I'm not old!!

Today on the way home from work I get a text from Greg (the maybe boyfriend... or the I want to be boyfriend.. but that is a whole other post) saying we are old because he is exhausted everyday after work.  I assure him that old was all in perception and we were not old.  Tonight in front of the bathroom mirror before bed I found my first gray hair and my heart sank... I am old..... 

New Year's, New Beginning?

People throw around the term soulmate alot, normally they are only referring to a person that shares their interests or that occasionally can finish their sentences.  I thought that maybe someone besides me would be interested to know what it really means, well it's intended meaning anyway.  The term goes back to Plato who wrote that in the beginning (remember you have to turn off the Genesis portion of your brain right now!) human beings had 4 arms, 4 legs, and two faces.  --stop laughing that's not what he meant by two faces lol--  The Gods became jealous of these beings and felt they were too powerful and that someday they could pose a credible threat to Zeus and others on Mt. Olympus, the emphasis was mostly on the fact that the Gods grew jealous because these beings were a true whole who required no mate, everything they required to live out a contented life was issued them upon their birth.  Image for a moment what that means, no searching for love, no wondering if you chose the right person, you would simply be born as one with the person who would complete your life's journey beside you. In certain ways it is very romantic, gives you a feeling of security no doubt.  Myself it seems a little disappointing that there was no search, no hope for what your mate might be, no mystery of attraction, courtship, and trials.

Anyway the Gods came up with a way to fix the creatures that they would be less powerful and not at all a threat to the Gods.  In an act of vengeance Zeus ordered  that the beings being seperated to give them 2 arms, 2 legs, and one face and then scattered the halfs all over the world leaving the new beings to wander the world seaching for their other half..... Their SOULMATE forver.


I came home tonight with the intention of blogging about something funny that happened yesterday but though I feel it is something I have to share something else seems more appropriate tonight (so keep checking back for the funniest true story ever in a couple days).

6 short years ago

do you remember where you were exactly 6 years ago at this moment?  for most people i am sure the answer is probably asleep or no i don't remember.  i remember exactly where i was and everyone who was there with me, the 2 hours and 45 mins that were about to pass at 12:03am on November 23, 2005 would change my life and theirs (to lesser degrees) forever.  i was being rushed out of my hospital room after hours of unproductive labor into the operating room at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center for an emergency C-section.  thank God for the fact that i was medicated to the point of not really being able to think the situation through, and after hours of labor at that moment they could have told me they were taking me to board the space shuttle and i would have nodded.  Bayley Amanda Gill was born at 2:48am, and no other momma could ever have been so happy to hear a strong, squeaky cry.  at 4 weeks premature my idiot OBGYN had given me every reason to be terrified that cry might not come on it's own and from what i remember of the faces around the room of my doctor, the nurses, the anesthesiologist, and the pediatric pulmonary doctor from Children's Hospital who was standing watch you would have thought we were all at the crucial turning point of a John Grisham novel.  i don't let myself think about all the different paths that had been laid out that night, the possibilities are too much to bare just as they were that night as i floated in and out of consciousness inside the operating room.

the world has changed so much since that night that i am sure the person i was when i entered that OR would not recognize it if she were here.

Happy 6th Birthday Little Princess!

