I AM

I AM

 

 

I am from a loving and hardworking mother

I am someone who wonders  why god put me here

I am the spiting image of that mother who is now gone but never forgotten

I am someone who wants a family of my own

I am from a father who loves me more than he has to

I am someone who pretends to love herself

I am from a grandfather who showed everyone an equal amount of patience and love

I am someone who feels that she is  not worthy

I am a very proud older sister

I am someone who worries too much about things that are beyond her control

I am someone who overcomes obstacles that are placed in her way

I am someone who cries when she thinks of how selfish she was when her  mom was sick

I am from a long line of kind hearted and hard working people

I am someone who understands that that her brother loves her  and wants the best for her

I am someone who has worked very hard to get to where she is

I am someone who says life isn’t easy

I am from a place where you can see the stars at night

I am someone who tries very hard to please everyone  

I am someone who treasures friendships

I  am someone who hopes to  one day peace of mind and happiness

I am someone who will never know

I am a mother with no living children

I am Crystal Michelle

What people want to do...

　

Recently a friend of mine decided to start talking to a guy that the rest of the girls in our group had already warned her against. I consider this guy a friend and he has never done anything against me…However….I have not tried to date him either. He is that guy who chases women, says all the right things, uses them and tosses them aside and brags about it later. I am almost certain that I will turn on the TV one day only to find a news report that some poor women has went crazy and ran him down with her car.

Naturally this situation stirred up some debate in my circle of friends. Some wondering if she had lost her mind and I trying to get everyone to understand something….what was I trying to get them to understand you ask...... At the end of the day…no matter what you say…what you do or how you feel…

PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DO WHAT THEY WANT TO DO…PERIOD.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my friends and I do not want to see them hurt but I can not run their lives for them. I think that at one time I maybe was that person who nagged the people in my life a little too much about how they handled certain situations and maybe even judged them to some degree. However, since entering my 30’s I have finally decided that I do not care what anyone else is doing… as long as it isn’t negatively affecting me it is none of my business.

I realize that the only thing I can do is be there for my friends no matter what. I have learned how to express my thoughts to people in a more constructive and objective way and make sure that I tell them that no matter what the outcome they can ALWAYS come to me and I will support whatever decision they make. (Keep in mind that this is in reason…because if they were putting themselves in real physical danger I would probably kidnap them and hold them hostage until they changed their mind!)

I have come to this conclusion from experience. I make decisions (mostly about men) everyday against the wishes and advice of many of my friends. I am talked to and warned and still I end up making whatever decision I want to make weather they like it or not. I have been lucky that there are a few women in my life that love me no matter what. They are there for me when I am reaping the benefits of a good decision and they are there for me when I am heartbroken over the outcome of a bad decision. They love me no matter what I do and hopefully they will continue to keep this up. Because god knows that I am likely to make many many more decisions that they do not agree with…it is only human nature after all! In return and out of love for them I show my friends the same respect, courtesy and love that they show me and in doing so I have fulfilled my responsibility.

I wish that more people would realize that people are going to do what they want to do weather you like it or not, learn to approach things more objectively and constructively without a hint of judgment and be there for their friends no matter what.

 

A big THANK YOU to the people in my life who have learned this same lesson and stick by me every step of the way...even when they don't agree. 

When will I come into my own and be happy?

People have told me that their thirties were the best time in their lives and that is when they really came into their own. I feel that so far my first year in my thirties has proved me to be a walking contradiction of that statement.

Here is why….

I am certainly better off as far as the amount of money that I make; I would say that the buck stops there. I don’t think I have ever in my life been more confused and unsure of the person I am as I am at this point in my life.

I find myself wishing I still had the job I had at the age of 20 and worked with the same people I did when I was 20. The pay wasn’t good but I was learning and making a little bit of a difference and I was damn good at it. The office manager there was like a second mother to me and I learned so much about not only my job but life from her. I find the job I have now is to easy at times and then at times harder to learn. On the easy days I am bored out of my mind and on the harder days I just feel inadequate. Then there are the people…most of them are ok and I am beginning to really like the new girl but because of other people in the office I stay at a certain length. THEN…there is one guy and one girl that work here and the tension between me and them is just not good for my sanity. I was harassed by him and she was a friend who turned out to really not be a friend at all and didn’t like me. I can only surmise she was basically just pretending to be my friend because I was really good to her and helped her more than anyone with her wedding.

