Drugs are bad mkay? I smoked but I didn't inhale :)

Got it ???

This could happen to you! You have been warned.

Couch similar to the one I sat on for three months.

If I ever play...and then win the Lotto. The first thing I'm buyin' is a Popemobile.

Sweet tattoo I did on my own hand. And no...that picture is not out of focus. It just looks that bad. Say NO to drugs people!

It may come as quite a shock to you, but I may or may not have experimented with some drugs over the years. I know that doesn't surprise anyone. The reality is that my experience has been pretty limited in my 40 years of life...that probably shocks you more than anything...and I understand that. The truth is, I never did much of anything until after I graduated from college and moved to Athens. I was pretty much straight edge in high school with the exception of the time my parents got me and my best friend drunk on shit like black berry brandy and peppermint schnapps just to watch us puke my junior year...and we did puke...a lot. I actually thought about becoming a DEA agent for a while because I was so anti-drug after watching my brother and others around me end up in the gutter. I joined the Army at 17 and got out the same week I graduated from college. I was randomly drug tested that entire time, so I never did more than have a drink here and there during that time. I was in a band that toured Europe which included going to Amsterdam every time and I never smoked once. I'm probably the only one in the band that remembers anything from those trips. Speaking of trips...and Amsterdam...reminds me of a little story....that has nothing to do with this topic...but I'm gonna tell you anyway.

So we had played a show in Amsterdam at a club called the Melkweg and we were heading to a after party in our honor. So we stayed in our stage clothes, which for me included thigh high platform boots, a corset and they gave me a bottle of Jaigermeister to carry because I was the only one in the band that wouldn't drink it...Well there may have been a few times, but I don't know if I have the courage to tell you what happened when I did :) Maybe if a drink a shot or two, I'll blog about it one day. Anyways, we were all bad ass and shit marching through the streets when all of the sudden my feet flew up over my head and I ate shit. I looked behind me to see what I slipped on and there was a fucking banana peel on the ground. It was straight out of a cartoon. I was waiting for the Road Runner to fly by and an Acme anvil to drop on my head next. I'm pretty sure one of my band mates wet his pants laughing at me as he pulled me up. The important thing is I managed to save the bottle of Jager, but not my bloody bloody elbows. I have never felt COOLER in my entire life. No drugs required...just pure grace and elegance.

Moving on...where was I? Oh ya drugs...

So I moved to Athens in 1998 to become a tattoo artist. Needless to say, my first year of tattooing was not my finest. I had a really hard time sleeping because I'd lay in bed thinking about the tattoos I had done that day and the ones I'd be doing the next day. You'd be amazed at what people will do if it's free. I'd be like "Hey, you want a free tattoo? I've only done 2 and they looked like shit and yours probably will too, but it's free...And one day when I'm better, I might be able to fix it or cover it up...maybe" And 99% of the time they would say "Hell Ya! Put it on me!" So after about a year without sleep and trying various sleeping meds, somebody I tattooed with said "Dude...you just need to smoke some weed." And one day I did. And I tell you what...slept like a mother fuckin' baby that night. Not a care in the world. Shortly after, I was in a relationship with another tattoo artist who was a total pot head and I smoked quite a bit of weed during that time.

Then there was the only carefree moment of my entire life. For the most part I have always been super responsible and goal oriented. I have never gone off the rails too bad except for the summer of '99. And let me tell you ...THAT was a good time. I'm not promoting drug use and for the most part, I think drugs are a really bad idea unless they are relieving pain or helping somebody to cope with an illness. And the bottom line is, I'm way too cheap to be a drug addict. I would never pay for that shit. I rather get a new pair of shoes to be honest. And I'm pretty sure I didn't spend a dime on drugs at that point because I was a body piercer and a tattoo apprentice and couldn't afford to eat let alone buy drugs. But I managed to get high with a little help from my friends that summer. That was the year of ecstasy in Athens. I sat on a couch in a second floor apartment on Clayton St. for about 3 months looking out the window and watching all the crackheads dance. Someone would roll by and drop a pill in my mouth every once in a while and I just hung out. People that know me, know that I have stranger danger...I don't talk to them. I'm not a hugger and not really into space invaders...I would prefer to live in a bubble if it were possible. If I could travel in a Popemobile instead of walking down the street, I'd do that shit in a minute! Ecstasy took all that crap away. It was such a relief to want to talk to strangers and hug it out for absolutely no reason at all. Everybody was happy and having a good time. I wasn't worried about paying my bills, or the future or anything at all. My biggest concern during that time was hoping a REALLY good song would come on next. I remember people talking about me. They would be like "That girl has been in that same spot on the couch for like a week." And I'd be like..."It's been more like two! Why don't you come sit next to me and I'll tell you about all the things I have seen from here :)" It was like I was part of the couch and there was a constant flow of new people that would come and sit down next to me. It felt good to have the ability to bullshit with a total stranger and love every minute of it. Eventually, I got off that couch and moved on with my life. 

