Day 8 : Made It

Made it through the first week of blogging every day! Yay me!

However, I didn't make it through one of the things I wanted to do here, which was NOT change the layout/look of this page. Oh, some things I just can't help myself over. So I lost my blogroll and my Stellan badge, I'll have to get those back one of these days soon, but in the meantime, I might just keep looking for a look I like. Lots of L's.

Don't really feel like writing much, I'm not feeling focused right now, so maybe a collection of facts about me? Let's go:

• Seven days after my nineteenth birthday, I was electrocuted by my clothes dryer. At the hospital they called it a "flash by lightening strike" which means lightening passes through an object (the dryer vent on the outside of our house, through the dryer) and into you. I got hit in the shins, beneath both legs, and the force of the shock lifted me up off the ground, blew me back about four feet, where I landed on my butt and then smacked the back of my head into the floor. The doctor's at the hospital also called this "An Act of God," which I thought was bull. I call it "Having The Worst Luck Possible." I had to stay at the emergency room, getting numerous EKGs while the doctors debated on whether to shock my heart back into normal rhythem, but thankfully they didn't have to do that, and I was fine in the heart department. They told me to watch out for brown pee, because that means my kidneys were failing. Who knew one of the biggest threats of electrocution, after heart problems and burns, is kidney trouble? I do now! My legs, from the knees down, turned red, then dark red, then purple, then back down the ladder of bruising again. I couldn't feel anything below the knees for about a week, and when the feeling started coming back, it was pins and needles for another week, which was even more painful than the bruising. I was told I was very lucky that I had no burns. I agree. Now, I'm afraid of electricity. I hate thunderstorms, I hate plugging things into outlets, I hate static. I will not do laundry if it is raining, and I dont' care how unreasonable that sounds. I won't do it.
  

• I hate bananas. I don't know why, but I can't eat them. The smell of them makes me nauseous, and sometimes I gag. I can't be around people eating them, including my daughter, who loves bananas. I won't buy them for her. She eats them at her father's house and at her grandparents outs, but when she eats them at my parents house, I leave the room. I have no explanation for my loathing of bananas, but I don't think there is a more offensive smell in the world. I'd rather smell poop all day than bananas.

• I love history. Lately, I've pretty much only been reading non-fictional history books, or world events books, or political books. I am almost finished reading a book about the Mayflower, called "Mayflower" although it actually gets way more in depth than that, going on to talk about the settlers and their decendants, and their wars with the Indians. Since I live in New England, this book is particularly interesting, because so much happened here. After this, I'll be reading a biography on Henry VIII, which I bought because I started watching The Tudors on Netflix, and just knew right away the show was loosely based on actual events, it was just so way over the top. The best biography I ever read was one on Marie Antionette, a fascinating story (her poor children didn't deserve what they got), and my favorite historical work I've ever read, is most certainly A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (GO READ THAT!) and, of course, our Constitution. If ever I am to return to college, which I would love to do but have so much trouble doing because it sucks all the free time out of my life, I would go back for General Studies with a focus in history, and take all the history and law classes I could. However, I am not sure how practical that would be, because what do you do with a history major these days? I certainly don't want to be a teacher.
  

• I have a lot of aches and pains. Some people call me a hypochondriac, but I disagree. I learned a long time ago that if you are feeling pain, that means your body is telling you that something is wrong with it, so you should do something about it. Two winters ago, I started feeling awful pains in my back, mostly at night. The pain was right in the middle of my back - not my shoulders, not my lower back which just aches a lot from sitting down all the time - but just below my shoulder blades. Stretching didn't help, massage didn't help, and no one could tell me what parts were behind there that could be hurting so bad. One night the pain got terrible, unbearable, and I had my mom drive me to the emergency room at three in the morning. I was given pain medication immediately and sent for a CT Scan. My gallbladder was blocked with stones, five times its normal size, and horribly infected. I had an operation to remove it within hours. It was an emergent situation. Listen to your body, people! Anyway, my hips hurt a lot, mostly when it rains. Everyone in my family has had arthritis, and my mother, and both maternal grandparents have had their knees replaced. That's right, six knees that came before me have failed. My mom was only fifty when she had hers replaced. I figure I'm well on my way to a joint replacement, but I fear it might be my hips and not my knees. Double ouch. I also think I might have the beginnings of tendonitis or carpal tunnel, because oh, how my hands and wrists hurt at the end of the day. Evidently I type too much. Well, sorry hands and wrists of mine, because the only time I'm going to stop typing is when I'm dead. Or when words flow directly from brain to screen. Lastly, I have this thing on my arm, a new mole, a mole that doesn't look like any other mole I've ever had, and I'm fearing it's skin cancer. Go ahead, I see what you're thinking. You think I'm a hypochondriac. Well, I thought I had a backache and I had an organ that needed removing. Perhaps its best to err on the side of caution and milk my health insurance for all its worth while I still am fortunate enough to have it.
  

