can start wherever and whenever…one thing at a time.  At any point in our lives, or days for that matter, we can choose to start over and make things different.

Now, if this were a true story, my daughter may or may not have said the following while we drove up my parents bumpy, dirt road causing our favorite song to start skipping…….”Aww the power company?”.  I laughed, “No honey, the power company does not control the radio in our car”……..we had a good laugh together.

I sure am grateful for my daughter, our love and our laughter, and of course…electricity…what a splendid invention.

Shoooot boy, I love you so much, I’d cut a bitch and get you yo life-saving salve….and then I’d rub that shit all up in yo sword cut leg.

Lately I have been feeling a bit like Chris Gardner…the guy that the movie, “Pursuit of Happyness” is based upon.  Not so much because I’m a black man or because I’m lugging around awkward medical equipment in hopes of making a sale.  Most assuredly not because I’m good with numbers and hoping to become a stockbroker.  I am most decidedly the exact opposite of “good with numbers”.  Is dyslexia with numbers real or did I perhaps stumble upon a new learning disability?  If I just discovered “math dyslexia”, I guess that makes me a scientist of sorts and after this blog I will begin to find a cure.  Cure makes me think of cake, probably because cake can fix a lot of problems…..how simple……problem? eat cake. Even if the cake itself won’t fix the problem per say, it will taste good and put a smile on your face while you think about effective solutions.

So, I’m feeling like Chris Gardner when he is broke and sleeping in a subway station bathroom with his son. I feel his inner turmoil of taking one step forward and getting shoved two steps backwards.  I also feel his determination to succeed and not willing to settle for anything less than he is capable of achieving.

Chris Gardner never gave up on himself and possibly, this reason alone, may be why he found happiness.  

I may not be an African American man, but I certainly relate to one and learn from one and am grateful to have heard his story.

As I awake from yet another nightmare involving my ex-husband; I finally deduce the correlation between eating ice-cream right before bed and having my unpleasant dreams.  I must admit, I made this discovery while sitting on the couch in the dark, eating another ice-cream bar.  I laugh out loud quietly as I picture my readers thinking, if even for just a fleeting moment, that my ex-husband must have beat me with ice-cream bars.  I myself am puzzled.  He does not work for an ice-cream factory, he is not obese and I see no connection between baldness and ice-cream, nor do I see the necessity in even mentioning his baldness, that was merely for jokes(for the record I think bald is sexy). I can only conceive this notion: eating ice-cream together while watching movies is a pleasant memory and something I fancy I miss.

I do not jest when I tell you that between these two paragraphs, I took a twenty minute break…..pacing in my kitchen, crying and talking to myself.  I discussed, with myself, the simple truth of it all; the fact that my ex-husband is having a baby within the nine months of our finalized divorce, well, I guess it’s final.  He is not coming back for us.  You see, in my fairy tale dream world, he comes back and fixes everything and loves me more than words can express…..and I probably wear a tiara and forest animals help me clean house.

After eight years of hard work, struggle and heartache, why would I cry over a small good memory and more importantly, why would I want him back?  Because my fairy tale dream world is easier than dating.  Because I don’t know if I will ever be able to let another man completely know me.  

Well, I have been writing this short piece for over an hour now and I have eaten 2 more ice-cream bars and leftovers from dinner.  I am almost afraid to fall asleep, because quite frankly, most of my fond memories with my ex-husband revolve around food…..except for the few times we threw it at each other….very angrily.  Strange, I still eat Taco Bell quite regularly and I have thrown it at him after some nasty name calling.  I suppose my whole “ice-cream eating before bed causes nightmares about my ex-husband” theory just got thrown out the front door.  

Dang it, ultimately the nightmares just mean that I got issues…..or an eating disorder of some sort…..either way, they are both going on the shelf because momma needs some sleep.

If by “spy’s”, you mean, “friends”…well then yes, I do have a lot of friends.  If you are seen committing acts of treason it will induce a full report, accompanied by a memorandum and a debriefing session.

Going to the bar is like being on an episode of “The Bachelor”, except with way more drunk sluts…….and trying to find “love” in 4 hours, instead of a whole “season”.