During that time, I also tried cocaine. I honestly don't get that shit at all. I can't believe how much money people spend on that stuff. Sure, I was a little more chatty and definitely had a little more pep in my step but other than that, not really that exciting. I rather spend my $100 on three shots of espresso and you guessed it...a new pair of shoes than buy that crap. I did however manage to leave a permanent reminder of that experience on my body. So... I didn't actually sleep that night...NEWS FLASH! and went to work the next day. I decided it would be a really AWESOME idea to tattoo a stick figure of a happy vampire bat on my hand in my spare time with my spare energy. Most of the time, tattoos on the palm of the hand fall out because the type of skin and the wear and tear that your hands go through. I figured it would be temporary....not so much :) I really drilled that shit in there...that bitch is with me for life. SUPER!

That's pretty much my drug history in a nutshell. With the exception of the the whole reason I sat down to write this blog...It was supposed to be about the Mother's Day Helen, GA Drug Bust of 2000something. Can't remember the exact year. Maybe 2001???? It's hilarious, I assure you, but this shit is already too long. I'm boring myself at this point...but stay tuned...I'll tell ya all about it :)

Do more if you expect more.

I woke up this morning thinking a lot about expectations. For a long time, I have said the "The key to happiness is low expectations." I said it, and I wanted to believe it because that would make life easier, but I don't. Never have, never will. I wasn't raised that way.

My brother Tad and I grew up in the same house, but turned out very differently. He was kinda the bad seed to begin with and then used some bad things that happened to us as an excuse for his bad behavior. If there was a chance to make the wrong decision or take the easy way out no matter what the cost, he took it. Tad was a runaway his entire life until he dropped out of high school at 14. Since then, he has spent his life in and out of rehabs, mental institutions and jail. He is 42 now and not much has changed. He has had a few good years here and there, but always seems to fall off the wagon.

My parents expected the worst out of him but always had a tiny bit of hope that he would get his shit together one day. They took him in over and over and he turned on them every time. I gave up hope years ago I'm sad to say, but I understand my parents love for him. Finally, a couple years ago, Tad attacked my mom while he was living with her in an attempt to get her pain medication. He went to jail and my parents have a lifetime restraining order against him. It's a sad day when you lose all hope. And once it's gone, it's gone forever.

When we were growing up, there were very different expectations on us. I was expected to get straight A's, be a star athlete and ALWAYS do the right thing. If I got a B...my parents were very disappointed. If my brother even showed up to school, that was progress. If he managed to get a D- in one class, that was considered success. They expected nothing out of him. If he actually made a good decision or didn't totally fuck something up, he was rewarded. I didn't get a lot of rewards for doing the right thing, it was just expected.

My whole life up until this very moment, I was pissed off about that double standard. It felt so unfair. My brother was 2 years older than me, and I felt like I spent my life making up for his bad behavior. I felt like my parents pushed me to excel to cover up the embarrassment that was Tad. And this may be true. I don't know what their reasons were, and I'm not sure it was a conscious decision on their part. The bottom line today...in this moment...is that i'm happy they expected more from me. It made me who I am today.

Some people think I expect too much out of life, friendships and relationships. And maybe I do, but that was instilled in me. I was raised to try my best every time. To do things right every time. When I dust, I pick shit up, I don't just wipe around it. When it comes to my work, I never feel like I know enough or my class was good enough. I always feel like there was something I could have done better. I never want to become complacent with my life or how I treat the people I love. Do I make mistakes and bad decisions? EVERY DAMN DAY! I do my best to recognize those mistakes...it may take a second, a day, or a year, but eventually I will see the error of my ways. I'm not perfect..FAR from it. But I'm trying to get a little better every day.