First Dates, Single isn't so bad

Society beats into us our entire life that we are simply not complete until we have a spouse. So 4 years after my divorce I decided to fully put myself out there, I met a nice guy we had alot in common... etc etc. So we made a date.. a full week in advance. Sounds great in theory right? 3 or 4 days prior to the date I even took myself shopping so the "what do i wear?" question was answered. we picked a restaurant in advance to avoid the 'what do you wanna do? i don't know what do you wanna do?'. I was excited this was a real grown up date with a plan!! 2 days before the date we had a series of arguments (the origin of which are under debate) and suddenly every lifetime movie, crime drama, after school special started to spin in my head. I didn't really know this guy, what if he was a serial killer or a rapist? Of course none of these thoughts were rational but by the time the day of the date rolled around i was on the verge of a panic attack even as I was getting ready and almost called it off several times during the day.
Logically my panic and fear response had almost nothing to do with the person I was going out with but with the social implications of a date... the millions of What Ifs. What if he doesn't like me? Or possibly even more terrifying, what if he does? For two years I have had a can of pepper spray in the console of my car and had practically forgotten about it, in my insane paranoia on the way to the restaurant I dug it out, read the directions and put it in my purse. The date went wonderfully, he was smart, funny, polite, just like i rationally knew that he would be. So the panic response wasn't really about him as much as dating in general, there is just too much pressure involved, especially after 30. It's like before you even go on a date people ask you if you ever want to get married again or if you think you would like to have more children and if you give the wrong answers they delete you from their phone book and move on to someone else hoping to complete their 'checklist' before they reach 40. This race to the finish leaves no real time to get to know one another, no mystery to dating (because they ask you every imaginable question in the first week and by the time of the date you have nothing left to talk about).
So even though I had a good time and he is a great guy. I wonder if I am truly ready for this? At least being single I feel secure enough to not carry my pepper spray! So here's to adventures in dating... hopefully more to come!

Have you ever been reading a book and suddenly there are the words you have been fumbling for in black and white? You probably have but today was the first time it has happened to me! As you can tell from my blog.. (haha I am now addressing myself about myself) I am not not an eloquent writer by any means. So here is the quote by one of my favorite authors:

“He’s ruined. Do you understand the difference? With broken, maybe
you can fix things. Ruined? All you can do is wait to bury him.” -JR Ward

June 10

It's no secret that I have been quietly counting down til June 10, just as i do every year. My mother died on June 10, 1986 when I was 5 years old. Bayley will be 5 years old in November, although i know in reality the two events are not predestined to be linked I still have these nights when I beg God not to take me from my baby the way he took my mommy from me 24 years ago. I pray everyday and night that my baby can live a long and happy life and one that includes her mother. The loss of my mother was the most traumatic experience of my life, then followed immediately by the departure of my father. If anything were to happen to me, now or ever, I only hope that my friends will not allow her be shuffled around and treated like a burden. For she was never any burden to me. The only right thing to do if something happened would be for her father to settle down and provide her a good home and education where she could be a part of a family. That's what i was thinking as i was sitting on the edge of her bed watching her sleep.
My greatest prayer for my baby girl is that she never has to wake up in the middle of the night with no momma to hold like i did. I know this may sound a little morbid but tomorrow is the day and all our ages just seem to match up, so i could not let this go on and not address the issue. Just in case I want to say that I love my sweet baby girl more than life itself and hopefully I will be able to be there for her throughout her life, in a way my mother could not be for me.

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet? Although I have not yet determined where "there" is, I am relatively certain the answer is a resounding NO!!! Not to say that I am not enjoying the journey but the suspense is getting old. There doesn't seem to be any right answers anymore... and all the people I trusted enough to ask are gone. Never imagined the day would come when I missed S telling me to get my head out of my ass! Days like today I can hear his voice in my head, "Now friend....", he could always make doing the right thing sound so simple!
'

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. -Tom Stoppard

losing you

When you lose someone you think that everyday it will get a little easier, that there will be a turn around where the good days out weigh the bad again. You assume that the worst is over that they can only be taken from you once. So far that hasn’t been the case… I lose you again every morning when I wake up, when I turn over and still half asleep expect you to be on the other side of my bed. I lose you every time something good happens and I automatically pick up the phone because I would have shared it with you. Each time the pain cuts through me again just like the day I lost you and I curse you for ever coming back if you couldn’t stay, I curse myself for ever letting you in.

new friends

i had almost forgotten why i avoid having more than one or two close friends! new friends means new drama and playing the 6 degrees game all over again (which i really suck at). now if you are not from a small town then you may not be familiar with this game so i will explain, this is the part of any relationship where you are still learning who they know, don't know, are related too, dated in the past, hate with a passion, etc. the purpose of this game is to not offend the person or say something to them about your ex-boyfriends new girlfriend being white trash only to find out she is your new best friends sister or summer camp roommate! is this really necessary? actually the question i am dying to ask is, is this really worth it?

