Telephone

NaBloPoMo asks:

When you are speaking with someone do you prefer to look them in the eye or talk to them over the phone?

       If I had to choose whether I would rather talk to someone on the phone or look them straight in the eye, I would pick the phone each and every time.  I have been shy my whole life.  Afraid of saying the wrong thing or having anyone scrutinize me a little too closely, I have found the real me comes front and center when talking to people on the phone or online.   I hate when people stare at me.  It drives me batty and makes me wonder whether my fly is open or my breasts are hanging out.  Do I have a horn in the center of my head?  Take a picture, it will last longer.  Just please don’t stare at me!!  It freaks me out!!

       With the protective barrier of the telephone or the computer, I am no longer self conscious about my appearance because whoever is talking to me on the phone or internet can‘t see me.  There is also the added extra bonus of hanging up and logging off if you want too.  If you are speaking eye to eye it is a little harder to run away!

    

        Fortunately as I have aged I have become more outgoing and gained a little more confidence.  I am more apt to speak up and tell people just how it is with few qualms giggling more easily to hide my nervousness until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Starting New Projects

NaBloPoMo asks

"How do you feel about starting new projects?"

     There is a certain glimmer of anticipation and excitement when you start something new.  Maybe even a small shred of fear.  To me the unknown is always daunting.  I will worry myself so much that I will end up with diarrhea or pea green around the gills clutching the edge of a porcelain toilet bowl for all it is worth.  A new job, a new class, new people, a new schedule can all be terrifying as hell.  Questions bombard my brain.  Will they like me?  Will I find my way?  Will I do well?  Can I handle it?  Once I have tried whatever is new, I am fine.  I quickly adapt, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t hyperventilate and get a healthy case of the $hits first.

      At least now that I am older I can put on the cool mask of confidence no matter how much I am literally freaking out inside.  That was not the case when I was younger.  My terror was for all to see.  Coupled with the tendency to worry what others thought of me, I used to work myself into a real tailspin.  I have been really lucky in life that these days I have few reasons to get worked up about.  Life rolls along.  I still hyperventilate about certain things but not to the extreme that I did when I was younger.  I think that is because I really don’t have a choice now.  I have to handle it.  If I don’t there is no one else that will.  Like the time I woke up and found the hallway flooded with water.  Did I panic?  Hell yes I did.  It turns out the hot water heater had sprung a leak and blew a gusher.  I quickly assessed the situation and rushed to put every towel I owned down on the carpet in an effort to sop up the wet.  I called someone who specializes in replacing hot water heaters to price such things and went with the lowest quote.  Life went on only after I hyperventilated and blew a gasket first.

       At this point, I am pretty used to writing and whipping out a blog when needed.  When I first started writing I wasn’t sure I could do it.  I was afraid the company that had contracted me to write for them wouldn’t like what I wrote.  I wrote and revised certain that I was no writer and completely unsure I could even write well enough.  I handled it, and they loved it, and I got paid.  The crisis passed and eventually I finally got a shred of confidence in my ability to write.  Something weird happened along the way.  Not only did I realize that I like to write, I finally let all the favorable comments I had been getting sink into my thick skull and realized I do a fair job at it.

       Sometimes it is just plain scary to have the balls to go out and grab the brass ring and try something new.  If you don’t shoot a little excitement into life every now and again though, life wouldn’t be near as interesting.  Sometimes you just have to take the plunge and sign on for a new project.  Am I the type of person to rush to the front of the line and try something new? No, I will stand back and watch everyone else, and then when I am sure that I won’t make to much of a complete a$$ of myself I will give whatever it is the ole college try rushing ahead with determination like a bull with a hard on.  What can I say?  I like the same ole, same ole better than mixing up the works until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Self

     In school I learned from my peers not to like myself much.  According to them I was too short, had 4 eyes, and when my front teeth still hadn’t surfaced by 7th grade I was deemed a freak.  I got a partial plate that year, and from that moment on if I wasn’t a freak before I surely was a freak there after.  Certainly not good enough to be called a friend, especially by the bosom buddies I ran with who had just discovered boys.  Worse yet when the boys had discovered them, I suddenly was regulated to the sidelines.   They still said hello and made small talk, but from then on I became the loner that I am to this day.  Over the years I have learned to accept it as fact.

       Back then the rejection hurt.  I didn’t understand it.  It is not like I smelled.  I wasn’t obnoxious.  My mom used to tell me if I was nice to everyone, they in turn would be nice to me.  My mom lived in her own fairy story where she was certain simply because a lot of people said hello when we went to football and basketball games that I had oodles of friends and therefore I was popular.  I don’t think she ever believed me when I explained that they were merely people I knew, acquaintances at best. We didn’t hang, we didn’t eat lunch together, and we never ran around together on the weekends.    When it got right down to brass tacks, I didn’t have close friends. 

         Marrying an abusive alcoholic when I was 19 didn’t improve my outlook on myself much. I should have said no but at that point I didn’t have the guts.  The guy liked me enough to want to marry me, and even though I had clear misgivings I went through with it.   In hindsight, it was the biggest mistake of my life.  I should have had the balls to say no, shove my bridal bouquet right up his a$$, and run hell bent for election out of that church until I seen day light.  Instead I said I do and endured 4 and ½ years of being that asshole’s punching bag simply because I wanted to be apart of a twosome.   I know now I didn’t deserve that treatment, but at the time I endured it, was ashamed by it, and was certain I must have done something to deserve it or he wouldn’t have felt the need to dish it up. 

