Every Sunday morning I get up earlier than the rest of the house. It’s my day off and a chance to sit and drink my coffee without having to rush out to work. I’ve been working a lot of overtime so this is a gift. I am a Jersey girl, most Sundays I listen to Bruce Springsteen on Pandora. Today it has me thinking about just what does his music mean to me? It reminds me of a simpler time in the world, when I was a kid and things weren’t so hectic and scary, the way they are now.

I wish my kids had grown up the way I did, out riding my bike all day with my friends, playing manhunt when it got dark, laying on the beach in the summer with my cousins listening to Bruce. Those were the days when you had to carry your boom box around to listen to music, or if you were very lucky you had a Walkman.

There was no streaming and we didn’t know what we were missing, we got excited to hear our favorite song on the radio. If you wanted to tape it, you had to wait till it came on and hope the DJ didn’t talk through the best parts. We went to Rocky Horror at midnight on Friday night and cruised around on Saturday night down in Seaside.I’m grateful to have this convenience to cue up any song I want (Jungleland) to drink my coffee to or clean my house but god damn those were good times too!!!

So, one of my girl crushes is Holly Hunter. I say one because have few including all the actresse who have played Lisbeth Salander; Rooney Mara, Noomie Replace, and, Claire Foy.

I love me some Lisbeth but that’s for another blog. Anyway back to fabulous Holly, I have loved her since way before Saving Grace, which is my all time favorite show ever!! I mean ever. Even more than the Norman Reedus show ( I mean Walking Dead 😉😆). I mean her voice is raspy like his too!!! What could be bad? Also she’s a phenomenal actress.

Anyway, I am a pediatric special care nurse and I work with medically fragile children. It is a job I love and am so grateful to have.

Since I work with kids I end up watching alot of kid shows and cartoons. So The Incredibles? You’ve heard of it I’m sure. She voices Elastagirl and I. Am. Here. For. It.

So watching this movie with my little patient reminded me of Saving Grace and how much I love that show. Her character in that show, Grace always just spoke to me on a visceral level and she did it so well.

It’s time for a rewatch, soon. That show always uplifts me and makes me happy. In a world of uncertainty it’s so good to have my shows to turn to. 

Thank you for taking him away from me, even though you claim to have met him (what was it?) three weeks after I left him? It’s fine. I was leaving no matter what. But really, thank you, for he is no longer my problem.

You can deal with his mood swings and criticism. Although I doubt he gives as much to you as he did to e since you are his ideal body type and hair color. He never knew what to do with me and my big rack and red hair. It’s fine.

I was over him way before I left him. I was just wading through the inertia of that life that was preventing me from changing.

My life has improved ten fold since you caught his eye. I’m happier, I’ve finished college, I no longer have to live with his disapproval. I have love in my life now.

I have a good man. My children are safe from his constant criticism.

I’m sorry, he is your problem now. I often wonder if you are as happy as you say on FB or do you cry in the bathroom alone like I used to do?

Do you hide it from your kids, your family, like I did? Does he say the mean things to you too?

I hope not. I hate the idea of him doing to someone else what he did to me. I really do.

But thank you. You did me big favor and he is not my problem anymore.

Hey, psssssttttt, come here.You wanna know what I do on snap chat. I bet you do. Let me tell you, come closer, over here in the corner, I don’t want anyone else to find out…Noooo not that, there’s not enough filters in the world for that.

Relax, I text. Seriously, that’s all. I have a friend from Ohio, that I met in nursing school, a young friend. We text back and forth, she posts pictures cause she’s young and gorgeous.

I do not post pictures, ain’t nobody got time for it, ain’t nobody wants to see it.

I text her about all the phantom illnesses we each have thanks to nursing school, or to throw shade at people we both don’t like, it’s fun!

Right now she thinks she has MS and I’m scared I am diabetic, so cool! Also, the guy who made everyone feel like we were stupid in school with rambling posts to our study group on Facebook never graduated!!!

There’s so much for me to text her about!

But no pictures.

Tbh, (see I know the lingo) I don’t even know why I’m on it.

I have not taken one picture of myself for it, not one.

Isn’t FB messenger for texting idk, (more lingo).

Every time I get a notification that one of my contacts is on snapchat I have a mini heart attack. Please dont add me, please dont add me!