If you know me then you know that I love to have my own space and I take so much pride in decorating and keeping a clean house. With that being said…I am 30 years old and don’t even have a place of my own. I truly couldn’t afford a place of my own. I love my brother for letting me live with him in Lexington and I love having him around so we can both help each other out when needed. The only thing is that from time to time I just feel so deadbeat-ish for not being able to have my own place. I love the house we live in and I love that my brother let me put some of my own touches to the decorating. For some reason it doesn’t really feel like mine without all of my home interior prints and furniture that I would have picked out. Then there is the organization of the place…that being ….there isn’t enough!! I don’t know what it is but I really don’t keep it as clean as I use to keep my house in Summersville or my apartment in Campbellsville…I took so much pride in the cleaning and decorating of those places. I miss that but I have no motivation to get back to that place again for some reason.

In the year since I turned 30 I have lost friends and felt like I was loosing others. I hate that feeling. I mean for the ones that I lost…I know I am better off but you would just think that at this point in my life I would have already weeded out all the dirt bags. Apparently not! Thank god for the ones that I thought I was loosing and didn’t because I love them. I know we are all going to at some point disagree…but I hate feeling like I have let down or disappointed a friend by something I say or something I do.

I remain very close to a couple of people in my family but nobody is as close as I remember them being as a kid. The best childhood memories I have are the ones when everyone in my family were together and that hasn’t happened in a long time and I don’t see that it will ever happen again. Not only that but there are so many people who are gone now and wouldn’t be there that it would probably not be as happy as it was back then. Those people being gone seem to put a large hole in my heart that makes me unhappy these days. I feel like they should be here and there is also this looming thought that eventually everyone I care about will be gone. The older I get the more I find I struggle with the things I have said and done to my family over the years and even what I haven’t done that I should have done. There are other issues I find myself struggling with and if you know me then you know what they are.

My dating life is in totally disarray! The men that would commit to me I can’t commit to and they make me feel so much anxiety that I can barely breathe…I will never understand why. Then the ones who are no good for me and won’t commit I am chasing after like a mad person and the fact they don’t want me causes me to have anxiety! There is one in particular that I have not been able to get very far away from. I managed to meet someone and break away from him for about 6 months but then when that didn’t go how I wanted I was right back to him. I can’t explain how I feel about him and really after all that has happened the last 2 years I should just give up because it is obviously going nowhere. Sadly I have been unable to cut those ties and I feel as if it is maybe putting a large strain on other relationships and what kind of person would want to be with someone she couldn't take around her friends and family, right?  Then there is the thought that this could be holding me back from finding the person who really will seem to be made just for me.  I can't explain to you just how conflicted I am with the whole thing.

There is also a world of regret that I honestly struggle with every day…..it is possibly the worst of all of these.  The reason being that most of this may be able to be fixed and worked on.  Not regret though...there is no way to fix the regret you have involving a person who is no longer on this earth.

In closing I really do feel as if I am anywhere close to coming into my own, being ecstatically happy or having anything about my life under control. Sometimes I wonder who I really am, what I was really meant to do, where am I going, who I am disappointing and when I do it’s as if a ton of bricks is sitting on my chest and the floor is falling out from under my feet.

 

(sorry for any grammatical errors...I really was more concerned with getting this off my chest than I was how it sounded)

System Armed...Stay

I tend to watch crime shows....Most all of them.  I have done this for as long as I can remember.  I guess it started with all of the Law and Order shows and American Justice on A&E sometime in my early twenties.  Now I have graduated to NCIS, Criminal Intent, Snapped and most anything on Investigation Discovery.

A little over a year ago I took a trip to Illinois to visit a friend overnight.  This was a five or six hour drive and I noticed at this time that I was scared shitless that something would happen to me on this trip.  Thoughts ran through my head faster than I could keep up. "What if I am ran off the road and kidnapped?" , "Did that man just look at me strangely?", "Is there a rapist, serial killer or both on the loose?"...and many more!  I decided after I came home from that trip to start watching more comedy and less crime.  I did do that by watching CBS comedies every Monday night and Friends re-runs or Big Bang Theory each night before bed. My paranoia seemed to get a little better.