Ugh, okay, enough for today.

Day 7 : Not Great

At least I have an outlet for whining and complaining now.

Today was another pretty bad day. I get to hear that my best friend, you know that one I keep calling my best friend, made plans to go to the beach this weekend with three other girls without mentioning it to me. I got to hear about it through Facebook. The great thing about that is, I actually do have a babysitter this weekend, and now just no friends to share it with.

I am really, really starting to think something is going horribly wrong in my life. Why are people doing this to me? I just don't understand, and pretty soon, I'm going to just have to start asking. I tell her all the time that I feel left out, and she makes no apologies or excuses. I think it might be because we work together four days a week. She begged me to give her this job, and I had so many reservations, but I did it anyway. And now I suddenly only see her one night a week outside of work. Like since we see each other at work all the time there's no need to actually make plans with me and hang out with me outside of work. I don't know if she gets that, but my God, if that is the case, if she feels she sees me enough, or too much, I'll go crazy. I already feel like I am going crazy.

I just don't think people see my life for what it is - lonely. Yes, I have a child, yes that means I have company all the time, but mature company? Company that converses with me about things that are going on, things that I want, things that I've done, things that I want to do - no. Five nights a week, here I am, sitting here alone. And by the way, is there ONE mommy blogger out there who doesn't have a boyfriend or husband, and is happy being alone all the time? JUST ONE?? Please let me know if you find her, if she's out there.

My mom can see it. I see her once a week and I know she can see it that I'm upset and she calls it "depressed." When I think of people with depression, I think "Sad for no reason - sad in spite of all the great things going for them in their lives." I know, I mean I KNOW with conviction that I'm not depressed. I'm unhappy. I think that's worse.

Now it's nearly 11pm and Squido is still awake upstairs. I put her to bed around nine, and two hours later I can still hear her banging around in her room and I can't decide whether to go back up there and tell her she needs to lay down and go to bed, because I think it might be better for her to let her just do her thing and poop herself out than it would be to go in there and get her mad and upset if she will still insist on not wanting to go to bed. However, Elmer is either locked in there with her, or he ran out the door last time I had it open and we'll never see him again. Let's hope she let him in her room and locked him in there - I suppose I best go up there and check on her and get him out.

Oh, blog, oh world. Will one of these days come along when I'll wake up in the morning content with what I have and not be left wanting for so much more? I hate remembering back to the days I know I was happy, the days I didn't feel like this at night, so hopeless alone. It makes me so angry that those days are gone, and that I can't seem to find a way to get them back.

I need better friends. I need new friends.

Day 6 : Not Feeling It

I think one of the biggest reasons I started this blog was to find people to talk to, to hopefully make some good online friends that I can chat with when I want to, and who genuinely like me and like me being around, even if it's just online and on their websites and their email inboxes. I haven't been feeling much love from my "friends" lately at all.