We all have a “hot mess” driving around looking for us, twenty four hours a day, that hot mess searches.  Keifer Sutherland is for sure not driving the hot mess train, intercity transit bus, taxi, limo, bob sled….whatever your hot mess ride is…it is not being driven by Mr. 24, more likely a “carni” with a suspended license.  The truth is, our hot mess is being driven by the little devil that sits on your left shoulder pretending to poke the angel sitting on your right shoulder; the angel saying, “Don’t touch me” and the devil saying, “I’m not touching you and I can keep my finger right here if I want”.

Well, my little devil rolled up in a 69′ baby blue mustang, awhile ago, not quite sure how or when exactly it happened….but I got in the drivers seat. I justified my actions by saying it was better if I was driving then my little bastard devil.  I put on my cool, shell station sunglasses, turned up Nicki Minaj and drove….fast.

Getting quickly to the point, I blew my engine……just like I did 11 years ago, when I was partying heavily and I thought that when the oil light came on…I had 30 more miles…like the gas light.  I played my music so loudly I couldn’t even hear the roaring coming from my engine.

So yeah, my metaphorical engine is blown….hot mess complete.  Damn it!  

I have my work cut out for me this year; I’m questioning my integrity and that does not please me.  Time for me to form a new game plan,  get rid of any negativity and/or chaos I have let move in and refocus.  I need to tell my ego to take a hike and shift my energy….this is where I insert, “You should watch, The Shift, with Dr. Wayne Dyer”.

I must be clear however, it is perfectly okay for me to drive a hot rod…..I just need to pay attention…and be humble enough to drive an electric blue, Dodge Neon…..with a grateful smile.

When your gynecologist changes careers without telling you, well, it must feel the same for a Catholic…..when they go into confessional and find their priest gone…and celebrating Hanukkah. Do I practice abstinence or become a Jew? I feel lost.

You are going to die tomorrow…..are you pleased with your life?  Will you die happy?  Have you been the best person you can be while residing in this world?  

Lately I have received some negativity, mostly about my maturity or rather that I need some.  Here’s the deal, if I die tomorrow….I can die with a smile…….can YOU?  I hope so, however, it’s none of my business.  Just like what other people think about me is none of my business…..I just need to keep reminding my ego of this saving grace.

My ego gets me in all kinds of bad news….not the good kind of bad news, but the bad kind of bad news.  Yeah, we are talking “National Enquirer” kind of bad news.  I recently let my ego allow a guy into my life that treated me poorly.  My ego kept telling me that he was going to be nicer to me soon….because I’m special.  Well, I taught my ego a lesson (hopefully) because it did not end with me feeling special…unless you consider trash special.

I am in control of my own self-worth, my happiness, my success…..I define myself.  What do you want your definition to say?

This week has been troublesome for me….the crease in my forehead may have even deepened and I made a new little buddy, I call him Mr. Grey Hair.  On one particular day, as the world took a nap on my shoulders and my eyes were looking for any excuse to unleash the wetness from within; I was confronted with the angel of perspective.

A beautiful woman in her early twenties with a head lacking hair, tears in her eyes and carrying her two year old daughter, visited my line at work.  I asked her if she was okay and she chuckled a chuckle that told me she couldn’t believe what was happening, while shaking her head.  Perspective.  

I may have  a child in therapy, money problems, relationship issues of all varieties…….I am lucky.  I chuckle a chuckle that says that I cannot believe I forgot how lucky I am.

If I die tomorrow…….I hope I enjoyed the shit out of life while I could and I mostly hope I treated people kindly and with as much love as I had to offer.

I also hope I wasn’t afraid to give hugs and that I gave them freely and without judgment.  I wanted to give that woman a hug, but I thought too hard about it, so I didn’t.  I am still sad today that caring about what other people would think, influenced a much needed hug.

Hug freely, smile, mind your own business and define yourself.

Have you ever had a mini mountain of pain, commonly referred to as a pimple, that was not ready to be played with…..but you couldn’t keep your fingers to themselves? Your ego egged you on…telling you that you have iron man strength and that zit, ready or not, did not have a chance? Did you squeeze passionately, realizing your fingers were merely the fingers of a 33 year old woman and not those of a super hero….tears beginning to well up in your eyes……such intense pain, you start to feel faint…..you stop squeezing so as not to pass out….because for the love of God, I have a child to raise! Do you now wish you could get an epidural, realizing that this baby ain’t coming out painlessly??