There have been several people in my life that have said I expect too much from them. I didn't ask for anything more than they wanted from me. They expected a lot from me as well, they just didn't feel like they needed to return it. I have been in relationships where I gave them everything...my walls were totally down and they took it for granted. I guess they liked a good challenge. I gave my love away too easily and it wasn't exciting enough for them. Slowly I expected less and less from them until there was nothing left. Of course once I left, NOW they were ready to love me and give me the world. But they were too late. My hope was gone.

I have been on the other side of things as well. There have been people that gave me everything, and I took them for granted. Not intentionally. Looking back I guess it was because deep down in my heart, I knew we weren't meant to be together and I wasn't able to open my heart to them and be vulnerable. In some cases, I knew and didn't have the balls to tell them. I didn't want to break their hearts, but in the end I did anyway. In other cases, I didn't know until later. Some of them were really amazing people and I wanted it to work so badly, I was blinded by the fact that it wouldn't.

Now a days...I'm trying to not make any promises I can't keep. I'm not going to tell somebody something they want to hear, if I have no intentions of following through. What is the point of giving somebody hope, when there is none? It may make them feel better in the moment, but when they realized you were lying, the pain is far more severe.

If you expect less from people, that is exactly what you will get. My brother is the perfect example. Do you want to be the person people expect more from or less? Do more.

Find Your Gift

So in my last blog I said if you sleep eight hours per night and you live to be 90, you will have spent 30 years of your life sleeping. That got me thinking about the other 60 years and how I should be spending that. If you work 40 hrs per week...that comes out to about 22 years spent working. Now I know many of you spend more than 8 hrs at work or maybe you commute, or maybe you are like me and spend a lot of time working at home to prepare for the next day. That's time you aren't getting paid for, but still work. So I'd say for most of us...you can go ahead and round that number back up to 30 years spent working.

Do you love your job or does it just pay the bills? I know a few people that love what they do. And to them, it feels like they have never worked a day in their life. Do they have some headaches due to upper management, co-workers or certain high maintenance customers? Absolutely, and that can make if feel like work for a few moments and that sucks. But for the most part, they are happy going to work.

I know more people that hate going to work. Or maybe they like their work, but hate who they work for. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that there are circumstances such as children, illness, sudden loss of a job, college tuition, mortgages etc. that force us to sometimes do what we have to do to survive. Or maybe having a bunch of stuff is worth doing a job you don't like doing. We all have our priorities and I am by no means judging anybody for that. Happiness means different things to different people. But even if that's the case, maybe you could be actively be seeking a way to make the same amount of money doing something you love in the meantime. Then you will have a bucket of cash and love or at least like going to work...what could be better than that? There is always room for improvement in your life. I love money as much as the next girl and I want more of it all the time, but I have realized that as a trainer, I probably won't have much of it, and that's ok.

So you are probably saying..."Tell me how to do this you wise old bitch...Mrs. Fuckin' Know It ALL!" Look, as each day passes, I realize more and more that I don't know shit! I'm like a sponge. I love to learn new stuff. I love for people to teach me new and better ways to do things. My favorite day is when someone can change my opinion on something. Don't get me wrong...I'm pretty damn stubborn, and you better have a full power point presentation and at least 10-12 references and possibly a piece of cake on hand to change my mind about something important...but it has happened and I cherish that.

In my super smart opinion, the way to find happiness in your career is to figure out what your gift is and then find a way to make a career out of it.

The jury is still out on how we all got here...some believe in creation and some believe in evolution and there are several people out there that don't give a shit. No matter what your opinion is on that subject, the world and human beings in general are pretty amazing things. Take the human body for example. Everything in your body has a purpose. To stay healthy, all those little systems need to be running smoothly in order to keep balance and harmony in your body. When something gets injured or stops working or maybe you are born without it to begin with, that's when chaos ensues and illness mental or physical appears. And then let's think about how the world operates as a whole. At some point we are eating something that probably ate something else that ate something else that maybe grew in the ground and then everything dies. The waste products, like manure and the decomposition of all those organisms fertilize the earth and then add a little water to it and BAM! it all starts again. CLEARLY there is more to it, but I think you get my point. Everything on earth has it's purpose and if we don't fuck with it's habitat too much, we will continue to thrive And....um...it's not looking too good right now :( Global warming is real and we are using up our resources and polluting the earth more every day. Believe the hype people. Scientists are just talking shit. They have actually research to back it up. Anyways, that's a fight for a different day.