I have been left out of things so much and so often lately, I think I am starting to develop a complex about. Like people are conspiring and talking behind my back about me, like they don't really like me around or like my company but they aren't big enough to just come right out and say it. In the past two weeks I have missed: a lunch hosted by my best friend, who never calls me on the weekends, a bachelorette party that I wasn't told about until the day before when it was too late to ask for a baby sitter, a trip to Six Flags that no one cared to invite me to because they were planning on going on a weekday and I work weekdays (obviously not knowing I'd love to take a day off of work to ride some rollercoasters, something I love to do but haven't been able to do in years because last summer I got boned out of a lot of trips also) and finally, having a place to stay at a wedding of a friend I am going to next weekend. Again, my friends, my "best" friend included, all booked hotel rooms for themselves and didn't even ask if I wanted to share a room, and didn't even let me know that they were booking them. So now, I might be the ONLY one of our friends at this wedding with no place to stay. I've already been told by people that it doesn't matter anyway because we will probably be up all night partying, but what about after? I get to sleep on the floor of someones room, because no one thought of me?

I never realized how completely FORGETTABLE I am until recently. I've never felt so lonely, lost, and left out of things by people who I thought were my best friends. I just don't get it. I don't know what's happened, and I'm actually afraid to talk about it with my friends because I think already that they will say I am overreacting and that if I want to be included more I should come out more. Well, I come out as much as I can. It's a little hard to have a social life when you are a single parent, but I suppose not many people think about that, because all the "single" parent friends I have have boyfriends or girlfriends anyway. But not me. All alone.

What a depressing state of affairs I am in. I plan on going down to the coffee shop downtown in a little bit to sit there and write my zombie story for as long as I can before dinner, and hopefully doing something productive will make me feel better, and maybe I'll get to talk to someone at least.

You'd think that with all the time I spend by myself I would be a little more productive with my writing and get something done, maybe get something published one of these days. I guess we shall see. I guess I should just stop watching TV so much and get more down to the business of writing, but again, another complaint: My hands, wrists, and arms have really been starting to hurt me a lot lately with all the writing I actually have been doing, which isn't a whole lot, but it's certainly a lot more than usual. Oh, no carpal tunnel for me, please. Please. Please.

Maybe more later tonight, maybe not. If so, let's hope, you and me, that it's a little more uplifting than this.

Day 5 : Rushing

I'm going to try to type as fast as I can here, which probably won't be that fast if I am to be legible. Squido is at her dad's house tonight and I went to "Tuesday Night Dinner" at my friend's house and had a few too many beers before making the slow shuffle home and settling in for an episode of Six Feet Under with my buddy Michelle.

Tuesday Night Dinner has been happening for as long as I can remember being friends with Brad, the guy whose house it's at. Probably going on five years now. Every Tuesday night a bunch of us friends gather, a core group of, oh, I dunno, ten or fifteen people with others passing through frequently or not. It was Brad's idea to start a tradition of having a certain place and a certain time for all of us to count on being able to go and get a home-cooked meal in a friendly, family like setting. This coming at a time when mostly all of us were finally living on our own away from parents and such, and the thought of it is really nice and genuine, to know you have some place to go. It's like Cheers. Where everyone knows your name.

For the last two years I have tended not to go in the winter time because the apartment is not that big, and there tends to be quite a few people there, and there are not many places to sit/chairs in which to sit in. I know it sounds weird, maybe, but hey, I just like to sit down sometimes and if I have to stand around a kitchen for two hours or more a pop, I start to get a little tired of that, and what with it being winter and too cold and uncomfortable to go outside and sit on the porch/stairs/lawn, I get crazy and don't like it. But summer is great, sitting on the porch, sipping beers, eating great food with good friends.

I'm feeling very disjointed and un-smooth with my transitions here, but there is this cute guy named Nick that works at the liquor store I buy my beer from (actually I've been going to that particular store mostly to see the guy, their beer is overpriced and I could certainly get better deals elsewhere,) and tonight I went in there to get some of my favorite Bud Light Limes and we were talking briefly about the weather, because that is what all strangers talk about, oddly enough, and he said these words:

"I get up at three every morning to take a shower and then I stay up for a little bit and then go back to sleep until 9 or so," and I said: "That is really bizarre, why do you do that?" and he answered: "Because I remember my dreams better that way, and I'm a writer, so I need all the inspiration I can get."