I have been living with roommates for the past 2 years, one of which is my brother.  With someone always in and out of this house the alarm system rarely got used.  Aside from the one time it went off on me for some unknown reason just after I stepped out of the shower and I ran to the living room in a towel, threw on the pj's that were on the couch and ran out the front door to await the arrival of the cops AND the time my brother set it and it went off on me when I came home from out of town and didn't know the code to turn it off.  (These things could only happen to me, lol)  

Then about 4 months ago a man came by our house selling these VIVINT security systems. These things are like alarm systems on crack!  A person can control everything from the thermostat to the locks right from your smart phone and they have a camera that we pointed out the window and can watch live or otherwise.  Of Course with all of these bells and whistles my brother decided we should have this since he would be deploying.  We all loved the system and everything it could do...but again...there was always someone here so it rarely got used.  Until recently.....

The guys left for their deployment training.  For the first few days I didn't use the system.  I mean it isn't like I have never lived on my own before and when I did I felt so safe in my hometown that I rarely locked my door.  I realize now that probably wasn't the best idea so now I was at least locking my house up tight!  Then one night I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to the dog barking and I just knew  that I heard voices outside...then it dawned on me that I was in fact now living in this city ALONE.  I had never felt alone before in this house even when I was alone because someone was always going to come around and would find me if something happened and now....they wouldn't.  Needless to say at those thoughts I started using the alarm system every time I leave the house and at night after dark when I am here alone.  Here comes the really hilarious part.

At night when I set the alarm to "Arm Stay" for the first week the alarm system voice that says "System Armed, Stay"  actually freaked me out a little!!! 

This leaves me to ask myself should I switch to all comedy shows.... :)

"Stop being such a chick!"

I very recently spent a year attempting a relationship with a man who was constantly repeating this phrase to me. Once I replied with… "I happen to have a vagina…what else am I suppose to be, dumb ass!!!"

Of course I knew that what he meant was that I was acting crazy. Men use such terms as a defense mechanism and to make them feel validated when they don’t have an explanation for their crude behavior. For example: This particular guy would tell me he was coming to take me out and then not show up and not answer his phone.

Now, guys…when you do things like this you should expect that you will have a phone full of text and calls. How could you think otherwise?? Your mothers didn’t raise you without teaching you something we like to call "common courtesy"….Did they? If you tell me you are going to pick me up for a date and you NEVER show and you refuse to answer your phone or reply to a text then you can better believe that I am going to be pissed and you are going to here about it. You could always just call and cancel, which may start a fight depending on the situation and the girl, but trust me when I tell you that fight isn’t going to be near as bad as the one you get when you go the other route.

The major statement I try to use to explain to men when situations such as this arise is…Put yourself in my shoes, how the hell would you feel?? I can answer that… YOU. WOULD. NOT. LIKE. IT.

Weather you want to admit it or not there are situations which warrant a women to "act like a chick". That was one of them. There are some instances that don’t warrant it, However. For example…If we were to know each other in passing and exchanged phone numbers I should not assume that means we are an item or start reading into every face book status or tweet that you write before we even go on a date. That is taking it too far to fast and you have the right to probably call that girl crazy or say she is acting like a chick.

These things are something that every chick does from time to time and to some degree they are expected and it comes as little surprise when they happen, right?

With all that being said….. There are men who act like chicks! When a guy acts like chick it is 100X worse and more annoying. Men that are acting like chicks tend to ALWAYS go with the 2^nd type of situation I gave you earlier in this post. They will assume you are in a deep meaningful relationship BEFORE they even go on a date with you or directly after the first date! They will pout around if you do not find the time to hang out with them when they think you should and not just when dates are canceled.