        I eventually found the balls to stand up to him, but at that point I didn’t do it for me.  By then I didn’t give a tinker’s damn if he killed me.  The one thing he wasn’t going to do was start bullying my mom.   I stood up to him, and he divorced me.  Evidently a punching bag with a backbone loses its appeal.  Once my mom died, I embarked on a journey to find myself along a road littered with mistakes.  In a last ditch effort to find  happy ever after I paid a dating service to literally find me a husband.  If they couldn’t I was resigned to live out the rest of my days alone.   I had nothing to lose, and little confidence there was anyone decent out there who would want the likes of me.  I paid for Matchmaker to find me a man with little hope that they would.  Guess what, they did and I married him and had two beautiful kids.  I gave up my full time job when the first arrived to be a full time mom and have been at it ever since.

        By the time I hit my 4th decade of life on this planet I was beginning to wonder if all my life was going to amount to was wiping butts and noses.  I prayed about it and almost instantly the opportunity to write online for this company fell into my lap.  I began blogging, and slowly but surely found my voice.  By the time I did, the company had gone under and I was left without a website, the small income they paid me, and once again grasping for straws.  Fortunately I had learned from my experiences and I designed this website and continued on.  Somewhere along the way I became a writer.  It wasn’t something I imagined I would be doing, but I have found I can’t imagine life without doing it.   I have no idea where my words flow from, only that they do.  Words flow as easy as the air I take in and out.

       After over 40 years of living , I still enjoy being quiet,  although now my quiet is punctuated with giggles, a good dose of silliness, and the capacity to say just about anything.    I no longer take anyone’s $hit and have no problem speaking my mind.  I am happier now than I have ever been.  I am capable of the outrageous,  but at the same time walk the world with a fair amount of common sense.    I am loyal and kind, incapable of dealing with drama, and as one dear blogging buddy recently said a straight shooter.  I have a habitually sunny disposition and plenty of empathy and compassion for others.   I expect very little, and celebrate everything. 

         I can handle anything life throws at me, even when I think I can’t, I manage.   I can be hilariously funny without even trying and I have an amazing ability to find the funny in just about every situation.  I have found a deep faith in G0d that sees me through anything life throws my way.    I live daily with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.  My self esteem issues have come a long way.  I am me, like me, love me, hate me, take me or leave me, I am what I am for better or for worse until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Uncertainty

   




       How do I feel about uncertainty??  Honestly, I hate it. It scares the living be Je$us out of me and makes me want to hunt for a paper bag, hyperventilate, and have a heart to heart talk aloud with myself.  I quickly feel the need to find a bathroom.  To say I become a tad mental is an understatement.

         I am not comfortable being uncertain.  I want to know that when I send my kids to school they are going to do their best and do well in the process.  If they do not do well, I want to know WHY. I want to know how I can reverse the tides and not only help them do better, but help them to succeed.  I will admit that I don’t like surprises.  For example, I don’t deal well with my kid bringing home papers plastered with smiley faces and lavish praise, being told to my face by the teacher that my kid knows his stuff, and then be hit with a midterm report informing me that all of a sudden my kid is not currently meeting grade-level expectations and that now the ball is in my court to insure he practices all the areas listed. Holy crap where did that come from?  I know that I have the tendency to walk through life with my head blissfully stuck up my a$$, but come on there were no warning signs!! At the point when realization occurs, I tend to hyperventilate and lose my freaking mind, and demand a parent teacher conference in a state of panic.

        I rushed to the nearest store and bought up sight word flash cards, a workbook to help strengthen the areas the teacher sited needed work, and searched the internet for possible websites offering free activities designed to give him the practice he needs.  I went ape $hit on my kid declaring we are going to work on this stuff till he knows it or else.   Yes, I did go a little berserk.  At the same time, I feel like crying wondering how I could possibly not know he was struggling.  It was almost like a scene from “Chicken Little” with me running around screaming that the sky is falling!!!!  

            As you can see, uncertainty tends to make me mental.  For those that have the loony bin on speed dial on my behalf, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I have taken control of the situation. I have remembered finally to breathe.  I have scheduled a parent teacher conference to get to the bottom of this, and I am prepared to do everything that is earthly possible to help my kid succeed.  Why, because deep down I don’t deal well with uncertainty.  I don’t deal well with people rocking the boat.  I have to have some level of control over destiny.  

        Rest assured, I have plenty of toilet paper in stock, so even if diarrhea overtakes me, I am covered.  I have the little pills in the house that magically puts a cork in my a$$ so there will be no worries.  I will try to quit blaming myself for my little darling’s lapse in the class room.  Who knew it would be so HARD being a parent?   I will breathe in and out and I will face this uncertainty head on and I don’t even need a mini tape recorder to remind me that I can grab a bull by its balls. I can sneak up to that bull and grab his balls before he even knows what hits him, yes I can!!   

        All I really want is for my kids to succeed and be happy in life.  Is that to much to ask??  I am in control.  Sometimes you just have to say a little prayer and hope for the best.   Even though I am terrified of the unknown, I can and will walk in there cool, calm and collected and face uncertainty and the unknown head on.  I know that G0d goes with me, so even though I am weighed down with the uncertainty of knowing exactly what to say, I will be OK  until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.