And right then customers came up to him to make their purchases and the converstation got cut off, but I laughed, and he laughed, and all I wanted to do was say to him. "I write about zombies, what do you write about?" But then there were three people behind me in line and I didn't want to hold anyone up and look like a moron for trying to flirt or whatever with this guy, so I just left. So now, I keep thinking about it. A writer?? (SWOON!!) What does he write about? How I would like to get to know this cute liquor store boy better, and my god, I just can't drum up the self confidence to try to do anything about it.

Maybe tomorrow night I'll write about what I want in a man, because that has been on my mind so much lately.

Annnnddd... Goodnight.

Oh, side note. This Once A Day, Every Day thing.. I do realize that it is past midnight, so "technically" I have missed a day writing, but listen. My days consist of the moments between when I wake up and when I go to sleep again. This is still today for me, it won't be a new day til I get up in the morning. Can we all agree on that here?

Day 4 : Cleaning House

When I got home from work and picking up Squido from daycare tonight, we had a healthy dinner of Wendy's chicken nuggets and fries, and then I dragged her upstairs to "help" me clean my room.

Cleaning my room consisted mostly of putting clothes away, as I tend to be the type of person who lives out of laundry baskets for months on end before putting away clothes. I have just lately been getting into the habit of cleaning the downstairs of my apartment pretty regularly and wanted to tackle the upstairs also - my room and Squido's room is up there, plus a half bath in my bedroom. Since I moved in, which was oh, three months ago now, I haven't technically cleaned my room. There were clothes in laundry baskets, books still in bags and boxes that needed to be put on the shelves, and two bags of miscellany clothes that I still haven't tackled yet, sitting in a corner. The fact that I haven't touched these two garbage bags full of clothes in the three months that I've lived here leads me to believe I could tie them up and throw them in the nearest Salvation Army bin without a second thought - because obviously if I have gone that long without looking at them, I don't really need them. However, they still sit there, those two darn bags, because I have such a hard time giving things up.

So anyway, Squido and I were up there for probably an hour and a half tonight in the sweltering heat of the upstairs - don't you hate that? And, um, she didn't really help all that much.

I don't know why people use the term "terrible twos" when referring to toddler sized children. From what I recall, there was nothing terrible about the twos. Nothing at all. Squido was at her most adorable, most sweet, most loving and cuddly from two to three years old. I swear, on the very day of her third birthday, she changed into a completely different kid. Suddenly she has attitude! Opinions! Feelings! Things were so much simpler at age two, when she wasn't potty training, when she wasn't using the word "NO" every five minutes, when she she wasn't WHINING ALL THE TIME!

I asked a lady, a lady at work who is turning out to be a great friend of mine (Don't know about her, but I sure consider her a friend and not just an associate at work) whether it gets easier as kids get older. She has four kids of her own, three boys and a girl, all of them in their late teens/early twenties, and she said: "No. It gets harder." And I thought to myself, my god, how can this get harder? I'm at the end of my rope sometimes, sometimes I just weep because I feel like I can't handle this mothering job, that I am so afraid I am going to horribly screw her up, like I am never going to get a handle on how to make a child happy so that they don't scream, fight, hit, and disobey?

Please don't think I have a bratty child, though. Squido definintely has her moments, and it just seems to me that those moments are coming a lot more frequently lately now that she has such an expanding vocabulary, she comes home learning new words and phrases every day. For instance, today while we were cleaning she used the word "stupid" correctly in a complex sentence. I was putting some books away, when I heard her start crying in her room. I could tell right away that it wasn't an "I'm hurt!" cry, it was more of a "I'm so pissed off at the world right now, RIGHT IN THIS MOMENT, that I have to make this noise! I HAVE TO!" kind of cry. And then she whined: "This stupid cat won't get out of my room, mommy!!!" That would be Elmer. A moment later she came trudging into the room with all 15lbs of Elmer clutched in her arms, and dropped him on my floor, turned around in a huff, went in her room, and slammed the door.

So I said to my friend at work, "Why?? Why doesn't get easier?" and she said, "Because then the kids become teenagers."

O.M.G.

Here's a picture of Elmer:


Can you tell there, that his tongue is sticking out of his mouth a little bit? That's because he has a snaggletooth, which I will try to get a good shot of soon. And the snaggletooth, that's because he got bit in the face by a big dog when he was a little kitten. My poor, big, dumb Elmer.

