Sorry, not sorry

For some reason I felt called to make this particular blog post, not to call people out for doing wrong or for people to feel sympathy towards me, but to just get some stuff off my chest that I think about more often than I should and to maybe help others understand why I feel the way I do sometimes.  Also so that we can help our kids understand that our words have consequences even though they may not see it.  I am not saying I was bullied by any means, I just had some unfortunate things happen that sometimes affect me to this day.  I hope I never hear that my boys were on the giving end of some of these instances and I hope I can teach them right from wrong and to respect everyone, even if they don't like them very much. Unfortunately I have already witnessed Caleb being on the receiving end of a rude little child.  While walking into school my sweet little guy said hi to another kid.  The kid's response was "Hi Stinky!"  He wasn't being playful, he was being hateful and mocking Caleb for having accidents at school sometimes because sometimes he doesn't feel it because of his SPD.  Luckily Caleb didn't hear it, but my brother (who was dropping my niece off) and I heard it as did the child's mother who made him apologize.  Caleb didn't know why he was apologizing and I am okay with that, but one of these times he is going to hear it and its going to hurt him.  He is starting to understand his feelings and those words spoken by a 5 year old confirmed my worst fears for my baby boy.  This also was not the first time this kid had been rude to Caleb, yet Caleb still wants to be his friend and have him come over to play.  Forgiveness!

As I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed yesterday I came across 2 postings from Buzzfeed asking men and women to share their reaction to the first mean thing that was ever said to them about their bodies. Well this resonated with me and made me think about the things that were said/done to me in my teenage years that made me lose a lot of respect for certain people. 

The first incident is something I remember like it was yesterday, even though I was in 7th or 8th grade. We were at a school dance and I finally worked up the nerve to ask a boy to dance with me. I walked over to Wayne Allemann and asked him if he would dance with me. His response, in front of all of his friends, was something that hurt so much that all I could do was walk away numb. I couldn't even cry. I was just numb. He said "Hell no, my dog wouldn't even dance with you!" and he and his friends proceeded to have a good laugh at my expense. Why did he have to say that to me?  Sure I was overweight but I like to think I wasn't that horrible looking to elicit that sort of response.  Life went on and we went through the rest of our high school career. He most likely forgot what he said but I still did/do remember. It made me not trust men. The amazing thing was that he saw me my sophomore year of college, after I had lost 60 pounds and wanted to chat with me at the gas station like nothing horrible had ever been said to me. Did he really not remember what he said.... No he probably didn't because it didn't hurt him and they were just words. 

Then came an event between someone that I thought was my friend at the time. Erin was dating a guy named Keith. Keith had a brother named Bryan and she convinced me that Bryan liked me and gave me his phone number to call. I was naive so sure, I called and called and called. He never answered the phone and Erin finally told me about a week later that she made it all up and I was pretty pathetic for believing that a guy actually liked me. Why?  Why would my "friends" do that to me.  How hateful of a thing was that to do to someone that was supposed to be your friend. I continued to be friends with her despite her stabbing me in the back every few months throughout school. I so badly wanted to fit in and have friends that I would just be sad about something for a little bit, suck it up, and continue like nothing ever happened. I didn't want to be the girl that had no friends so I allowed people to verbally jab me at every chance they got. 

I learned not to trust people. I learned to keep people at arm's length and not allow them fully in to my life. I settled into relationships that weren't necessarily right for me but I wanted to be with someone and I didn't want to be alone that I "settled."  For a year and half I "settled" with someone that I thought cared about me.  I forgave him for cheating on me because he "missed" me so much. Deep down I thought I could do better but years and years of being put down led me to stay just so I wouldn't be alone. 

I never knew where I fit in growing up, and to be honest I still don't have a clue. In school I was a good athlete, drama need, choir geek, and straight A student yet I was never fully accepted into a single one of those groups. I wasn't invited to places with anyone. I was a loner and the ass of most jokes that eventually got back to me. I bottled my emotions inside so often until I exploded at something so minute that I looked like some crazy woman getting upset over whatever it was. No one understood me or why I behaved that way but then again they didn't really care. To this day I bottle my feelings up until it's too late and something so small, so stupid happens that it all spills out and then I am seen as some emotional woman. I can control it when I need to (on calls at work) but sometimes I am left bottling in until I can come home and fall Intoy husbands arms. My husband... The first man that I could ever trust. The person that is always there for me and never putse down. The man that supports all of my decisions 110% and doesn't question why I'm acting so silly over something stupid. Yes, this man that I married and had children with finally allowed me to let me guard down and let him into My life.