I think we were all born with a few gifts and and a few defects...some more than others. Some people are really book smart, but street stupid. Some people do horrible in school, but are amazing athletes or artists. Some people have a lot of charisma and people skills that make great politicians or sales people. And then there are some built like me that are defective in that area and do not. I have many flaws...navigation appears to be one of my biggest obstacles along with my award winning personality. If it weren't for my Iphone, I'd get lost going home. I have been to the same place ten times and still have to use my navigation to get back there. If there is the slightest option to take a wrong turn, I'm gonna take that shit...every...fucking...time. Count on it. My point is, it takes all kinds to get shit done and keep the universe in balance. If we were all good and bad at the same things, we would never survive. So appreciate people that are different from you. We are all working as a team to get the same job done...survival.

I love art. I'm a pretty creative person, but it's not necessarily my gift. I was an art major in college for a couple years and had the dream of making art for a living. I slowly started to realize that very few make it in the art world. Even people that are amazing are seldom able to survive on their art work alone. And the truth was, I wasn't amazing. Not even close. So I decided to get a degree in advertising and one in art history. I thought advertising would be kinda artistic, but still a real job. Or I thought I could be a museum curator or an art professor with my art history degree. Turns out that for the most part, advertising is essentially a degree in lying and manipulation to get someone to buy your product...um...no thanks. And who am I kidding...I don't have the balls to stand in front of a classroom and teach. So, the day after I graduated from college, I did the next logical thing. I packed up my shit and moved to Athens to be a tattoo artist.

I was a tattoo artist for 10 years. I wasn't horrible, but I wasn't great. I'd say I was average. I did some tattoos I was really proud of and I also did a couple of turds. Those turds keep me awake to this day. It wasn't from a lack of effort. I drew and painted a lot in the effort to get better at my craft. And I did get better, but never great. It killed me to know that a customer could head down the street and get the same tattoo for the same money and it would probably be better than mine. It ate me up. It weighed heavy on my conscience and my heart.

While I was tattooing, A big gym opened up down the street. I joined before it was built and I harassed them daily with phone calls asking them when they were gonna open. When it finally did, I never wanted to leave. I'd be there for hours. My girlfriend at the time would call and bitch at me for being there so long. She would say "It's like a part time fucking job! When are you coming home?" It was like my home away from home...I never wanted to leave. I was a total freak back then...hard to believe....I know. But it's true. I think I had long pink dread locks and a bunch or metal jewelry in my face. I wore dumpy t-shirts and cut off sweatpants. I never talked or looked at anyone, but I took every class I could. You could always find me in the back row in the furthest corner. One day, a manager walked up to me and said, "You should work here. If you are gonna be in the gym this much, you might as well get paid for it." I seriously thought I was getting Punk'd. I looked around for the hidden cameras. I was like, clearly this lady is smoking crack. I thought about it for a few days and ultimately decided to give it a shot. I thought maybe just maybe, it would help me overcome my social anxiety. It would be like tough love for myself.

I started by teaching one cycle class per week. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I didn't sleep the night before my class for the first year. And I was pretty sure I was gonna shit myself during every class. People liked me but had complaints. They would say "We like her music and the workout, but we can't see or hear her." I wore a hat pulled down real low and I never looked up. The only part of my face they could see was my mouth. And I didn't use my mouth much except to mumble go, stop, stand and sit. It was action packed! I hung in there anyway and eventually, I got a little more comfortable. To this day, seven years later, it still stresses me out a little to sit in front of a class, but I do it.

I do it because I love fitness and it doesn't feel like work. I started teaching a few more classes and then became a personal trainer which allowed me to quit tattooing. I can't tell you how much I love my job. The gym is my workplace and my playground. If I'm not working, I'm working out. I come home and spend hours reading articles and watching videos to expand my knowledge as much as possible. My clients are my friends and nothing makes me happier than to see them smile when they get results. Coming up with workouts is easy for me, it's fun...it's my gift.