Day 3 : Always Lost

Squido's dad takes her two nights a week, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so the other five nights of the week, if I don't make plans and get a babysitter, I spend at home, mostly by myself. I tend to do the following things a lot in the hours after Squido goes to bed:

• Read
• Blog
• Read Blogs
• Watch TV

Yay, boring life. Occasionally I will throw in a little cleaning or crafting, like collageing or scrapbooking, but mostly those other things. When I talk to people, sometimes I get embarassed by the amount of TV I watch, because I always have a comment to make on this or that show, or worse, when I am the one making conversation, it's about TV shows. I don't have cable here in my apartment, but I do get Netflix, and I tend to get, you guessed it - TV on DVD.

Side note: right now my cat, Elmer, is playing with a beetle. I have these weird beetles I get in my apartment once or twice a week - one at a time, I'm not infested with them, although I do think I am being infested with some other critter, which I don't want to talk about right now but probably will later - and it is hilarious to watch Elmer torture the beetle. He gets it down onto the ground and just plays with it. He bats it around with his paws so fast it doesn't have a chance to fly away (or perhaps it's a disabled beetle) and he looks like he tries to eat it, but maybe gets freaked out by the buzzing and squirming in his mouth because he never actually DOES eat it as far as I can tell. Anyway, it's funny. Maybe one of these days I'll charge up my video camera and catch him in the act.

But anyway, TV. Here is a list of things I've watched lately, in the past year or so, that are the best:

• Six Feet Under - which I am currently re-watching with my friend Michelle. She comes over once or twice a week and we watch a couple of episodes over some beers and snacks. It's a good time, and she loves it.
• Jericho - Holy crap what a good show. I watched all of this online on Netflix and I cannot believe they cancelled that show. Who doesn't love a post-nuke-apocalyptic world? Who??
• Fringe - First of all, Joshua Jackson. Second, Joshua Jackson. But really, also a very good show. Probably because it reminds me so much of my beloved X-Files, which just may go down in my history book to be the best show EVER on TV.
  

Which brings me to the other best show on TV, which is the reason I am writing about this at all right now.

Lost!

I know, I know. I know know many of you out there just won't believe the hype, or agree with it, or get into it at all. There are people - and I know quite a few too many of them personally - who refuse to watch the show just because they do not want to get sucked in and crazy over a TV show like the rest of us are, big ol losers who cancel all plans and make everyone hush up for an hour on Wednesday nights. My best friend is one of them, and it hurts me to know what she is missing. I have re-watched all the previous seasons of Lost directly following the season that ends, just to reminisce and remind myself of all the thing that came before. I know it would make much more sense to re-watch the previous seasons right before a new one starts, but see, my problem is, I love Lost so much, I just want to watch it all the time, so as soon as one season ends, I miss it, so I start watching it all over again. With that said, you now know for sure what a loser I am, because yes, I have seen the first season of Lost six times already. And guess what? Not sick of it yet, and sooo not apologizing for it.

In fact, an hour and a half ago I sat here with my open laptop, wondering to myself what I was going to babble on tonight, couldn't figure it out, and then decided: Hey, I'll watch some Lost, and for whatever reason started in on the first episode of the fourth season. Just in case you wanted to read up on it a little bit.

Anyway, I just think it's amazing what you realize about Lost if you go back and re-watch things. Especially on the re-watch of all the seasons after this last one, the fifth. What is up with John Locke? That is the biggest question. I'm not ready to speculate here, my wrist is already too tired for that now... and come on, Lost fans. Will anyone agree with me that the most important person on that island, the one with all the secrets, the one that's all in the know, the missing link for godsakes, is Richard Alpert???? He doesn't age, man! He's like Prince!

Unfortunately it seems like I am going to have to cut this post short - I was going to go on a while longer about my Lost obsession, but the fact is, it's just too dang hot to be sitting here with this laptop on my lap (funny that one of my biggest, err.. only complaints about my Macbook is that it gets pretty darn hot on the bottom sometimes. In fact, the first day I used it ((ahh memories of bonding with the Macbook)) I thought it was broken and I was going to have to send it back because it got SOO hot compared to my other laptop, an icky old Acer. Well, you can get used to anything if you love it enough, and I swear, once I went Mac I'll never go back) I'm starting to sweat and I want another Bud Light Lime before bed. Yes, sometimes I drink when my child is sleeping. Like two beers! Am I a bad mom? Shameful? I sure hope not.