My example to this is that I have a friend who is trying her luck with online dating and every guy who has contacted her thus far has been the guy who "acts like a chick". They want to start calling her baby or sweetie within the first email exchange. There is one who got mad at her for not wanting him to call her those things and said he was no longer talking to her…BUT then he emails her again and apologizes and says he doesn’t want to throw away what they have and could she please give him a chance. THEY HAVE NOT EVEN SEEN EACH OTHER FACE TO FACE AT THIS POINT!!!! Not only is that a total chick move but that is the crazy kind of chick move and it is very unattractive in a man.

Granted women complain about not finding a nice guy who will treat her right and call her pet names and show up when he says he will. BUT, where in that statement have you ever heard a women say she wanted a man who was a bigger chick than she is….Uh….no where! You know why? Because there is room for only one chick in a relationship and that spot is reserved for the person with the equipment to back it up!

Surely a women can find a man with a happy medium of the good guy and the guy who still has his man card.....because that is what we really want!!  So stop being a chick and find that happy medium and you might just find yourself a women.

I realize everyone has opinions and this is just mine…

 I read on article online today about a woman in Ohio who mistakenly married her own father. The short rundown to this is that her mom had her when she was 15 and let her maternal grandparents raise her and apparently they never discussed her father…I guess. ANYWAY….She grows up and has kids of her own and then she meets a man and gets married. By her account they are married several years and have a good life when he passes away. Now, AFTER he passes away this women’s uncle comes to her and tells her a family secret. The secret is that this man whom she was married to was in fact her biological father!!! The poor women had a DNA test done AND sure enough this man she was married to was her biological father! Now I realize this particular case may be rare but none the less, had this ladies family been honest with her they would have saved her a lot of heartache and stress. 
 

Can you imagine what a child who doesn’t know their biological parent goes through?
 

These children don ‘t know because the family thought it would be best for the child or because they truly do not know. BUT, what I am sure that children who have been through this would tell these parents is that you should make every effort to find out and if you know you should tell your child and let them make the determination on what is right and wrong for them come adulthood.

It is truly different for those children who know. They can always choose to not look him up and say "He knows where I am, if he wants to find me it isn’t that hard" or they can choose to look him up. The point here is that those children have a CHOICE.

This choice is taken away from some children. The majority (I say majority because there are probably a few who do not feel this way) of these children grow up praying for a daddy. Feeling unwanted by that missing parent, daydreaming about what this parent is like, how many siblings they may have and what the holidays and birthdays would be like with them.  They wonder if there is someone out there who would have wanted to know them and be a part of their life had they only known this child existed.

 

This doesn’t mean that these children are ungrateful for the people in their lives, are not growing up with a good mother or didn’t have a good childhood. It doesn't mean they don't love and respect the step-parent who has taken them as their own (because they do).

 

 It means that because they are human like the rest of us this will always be in the back of their mind. To some degree they will never feel whole or fully wanted and they will never know where they come from or what traits they have inherited. They will walk this earth confused, depressed, angry and with an abundance of unanswered questions. In time they will realize that the reason they have to have an answer to everything that happens in life is because they don’t have the answer to one major question….. Where do I come from?

If you don’t tell a child who their biological parents are you are not only depriving them of important medical history, running the risk of them unknowingly marrying someone they are related to (Do I have to tell you that there are laws against inbreeding AND that it could produce children with serious birth defects??), BUT you are also taking away their RIGHT to know and their choice to contact that parent or not contact that parent. In making this decision for them you are emotionally scarring your child for life, without even realizing it….I PROMISE you this.

I have seen children go through this and have first hand experience with what I have written. If you have a different opinion …that is just fine, I respect that but don’t start an argument on here. Write your own blog and post your opinion there.

I realize everyone has opinions and this is just mine…..

And THAT my friends is how I did it….

There is a lady in my life going through a really ugly divorce. She has a child and they were together for 20 years…. It has been a year and she is having a hard time letting go and moving on…like I did….like anyone would do. This weekend during a conversation she asked me how I did it. I didn’t even have to think about my answer….

You see…if you ask some people, mainly the people who dislike me or the men I have fell for or let go, THEY are all sure to tell you that I am crazy.