Why does it take from your phone contacts and announce this?

I don’t want everyone I work with knowing I’m on this crazy app.

Like there is no way I’m using it the way it was intended, no fucking way.

Snap chat please don’t tell them I’m here.Please for the love of all that is holy don’t out me!!!!Do y’all know this song?

********The old Rocker wore his hair too long,
wore his trouser cuffs too tight.
Unfashionable to the end — drank his ale too light.
Death’s head belt buckle — yesterday’s dreams —
the transport caf’ prophet of doom.
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams
in his post-war-babe gloom.Now he’s too old to Rock’n’Roll but he’s too young to die.******

Of course, you dont, and it’s all good. It really is, this is a song from when I was young, and when my older cousin turned me on to Jethro Tull.

He had a denim jacket with their name embroidered on it, and I looked up to him for many reasons, one of them his music taste.

He also turned me on to Bob Marley, I miss him, he has since passed away, but when I hear certain songs, I am flooded with memories.

My Ramones cousin is still alive, Thank Christ!

Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young To Die is an amazing song though and it reminds me of summertime when there was no Snap Chat, there weren’t even cell phones.

Recently, I have turned off all notifications on my phone, I just don’t want to be so readily available.

The only people who can get through to me are my husband and kids, seriously.

Also, snap chat because I never want to miss an illness update or the chance to throw shade at garbage people.

When I was young his dirty hands made me think there was more out there for me, better. I told myself I was too young but that was not the whole truth.

I was not very smart when I was young, intelligent, yes, but smart, not so much and sometimes you pay a very hard price for thinking you know it all at the age of twenty.

Three years together and I was not convinced, mix in some drugs and alcohol and yeah, it was a disaster.

Years later I thought of his dirty hands and all of the things he must be doing, working on cars, getting married and having children. My husband had clean hands and a well paying job, but he was cruel.

I knew years later that I had made a mistake, the measure of a man is not in how clean his hands are, but what is in his soul.

Now I hold his dirty hands with joy, we came back to each other after many, many years apart.

My soulmate.

I remember the first time I set eyes on you,
in a smoky room, a party long ago.

A band was playing in the background.
You came and sat next to me,
and we talked for hours.

Later left the party together,
and my friend was pissed.

“How could you leave with a stranger?” he said.

“But he’s your friend,” I replied.

“Exactly,” My older brother/friend said to me,
and we were inseparable after that.

High school sweethearts, a prom, graduation, and a new car,
love like I had never known before, was all mine.

But I was young and afraid.

Years went by and led us in different directions.

You remember seeing me with a big diamond on my finger,
I remember seeing you with two children, yours but not mine.

Time went on and wasn’t kind to either of us.

But destiny will not be stopped, and it is never late.

A tragedy brought us together again.

My father was gone, you knew how devastated I would be
and so, after so many years, you reached out to me.

Now I hold your hand again through life,
through the best years that we will have at each other’s side.

The road we travel now is not easy,
but we are not apart anymore,
we walk that road together, grateful for each day.

We know, that it could have been so different, and, we are
not looking back on wasted time and wasted years.

Today and every day we are always looking forward, to each day we get to be here, with each other.

I hold your dirty hands with pride, you are the one.

My child is bisexual.

I hope that there isn’t another mother here among my friends that feel the way I do right now. Because I wouldn’t wish this fear on anyone.

It wasn’t bad enough that my daughter can’t live in a world where she doesn’t get dirty looks every time she holds a girls hand.

It wasn’t bad enough that people say things under their breath to her because they are too cowardly to say them out loud. Because that shit happened before Trump was elected.

But now? Well, we have a president who wants to take away the rights of a few select groups and he reminds me of someone. Now my kid comes home and tells me that she is afraid to go anywhere because this country is taking a turn towards indifference and intolerance.

I agree with her. Don’t say it isn’t true, because it is, there are reports all over the country about men saying they’re going out p**sy grabbing, and taking out n**g**s. So what comes next?

People always beat up the gay kid in school, don’t even lie to yourselves and say that didn’t happen, cause it did. That is what I fear. I have two daughters, and this man has set a horrible example of behavior towards women, and people who are not his ideal(Straight and White) not to mention his feelings about women’s value.