I'm sure I will get teased for this at work or by other who read it, but I am to the point that I don't give a rats ass.  If you feel the need to poke and prod at me because I spilt out my feelings then you are no true friend of mine and are no better than the people I have already written about. 

All of these events have shaped my confidence (or sometimes my lack thereof.). I so badly want to be accepted by my peers, even at 30 years old that I want to be the best and do my best. When I don't i get upset with myself and my confidence goes in the gutter because on my head, I think everyone is laughing at me for wing a screw up. 

The only people I have ever been able to count on to be there for me in my life are my family, specifically my cousins. We are all different in our own rights and had our own sets of friends but we all just get each other. There was the skinny popular cheerleader, and the jock, and the two non conformists whom everyone respected, and me-the loner. We could all be together and none of the outside world mattered. We are all grown now with "adult" jobs but we still try so hard to make time for each other. We have a relationship that my husband thinks is crazy because he has never seen a group of cousins as close as us. How many friends do I still have from school... ZERO!  Sure I am still acquaintances with some people and with my maid of honor but in the end her life and my life have put so much  distance between is that we haven't seen each other since Caleb was 4 weeks old.   I feel like even as an adult I am quite the loner. I maybe have 3 or 4 close friends but I guess with having a young family I lose sight of what it means to be a friend and lose sight of what friends are supposed to do for each other.   Maybe that needs to be something if should work on. I need to work on keeping people close to me that I care about and nurturing those relationships. I also need to stop allowing negativity into my life. 

So wow!  That felt good to get off my chest and now I can actually talk about my life. 

Jason and I just spent an amazing kid free weekend together at Big Cedar in Branson. After the weeks we had both had, this was truly needed. We met up with two of his Marine Corp buddies and had a great time. We ate at a place called BillyGails and had the biggest pancakes and French toast i had ever seen. We were full got hours. I would highly recommend going there if you are ever down in that neck of the woods. 

I even got my new Coach purse!!!  It only cost my cheap butt $12!  I had a gift card from coach because they couldn't repair my old one and the value ended up being twice as much as we even paid for the first purse. Then I had a gift card from my birthday so in the end, I paid $12! Not bad if I do say so myself. We finished the weekend with a trip to Bass Pro Shop because no trip to that area is complete without stopping there. I managed to snag some Under Armour socks and shirt using gift cards from Bluegreen resorts for sitting through their timeshare presentations so I still didn't spend any money!  

So I got to go to a pretty awesome training that through work where I learned all about Synthetic Cannabinoids (K2) and bath salts.  I definitely knew these things were bad news, but HOLY MOLY!  This stuff is no joke.  Think about this...some stoner dude is the one responsible for spraying the chemicals on the plant material you are about to smoke and he's making it in a pyrex dish in his kitchen..pretty scientific if you ask me!  Teens are ending up in ERs across the country and what's even more scary is that US citizens are apparently helping fund terrorism through their purchases of k2 and bath salts.  A small gas station in Alabama was raided and they were found to have wired 40 MILLION dollars to Yemen!  Just imagine how many others are still doing this on a larger scale.  The guy in Florida that attacked the homeless man and ate his face... alleged to be bath salts but the half life of the drug was not able to be detected in his system at the time of the autopsy.  He wasn't eating his face either, there was no skin found in his stomach, he was just tearing it away.  HORRIBLE.  There are so many stories of violence that comes from the use of bath salts that I won't even go into detail, but if you are curious, just google it.  K2 isn't much better.  I know of a kid in my town specifically that said he had a horrible experience after smoking it.  He carved an Anarchy symbol in to his leg and saw fire and the devil.  He was legitimately scared for quite some time after that.  Sur the package says that its "legal" and "not for human consumption" but lets be real, when is the last time you spent 60 bucks on a gram of bath salts or 50 bucks on a small package of "incense."

Changing thoughts...

I was able to pull a small amount of meth off of the streets a few weeks ago and in turn got a rare positive Performance Observation form for looking beyond the reason I was called and for locating the narcotics.  After some of the grief I got from that call, it was very rewarding to be recognized for doing my job and doing something well.  That was followed up with an additional "way to go" after some unreported stolen property was recovered from a subject that had been reported to be going through cars.  We don't do the job to get a pat on the back, but it definitely makes you feel good when your work is recognized!

Next week I get to start coaching Caleb's tball team...wish us luck!  I am sure there will be some stories to follow here!

I think that is all for now...I need to plan out our menu for the month and get a grocery list together before hubs comes home from work!  The trick this month is budgeting to account for lost income from our rental property.  Hopefully the house will sell quickly and I won't have to be stressed over money anymore!