It took me a while to discover my gift, but when it did, my life changed. Will I ever be rich? Probably not...gonna need a sugar mama for that shit. I wanted so badly to be a great tattoo artist, but I just didn't have it. I was born to be a trainer. I'm not saying I'm the best trainer out there, because I'm not. But I'm trying and I'm loving the journey. And I'm happy to say that I'm enjoying my 30 years of work.

So if you are sleeping for 30 years, working a job that you don't like for another 30, and in a relationship that makes you unhappy and leaves you unfulfilled, it might be time to reevaluate some things. When you do the math, that doesn't leave much time for happiness. You deserve more happiness...find it.

Do you believe in fate?

Do you believe in fate? What about predestination? Does everything happen for a reason? A few years ago, I would have said no. I thought everything happened by pure chance...a coincidence. I thought people just said stuff like that to make other people feel better about whatever shit they were going through at the moment. To a certain degree, I still think that is true. I think that people say it out of not knowing what else to say in that moment. It's easy to say to others, but really hard to believe when it is you that is going through something awful.

These days I'm more inclined to believe it. I don't know if I'm just getting soft in my old age or if I'm looking for and excuse or a reason that bad stuff happens. Maybe I just want something good to come out of something bad so I don't feel like my time, energy and life were wasted going through it. I have found that if I wait long enough, I can look back on every bad situation and see that something good and positive came from it.

After posting my blog "When doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do", I received the sweetest text from a co-worker who I now consider my friend. In the blog I was saying that I wished my biological father never did the "right thing" and married my mom because that's not the life he wanted and we all paid the price for it. She said "If your father had left your mom at that time, we wouldn't have you! And you were clearly meant to be here and touch all the lives you have." It's one of the sweetest things anybody has ever said to me. She is right. If my dad would have left my mom instead of marrying her, then I would have never been born. I remember those words coming out of my lips during my angst filled teen years, "I wish I had never been born!" I never meant them. I'm glad I'm here.

Now on to the story....

So after my brother burned the farm house down, we moved around a little bit. Finally we scored a sweet pad in Fox Lake, IL. My mom, brother and I lived in an apartment above a bar called the Gold Nugget...cuz we were classy! I'm gonna talk about my mom a lot in this story and it's not meant to be in a bad way. I have heard her tell this story a million times because its partially the story of how my mom met my stepfather. I'm just putting it on paper.

It's no secret in my family that my mom used to enjoy a cocktail or two...or 10. So the apartment over the bar was PRIME real estate. One night she was at the "Nugget"...that's what the locals called it....and she may or may not have been a little tipsy when she decided to take a trip to the little girls room...aka...the shitter. I'm not sure if it happened on the ascent or descent, but somewhere along the way, the toilet seat broke and she hit the ground. Apparently she fell on her face because she got 2 bitchin' black eyes outta the deal and also managed to break her arm. This unfortunate incident kept her out of work for a few days. So while we were in school one afternoon, she was sitting at the bar. The door opened up and this guy Jim poked his head through the door and asked her and the bartender if they knew of an Ace Hardware near by. He had just bought a house down the street and needed a chainsaw blade. My mom with her 2 black eyes and arm in a sling piped up and started giving him directions. He asked her if she would go with him. She looked at the bartender and he said..."do it." So she hopped off the bar stool and out the door she went.

First of all...I have to question both of their judgement in that moment. Some strange guy walks into a bar looking for a chainsaw blade of all things and my mom thinks its a good idea to go with him. He might as well have added duct tape and a shovel to the list. And why he asked some strange chick who looks like she got beat up by her pimp who is sitting at the bar on like a Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon is just crazy to me...but I guess they both knew something I didn't. Maybe it was love at first sight. Chainsaws and black eyes can be magical.

Anyways, she goes with him to the hardware store and they had a blast. Apparently the dude behind the counter was looking at her all sad eyed thinking she had been abused by Jim. Since their first date went so well, Jim asked her out on another. Eventually he met my brother and I and they became a couple.

Jim had purchased the house to tear it down and build a new one, so he didn't actually live there. He had a house in another town. One night they had heard that there was a big snow storm coming. Jim wanted us all to come and stay with him. At first my mom said no because she wanted to get some unpacking done. Jim persisted and she finally gave in so we spent the night as his house.