He doesn’t like gay people, and he wants to take their rights away. I ask you what’s next??? “Relocation” All of the minorities in our country are under attack, and so that includes my child, which makes him my enemy. His supporters will look to him for how to act now and sadly some are not smart enough to distinguish right from wrong and bad things will happen.

I fear him, yes because of who he is, but I fear the mindless masses much more. It wasn’t bad enough that if she was in a partnership with someone that they couldn’t be married legally, until recently.

It wasn’t bad enough that she couldn’t be insured on a policy held by her life partner or have family leave if one of them was sick or having a child. But Mike Pence sees nothing wrong with conversion therapy that he feels will fix my child WHO IS NOT BROKEN.

That is akin to mental and physical torture that he sees nothing wrong with, as a nurse and a mother I am horrified. But he will make sure insurance covers it. I addressed that one paragraph up so I won’t go into how ridiculous this is. I realize there are other issues, but we all voted according to the things that were on our individual hearts and should stop fighting. But do not say my issue isn’t important, it is important to me and my family. I hope you never have to feel the way I feel right now.

Written the day Trump was elected.

I tend to keep all my shit inside…

I have always had a strange relationship with my mother. It had always been so complex and so convoluted that I wondered if all mothers were this way. They aren’t I have come to find out, which is fine now as an adult but it was not fine when I was growing up and needed direction and love.

I made a lot of mistakes due to no one telling me what was right or caring. I have chronic anxiety that I feel like I wouldn’t have if I had grown up differently. For sure I wouldn’t have picked up a drink at age 13 and descended into that ten year hell I was in. I dont blame her for my alcoholism or my drug abuse, that’s on me.

But I wonder if I would have cared more about myself if she had.

It’s very hard to understand, trust me I have tried all my life to figure out what I did. I was born I guess and that was enough.

I really thought I was too old to be hurt by her, but it turns out I was wrong.

To people that are not me, she puts on a good show and sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who knows the real her. I was there for all her drunken tirades when I was a kid, I was the one she said she wished I had never been born to.

I am the one who had walked through life without a mother’s love though, but I gave it abundantly to my children. They have what I never had.

To people outside the family and even my brother, she is mother of the year. Some of my childhood friends don’t remember, a lot of people think there’s something wrong with me. She’s so nice and caring, to everyone else but me.

My brother is visiting my mother from NY state this weekend. I live in NJ and my mother lives 45 min away from me. My brother lives four hours away and we don’t see each other very much at all.

Tomorrow is my birthday and neither of them reached out to tell me he was coming to visit or even thought to invite me over. So now I get to see them tagging each other on FB about all the fun stuff they are doing. I took this weekend off because it was my birthday and my mother knew it…

She won’t hesitate to call me when she wants me or needs something though and she wonders why I never pick up the phone. And she tells everyone she just doesn’t understand what’s wrong with Kristin.

I’m sorry. You own this machine just because your pink sports bottle is there; forgive me. I didn’t know. I was unaware that it was common to have a place holder while you go pee? Since when? Am I missing something? Do I need you Google this?

Ok, I Googled it and oh look, Google says you’re a cunt. I mean the gym is mostly empty and there are fifty other machines. Why the fuck do you have to leave your shit on them while you go take a pee.

Innocently, I got on said machine after waiting five fucking minutes for you to return and asked me to vacate the machine you were saving because your water bottle was there.

I always complete my time on a machine and then go pee, like a lady. I feel no need to be so self-important and superior that I have to save a machine while I go pee.

Or I take the chance and take my water bottle with me to pee, then go get my machine.

If it’s not available when I get out of the bathroom I wait. Because I’m not an asshole.

You can’t fuck up my day bitch in the hot pink pants, because I’m going home to take a nap and go see OAR tonight.

I’m gonna ride the bike and try and get my hamstring to reattach to my femur, then go home to my wonderful life where I’m not a nasty witch.

Unlike you. I feel like you have a miserable life and want to bring everyone down. I get it, but I’m not receiving it. You and your negative energy need to stay far, far away from me.

After I leave here I’m calling gorgeous husband for some phone sex and then taking a nap.

OAR tonight with my girl, fuck off gym lady. You suck.