BUT then there is there is this group of people who seem to think I am one of the strongest women they know. Mainly because they have seen me pick myself up and do what has to be done more times than I care to even count. As a rebellious teen my parents and I butted heads so many times that I finally was told to get out and I did. I got my own apartment and I worked most every night at Arby’s and while I barely managed to do it…I did finish high school and graduated with the rest of my class. Then there was the horrible first marriage….. Aside from the abuse and fighting he got to DUI’s before I managed to kick him out and not look back. Then there was loosing my job and let’s not forget the 3 times I had my dream of being a mother snatched away from me. My point to all of this is that while I lost my mind through these from time to time…. I never once thought about giving up and I don’t recall ever asking anyone to feel sorry for me…I knew I had done this to myself and I had to deal with it. I had no other choice but to bounce back and move on….so that is what I did.

Now if you fast forward from all of that to the year 2008….which was NOT my greatest year to say the least. I had miscarried, my family said goodbye to 2 grandmothers, my mother, and my uncle that year within a matter of months. While my marriage was all I felt I had left…it was slipping away too. Granted…looking back on that I can honestly say that marriage was quite possibly an even bigger mistake than the first. I will not go into detail about how that entire 2.5 year relationship was the most miserable time in my life because that would take like 10 pages! Also, because there is no point in rehashing and laying blame and pointing fingers and calling names for something that was so long ago. People make mistakes and then move on…you can’t take back the mistakes you make, you can’t change the mistakes of others and half the time nobody even thinks they didn’t make a mistake to begin with.

So that year is the year that it ALL became too much for me to get over. After everything I had been through that was when I finally said to myself "I can’t do this, I am not strong enough and I just don’t care anymore". I wanted to lock myself away in my house and wither away and that is what I was doing. I ignored phone calls, I missed worked and I slept my days away…literally! Fortunately for me that is where this group of about 5 ladies came into play…. I couldn’t hide from these women if I tried… and believe ME…I tried!! !! They were ruthless…they refused to baby me Even though they had families of their own, jobs and school… it got to where if I didn’t answer a text or phone call I soon learned they would just show right up on my doorstep. They did that a number of times and they made me get up…get dressed…Fix my hair and put my makeup and go out in public. They made sure that I did the things that I use to LOVE to do, like go eat at Fiesta, go bowling or go to the county fair. I was forever afraid to do these things because I didn’t want to run into certain people who I knew were sure to be there but when you have people knocking your door down and telling you that you are going …well….you overcome that fear real quick and just GO! When I say they didn’t baby me…I mean it. They pretty much told me like it was…and it was like this…that part of my life was now over… Done…no turning back and I couldn’t just lie down and loose everything else I had. I had to once again pull myself together and do what I was afraid to do.

I took on a second job and I started getting up every day and going to work and after that I would get ready and go to my part-time job. I had to make enough money to be able to make it on my own. I made it a point to start replying to my friends again, going out with them and calling them on the phone. I had to cut a lot of people out of my life and make it known to everyone left that I would not be a party to talking about the situation any longer. I didn’t want anyone coming up to me with a new story they had heard on me and what the latest small town gossip was concerning my divorce or my miscarriage or anything else involving my life! Then, the biggest step of them all…I left my hometown for a bigger town where nobody knew me or the situation and I could move on without a constant reminder.

The truth is that I actually think about regrets I have from that time frame that are related to my immediate family way more than I do the divorce. I am not saying that I don’t still think about it from time to time…because I do. But I find that as time goes my I hold a lot less hate in my heart than I did before. Now, that is not to say that I want to be friends with my ex or his friends and family…because I don’t want that at all. I just want to live my life separately from them and not ever have to deal with them in my future.  

So if you are going through a divorce or a bad breakup and you are thinking about quitting… DON’T YOU DARE!!! You wake up every day and drag yourself out of bed, shower, shave, groom (because if you look good, you feel good) and you go to work or school or you take care of your children. If there are too many memories in the house you shared together then do not be afraid to look for something else and start new in a place with less memories. Call your friends and make sure you talk to them daily and get out with them to do the things you once loved to do. Stop listening to all the stories about where your ex is and what they are doing and tell people to quit coming around you if that is all they have to say talk to you about. It won’t be easy and you will want to give up but you must not…because eventually you will be a much happier, wiser, stronger and more beautiful person for it!

I don’t think any of this…I know it…because THAT my friends….is how I did it.