The next morning as mom was driving down our street, I started to see a bunch of flashing lights. There were cop cars and fire trucks everywhere. Eventually my eyes turned straight ahead to see that our house had burned to the ground. All that was left was a big pile of smoking ashes. Right at that moment, the owners of the Nugget raced up to our car yelling "Thank God...we thought you were all dead. The furnace blew up in the kids bedroom. The fireman said you would have died instantly."

So if my mom wouldn't have been drunk and fallen off of that toilet seat, which allowed her to be sitting at a bar on a Tuesday afternoon, which then led to her meeting Jim who talked her into staying the night as his place, I'd be dead and this blog would not exist...I know, I know. Life for you all wouldn't be worth living without me and my shitty little blog. You can thank Jim ...aka my dad for saving this blog and my ass once again.

So next time you are going through something terrible...a loss of a relationship, a loved one, a job....whatever it may be, I promise if you sit back and wait someone or something good will come out of it. It may take 10 minutes or 10 years, but eventually something good will present itself. And if it doesn't, maybe that thing taught you something valuable that you would need one day down the road. Maybe somebody came into your life to give you one amazing day that you will never forget. Maybe they are gone now, but that moment will live on in you forever. All of us have gone through some pretty bad stuff. It's what you choose to do with it that matters. It can be a crutch or an excuse for your own bad behavior in the future, or it can help you grow into the amazing person you are capable of being. Be amazing.

You will sleep for one third of your life...How will you spend the rest of your time?

I give you my parents fantasy for me...

....and here I give you the probable reality. Sorry mom and dad.

If you live to be 90 and you sleep 8 hrs per night, you will spend 30 years of your life sleeping. I love sleep as much as the next girl, but I'm trying to cut that back to 15-20 yrs. I want to sleep less and do more. I will be 40 this year and time seems to be going faster every day. Give or take a few years, my life is about half over and that makes me sad. As the years fly by, I find myself getting pickier about how I spend my time and who I spend it with.

When I was younger, I spent the majority of my time acting out the script my parents laid out for me. Somebody somewhere wrote and outline complete with a set of rules, guidelines and expectations that we are all supposed to follow. I would love to sit down and have a conversation with these people and find out who put them in charge of not only my destiny, but everybody's. Why would we be given the capacity to stray from the script but not be allowed to do so without disappointing ourselves or loved ones. Let's see...I was expected to go to college, meet a boy, get a good job with my degree, get married, buy a house with two cars in the garage, pop out a couple kids, raise the kids, retire with my husband...the first and only one, get old, then my kids take care of me and then I die. What really happened was I joined the Army and put myself through college and graduated...and it all went to shit from there. I realized in college that I was a lesbian...failure #1. They day after I graduated from college I said screw my degrees and moved to Athens to become a tattoo artist...failure #2. I was a tattoo artist for 10 yrs and quit because I couldn't live with the fact that I wasn't the best artist out there...failure #3. Had a series of relationships that I hoped would be forever but weren't, failures #4-8. I rent a townhouse...failure #9. No kids so far...failure #10 I have a job that I love but to a lot of people is still a failure because of my tax bracket....failure #11. I haven't really stuck to the script and it's not likely that life after 40 will be much different.

I don't think I'm a failure because I have made my own path. I beat myself up a lot when I was younger mostly because I felt like I had disappointed my parents. They wanted the fairy tale for me. The "easy road". I have always taken the more difficult road not because I wanted to be different, but because that was the only way I could be truly happy and my authentic self.

I could have met a boy and faked it until I made it the way many others have done. Would probably be having some midlife crisis right about now because well...I'm gay and married to a man. Might possibly have a couple kids that now will ultimately have to go through a divorce and deal with the fact that...surprise!...mommy's gay! It's one thing to be brought into the world by two loving homosexual parents and that is the only life you have ever known...it's your normal. It's another thing all together for it to happen later and have to deal with the break up of your parents marriage and all the fighting and pain that goes with that. So I decided to skip that part all together and be the dirty lesbian that I am.