fear, disappointment, pain 9/29/08

There are only 3 constants in this world: fear, disappointment, and pain! Any other emotions we experience are fleeting and the only comfort we have are the return of these 3. The fear keeps me alert and on my guard, ever vigilant in my search for the underlying flaws that are bound to exist in all of us. In most cases they aren't hard to find, jealousy, hatred, bitterness, anger.. all hiding just below the surface of each damaged heart and soul... The comfort comes in the pain, the relief of knowing that the dangerous has passed and it settles around me like a familiar fog pulling me back inside myself.. back to the place where i belong. The pretty liars cloaked by the pretty lies that hide their true hideous selves. Our lies are the glue that hold together all the broken pieces so that from a distance we appear whole but the closer we draw to one another the more obvious it becomes that important parts are missing and unraveling at the seams. This world preaches faith to beings who have no right to it. We are all broken and tired yet we push on repeating the same mistakes day after day only to yield the same bitter fruits.


Children don't have to read fairy tales to know that dragons exist. They know dragons exist already. A fairytale tells children that dragons can be killed.
-G.K. Chesterton

Faith 1/22/09

It absolutely amazes me how ....................resilient human beings are! We can survive numerous natural disasters, war, death, disease, starvation, sleep deprivation, physical torture and still by nature want to believe that
good will prevail over evil.. We don't want to believe it, we need to
believe it. We need hope as much as we need air. Human beings need to have
faith in something greater than themselves in order to push on through
the everyday trials we face. When we lose that hope or that faith
nothing can save us, just as when we find that hope we can withstand
impossible conditions and insurmountable odds. I have foolishly placed
my hope in the person least likely to preserve it. I have placed my
fragile faith in the hands of a self proclaimed destroyer and in many
ways have let them banish me to my own private hell.

"For a man with faith, no explanation is necessary. Yet for a man without faith, none would be sufficient!"

Here's to us..

Here's to all those girls who used to be his number one. The ones who waited all night for him to call, only to check the caller ID the next morning and be disappointed. The ones who made it through that bitter break up, dried your own tears, and moved on with your life, only to have him walk back in it months later like nothing ever happened. Those of you who cried on the first day you talked again because you knew exactly where this phone call was going. The ones who listened to him say, I only want to be your friend, one day, and the next, listened to him say how much he loves and misses you. We deserve something, and this is our tribute. Here's to the ones that took him back, hoping that maybe this time, he was different, hoping that maybe people really do change. We listened to our friends tell us that we were stupid for even thinking about giving him another chance, caught shit from our parents, and even snuck around to see him for a while. We went through the great stage with no fights all over again. We started this out thinking it would be just friends, and ended up falling in love with him again. We wanted nothing more in the world than to hear him tell us he loved us too, that even though things were bad in the past, they would be different this time. And when we finally heard it, it was like we were dreaming. This is for us. Here's to the ones who believed what he said, sat around all over again waiting for a phone call that might come in a few hours, or a few days. Here's for the tears cried and dried all over again. We wanted so desperately to believe that he was really busy, he couldn't possibly call us at that moment, or even that he fell asleep early. We trained ourselves to believe the lies because we wanted to believe we had found the one for us. We learned to SETTLE for someone who didn't treat us the way we should be treated. Here's to the ones who never believed it when people told us there might be someone else. We just couldn't believe that he could do this to us again. This is for those great girls, who loved him more than words can say, and took him back no matter what happened last time because they couldn't bear to look back on their lives one day and wonder "what if". This is for the girls that stayed up all night long listening to him whine about an ex girlfriend who cheated on him, and cried during the entire conversation. The ones who hoped he would realize that he deserved better, that he deserved us. When he said that he loved you, but he was in love with her, he didn't mean it. This is for the ones that held on to something that was never there to begin with...this is for us!!