Day 2 : The Sickness and The Fear

So my daughter, Kiddo my Squido, was quite sick last night and today. I went out to dinner last night at a local diner with my friends Rachel, her son Gabe, and her boyfriend Brad. I had just picked up Squido from daycare before going to the diner, and she had a great day there - spending all day in the preschool room playing with the big kids, no accidents, she was happy and excited to be eating pancakes soon on the way there. Just as I finished cutting up said pancakes and she poured on her own syrup, Squido suddenly clung to me and put her head on my chest. She said she had to go potty, so I took her to the bathroom where she peed quickly, and then afterwards tore off her sweatshirt (the air conditioning makes it freezing in there). She looked all sweaty, and I thought she had just gotten warm, but I knew in the back of my mind there was something wrong. But, she wanted her pancakes so we went back to the table. Within 2 seconds of sitting down, before she could even take a bite, she power puked all over herself, the booth, and the floor. Luckily none hit the table!

Needless to say we skipped dinner, and went home. By the time I got her home I realized that she had a fever - I swear this was the fastest developing sickness of her life because she was FINE an hour before - and tried to convince her to take tylenol, but she refused (We have such a hard time with taking medicine.) A few minutes later, as I was in the kitchen squirting liquid tylenol into a juice box (works like a charm every time) she ran into the kitchen, and immediately puked on the floor. Then she ran to the bathroom door and she puked on the floor. Then we got into the bathroom and she puked on the floor, and on her bare feet. Yay! I will never know why this kid refuses to barf into buckets/bags/toilet, etc.

We got her cleaned up and I got her to drink down her special juice box, and she immediatly laid down on the couch and went to sleep. Her fever must have spiked and broke because I woke her up two hours later and she was covered in sweat, but she took more tylenol and then I put her to bed for the night.

When we woke up this morning I knew Squido still wasn't herself. We set ourselves on the couch and put in our first movie of the day (I think I watched eight kids movies today) and Squido didn't leave the couch all day, sleeping on and off for hours at a time, and eating and drinking just enough for me to feel comfortable. She's sleeping soundly now, and hopefully will be all better by tomorrow because I think it is just the 24 hour bug that I hear has been going on around here lately.

I have been doing a lot of websurifing lately and finding new blogs to read. I know I am going to sound naive here, but I just can't believe how many blogs are out there written by parents who have lost babies. When I was 32 weeks pregnant with Squido I went into early labor and had to be sent to the hospital where I was kept there on monitors and terbutelene(sp?) for two days. There were a lot of doctors coming and going and telling me about the various risks to her health if she were born then, and particularly any time before 35 weeks. I was terrified that something horrible was going to happen, that I was going to lose her. But I didn't. I was put on bedrest for four weeks, and didn't do anything but go from the couch, to my bed, to the bathroom. At 36 weeks they let me start moving again. At 38 weeks Squido was born healthy.

There's so much pain here on these blogs - sometimes it's too much for me to take, thinking about all the what ifs. I didn't know anything about being a mother when Squido was born, I was not prepared for it. I feel like.. no, I KNOW that I didn't have very much of a bond with Squido before she was born. I wasn't excited to be pregant, I was terrified. Terrified I would do everything wrong, terrified of her hating me, terrified of the fact that underneath it all, this was an unwanted pregnancy and the troubles that I had with her father while still pregnant did nothing to help the situation or my feelings toward it. But then, when she was born.. Suddenly all I was terrified of was her wellbeing. Would she be okay? Is she okay? From the moment she was born I was scared - scared of losing her. It was like I was born to be scared of losing her, like everything I had ever done in my life lead up to preparing to handle the fear, the immobilizing fear of being a mother to someone who you love so much it would kill you if you lost them. I live with that fear every day, still. I don't think that it will ever go away. But God, what if those fears were ever founded?