I am a serial monogamist. I'm not really into dating. I always used to say that I only go out so I can meet somebody to stay home with. That's not even true anymore...because I don't go out. I have self esteem issues, so the idea of pursuing somebody is completely terrifying to me. My stranger danger issues don't help much either. So I just go about my life and if somebody comes along that wants to sit next to me on my couch, I either accept or decline. I have had several long relationships. Each time, I hoped with all my heart that they would be the ONE. I loved them all and tried my best to make it work. For one reason or another, none of them have so far. The main issue has been compatibility. They weren't bad people and I'm not a bad person...we were just bad together. No matter how much we both wanted it to work, it just didn't. I would try to change who they were or they would try to change me. We all have the ability to make small changes, but at the end of the day...you can't change who somebody is and the way they operate in the world. It's not fair to ask that of somebody or for them to ask that of you. All relationships require a certain amount of work, compromise and sacrifice...nobody is perfect. But most of your time should not be spent doing those things.  Everybody has flaws, you just have to decide which ones you are willing to deal with.

The main thing I'm looking for in a relationship is true love. I always say,  looks get you in the door, who you are as a human being keeps you there. I have been with some beautiful girls that got ugly really quickly because their insides did not match the outside. And there have been girls that I wasn't attracted to initially that became the most beautiful girls in the world because they were amazing human beings. Since I haven't had the option to be married, getting out has always been an option.

Divorce is super common these days but there is still a social stigma that goes with it. I have many friends that have gone through it or are thinking about it. The first thing I always ask them is "Are you in love with them?" "What is it that is keeping you there?" I can't remember anybody ever saying yes. The closest thing I have gotten is "Well I love and care about them and don't want to hurt them, but I'm not IN LOVE with them." It seems like it becomes more of a parent/child love than a marriage.

Many of them want to sacrifice their happiness for "the kids." That is not something I want to teach my kids. If they are unhappy in their marriage, I want them to work on it for a while and once they have tried everything to make it work, I want them to get out if that's what it takes for them to be happy.

 Some one has actually said "I'm just staying for the pay check." This blows my fuckin' mind! No amount of stuff that you can buy in a store could ever feel better than TRUE LOVE. I've also heard "We are passing ships in the night. I don't really care. I don't want to have to work and I want to go to lunch with my friends."...again...I don't get it. I don't need somebody to pay my bills, I need someone who adores me and makes me feel like my happiness is important to them. My definition of love is putting somebody elses wants and needs before your own and doing it without hesitation or resentment. You do it because making them happy makes you happy. The best analogy of this actually came from my brother who let's face it, is a train wreck when it come to most things in life. I was talking to him on the phone one day and he was telling me how much he loved his girlfriend. He said "I love her so much that when I make us dinner, I always give her the best steak...and I don't even tell her. I just want her to have it. It makes me happy to know that she is getting the best one." Love is unselfish...and when the love is equal...everybody wins.

And then there is the whole social status/friend scenario. People have said "If I get divorced, I will lose all my friends. We all hang out as couples. They think I should just get over it and stay so we can all still hang out." Those people are not real friends. They are selfish and more concerned about how the divorce will effect them and don't give a shit about their "friends" happiness. I could care less about who my friends have laying next to them. All I want is for them to be happy. I'm gonna be their friend and support them no matter what they choose to do or who they do it with. Their relationship has nothing to do me. At the end of the day, it's none of my business. The one thing I really hate is going out with a group of women that are constantly bitching about their spouses and shit talking them but never doing anything to make it better. Shit or get off the pot ladies...I don't want to hear it anymore.

I want to find the person who wrote the fairy tale and kick them in the nuts! I'm assuming it was a man because women didn't even have the right to vote until 1920. If  it was a woman, then I'd like to punch her in the vag! It is a fairy tale with no roots in reality. They set us up for failure. Most people get married to young to begin with. They don't know who or what they want and they end up with a life sentence. I'm not sure why this pressure is only placed on the most important thing...love. You can change jobs, friends, homes, clothes, lifestyles, hell you can even change genders. But you are expected to know exactly who you want to be with for the rest of your life somewhere between the ages of 20-35. You should be able to predict that you and that person will change and evolve in the same direction until death do you part. You get one shot. It's like the mob...Once you're in, you're in!

I guess I will just keep being a failure until I get it right. I would rather be alone for the right reasons, then together for the wrong ones. Maybe I will die an old spinster... alone except for my hundred cats. That's fine with me. I will die knowing I never settled and never gave up the quest for true love. My story is almost half over...I'm gonna make every moment of the second half count.