My heart goes out to all you parents who have lost your babies. I know it may sound trite and small, but really. I wish I could hold all of your hands, and please know that even though I don't know you and don't know how you feel, I feel with you anyway.

Oh, what a weird blog post. I hope that I don't keep going on and on about this for months, but for the record, I never would have written anything like that on my other blog. If you want to know a secret, that was the first time I ever called Squido's conception "an unwanted pregnancy." I thought it would make me feel dirty, bad, and horrible. But actually I feel like a weight just lifted off of my shoulders, because I know that it is true, and I'm okay with that, because for some reason it makes me feel like I love her even more. It's weird that I can be detached from that thought. Because I would never give Squido up - I can't imagine not having her in my life and I would be completely lost without here. But it feels good to admit that having her was not what I wanted at that point in my life. To say it and not feel bad about it. How many more moms are out there who feel the same way?

My wrist is starting to really cramp up and hurt.. I do too much typing every day. I hate to stop like this, because I have a feeling that this is a subject I am going to have to come back to again, and maybe again and again.

Day 1 : The Why

Back when I was in high school, which I graduated from just nine years ago, I started writing online on diary-x, and that is where I wrote most honestly and openly about my life and all of my feelings, like blogging should have always been about. Then something horrible happened and diary-x broke, and all of my writing, all of those posts that spanned over three years of my life, from senior year until two years after, were lost. Writing online just hasn't been the same since.

I guess the problems started when I invited friends to read my blog. I thought maybe those friends would follow in my footsteps and write along with me, but for the most part, they didn't. They read, they judged, they sometimes commented, but not much. I started to feel like everyone was watching me, and not in a good way. Writing as an outlet started to feel more like writing to put on some kind of show. I stopped saying things that really meant anything, I stopped writing about things I really thought and felt because I was afraid of what people my thing, and turns out, I still feel that way.

I am not sure what made me decide this yesterday, but it was last night that I decided I was going to start a new blog somewhere else and try to remain anonymous as long as possible and not let any real-life friends and family know about this blog. I want to be able to say what I feel like saying, and if I am judged, at least it will be by people who haven't already formed opinions about me for the last however many years, and it won't hurt, and it won't make me afraid.

I want to make friends here, I want to make friends online, people who want to do the same thing I want to do - which is be truthful, open, and free. With that said, if you are reading, please comment. Please let me know you are out there listening to me.

I suppose remaining completely anonymous isn't possible, and of course I'm going to tell you some things about me. I have a daughter. She's three and a half years old now, and we shall call her Squido on this blog. Why? It's just a nickname I have for her - I always call her "Kiddo, my squido," which makes no sense and there is no rhyme or reason for it -- well, there is rhyme, isn't there? I live in Southeastern Connecticut in a shoreline town. I don't mind it here, except for the winters, which I hate because of the snow. I work for an online store, managing everything from the database to customer service and order processing, and I love my job, although I don't think I am being paid what I am worth, which is something I've been griping about a lot lately.

Squido's dad and I are not together; we broke up while I was still pregnant, and he sees her two days a week. We do not get along, I do not like him or appreciate his company so it makes things hard, and I hope that we can work something out before Squido gets older and starts to realize the extent of the animosity between us. Besides my daughter, I am, essentially, alone. This is my biggest gripe, something I am sure I will be writing about a lot, and often, because I'm very lonely all the time and quite sad about it.

Twenty minutes to go before today turns into tomorrow. Probably no one will ever read this first post of mine, but if you do, again, please comment and let me know. That's what I am here for.

I do intend to try to post once a day *at least* every day, or a doctor's note. However, I fully reserve the right to use my doctors notes on days that I am actually out having fun and nowhere near a computer to be able to update. I won't lie. I won't lie here on this blog.

My page is pretty sparse and I do plan on adding to it as the days go by, but I swear I am going to try to go at least six months without changing the layout - that is something I have always done on my other blogs, switching back and forth before I get bored. This whole thing, a daily blog, is a study in dicipline as far as I am concerned, so I am going to try my damnedest to stick with it.

See you on the flip side...