1. If I cough unexpectedly and my bladder is not empty, I will likely pee my pants a little bit. This happens everywhere; car, work, home, in bed, or even during sex. Yes. I know. FUCKING EW. I can’t help it.

2. I went walking around the building parking lot last Wednesday with my coworkers at lunch. I thought it was going to be a leisurely stroll, but I get out there and my CRAZY friend O whips out a pedometer, throws on some running shoes and says “10 laps, GO!” and starts speedwalking like the hounds of hell are at her heels. HOLY HELL. I made it one lap, but I had to pee, and I knew if I kept walking that fast I WOULD. I just couldn’t hold it in and exercise at the same time.

3. As I was driving home on Friday night from my design meeting with @workingmomfence (Kami), I had to pee. Badly. I had consumed most of an iced grande skinny vanilla latte (if I can’t exercise, at least I get them skinny… right?) and I hadn’t thought to pee before I jumped in the car. I stopped at ANOTHER Starbucks to get my husband a coffee and pee, but it was occupado when I got there. I was waiting outside the door, trying desperately not to pee myself or end up in the emergency room from a burst bladder, when the door opens. I turn in relief, prepared to rush inside, but I am confronted by the tallest man I have ever seen, wearing full on rollerblading gear. Rollerblades, helmet, knee & elbow pads, reflectors.. the whole nine yards.  I was too shocked to laugh, thank God, or I definitely would have pissed myself, but instead I picked my jaw up off the floor and rushed into the bathroom. I almost didn’t make it.

4. I was in the bathroom a few months ago when the phone started to ring. I was peeing. My husband was at the ER with my sister at the time, so I assumed it was him. I panicked just managed to stop my pee stream in order to run to the phone. Unfortunately as I started to run (pants around my ankles, mind you) I couldn’t keep control and I peed. All over my legs. And my pants. YES. I AM ACTUALLY WRITING THIS ON MY BLOG FOR YOU TO READ.  It was my husband calling to say he was on his way home, everything was fine.  At that point, I didn’t bother to go back to the bathroom to pee and just jumped in the shower instead. *sigh*

And on that note, I think it’s best I stop, don’t you?

Just a few weeks ago, I was in the bathroom in the morning, getting ready for work. I was using a round brush to pull my hair back into a ponytail, my typical hairstyle of choice (though with a new haircut, we hope that will change).  The bottom layer of my hair is shorter than the rest, from a previous haircut, and it’s hard to get into the ponytail. That day I brushed it down and let it be a little messy. I thought about my friend Sarah K.

Sarah wore ponytails a lot. Except her hair was so short that half of it would fall out the bottom, like mine. I’ve always called her my best friend. Looking back I don’t know why. She wasn’t my best friend. She wasn’t even a good friend. I just wanted her to be my best friend. We’d been best friends a long time ago. Grammar school. Middle school. We were inseparable. We had so much fun … they called us Gasoline & Matches, we were always getting into trouble. We loved every minute of it.

We once stopped riding our bikes near the front of my house and started a fist fight with each other to see who would win.

She once ate so many brownies and popcorn that she couldn’t even remember how much she’d eaten. Then she puked it up everywhere.

We used to sit on the sloping roof overhang outside her bedroom window and wait for the cops to see us and call her parents.

Her room was painted blue. Her middle name is Elaine. I always thought she was so cool. She’s great with children. I always thought she’d be great with my children. And the two times she saw them? She was. She was great with them. {oh god I’m going to cry. This is ridiculous}

I loved her very much, but she spent her entire life forgetting about me.

As I stood there in front of the mirror, tears springing suddenly to my eyes, I felt angry. I felt so angry that I had tried for years, reaching out to her, emailing her, calling her, finding her, reminding her that I was here, I wanted to be her friend. Catching one lunch, one dinner, one coffee every 10-12mos. I believed her when she said she wanted to hang out more. She wanted to see me more. She wanted to talk more. Email more. Share more. Be there for me more.I fell for it last year again, after she came home from a trip to Israel. She blogged about it, and I read every entry. {I am so pathetic}

She started blowing me off between Middle School and High School. She stopped being a tomboy and figured out how to be a girl. She hung out with a faster crowd and she did things I wouldn’t do. She would come back to me every so often and ask for my help. Boyfriend trouble, family trouble, job trouble, house trouble. She wanted my help fixing it. I fixed it and she went off, waving goodbye gaily, already forgetting what I’d done for her. Every time.

Senior year, at prom, she was drunk. She found me in the bathroom. She told me I was the best friend she’d ever had. She told me that she never appreciated how I always put her back together. She told me she wished she had spent more time with me, and listened to me when I told her that doing E at 14 was a bad idea. That dating drug dealers was a bad idea. That smoking pot was a bad idea. That coming to the senior prom drunk was a Bad Idea.

I knew she was drunk but I felt vilified. I felt recognized. I felt important.

We graduated and I saw her about once a year. Once each time I was pregnant. Once after Cupcake was born. Once after Geeklet was born, which was the last time I saw her.  I called her and left her a voicemail a few months later. Nothing. A few weeks after that I called and caught her – but she was busy. She said she’d call me in a few days. Nothing. I sent her an email. Nothing.

I sent another email and told her I wouldn’t be calling anymore. That I hoped she was having a good time, but that I couldn’t put any more energy into a relationship she wasn’t willing to put effort into as well. I needed some closure.

She responded and said she couldn’t deal with a “friend break up” right now because her boyfriend had dumped her. She’d call me in a few days.

Say it with me, people! Nothing.

I emailed her again, against the wisdom that is Twitter. I had too much history with her. I needed to get some closure. I told her I wasn’t surprised she hadn’t called – that was exactly why I couldn’t play this pretend friendship game anymore. I wished her happy holidays, a good new year, and signed off. She responded and said she was sorry that I didn’t think she was a good friend, then made a bunch of excuses.

I told her I was sorry too. That was the end. I cried for a long time. I mourned the death of a friendship that wasn’t even a good friendship. I was bitter about how long I’d pursued this friendship to end it like this. I’ve felt angry and bitter many times since then. The moment in the mirror, hair halfway to a ponytail, was just one. It hits me randomly in the car, or at work, and I wonder why she was so dismissive of me. Why I wasn’t important to her when she was so important to me. She was right, it was a friend-break-up.

I’m still sad and angry and bitter about it, but I don’t want to be this way. It’s a waste of energy.  A waste of tears, which are rolling down my face right now to beat the band and I can’t stop them. It’s a waste, such a waste.

Here comes my 2010 resolution: I don’t want to waste time on this, or any other useless, bitter, ridiculous situation this year. I want to try and accept things for what they are and if I don’t like it, I don’t like it. Bitterness won’t help me. I need to pick up and move on and stop being so angry, so bitter, particularly about lost friendships. I’ve gained so many new friends in 2009. Sure, only one lives within driving distance. Most I’ll probably never meet face to face. I’m of the iGeneration, I should thrive on this, these computer-screen/social-media/internet community friendships and I DO. Sometimes it’s not enough for me, but I can’t be angry about it. I can’t be bitter. If I want more friends I need to find a way to go out and get them.

So. 2010. Less bitterness. More friends.

Let’s go.

—-

* Title inspired by the book I just finished reading, Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster. It’s a light, funny read that is autobiographical, which makes it even funnier, and I really enjoyed it. Laughed out loud quite a bit, which is relatively unusual for me (I read books and watch movies with hardly any emotion on my face, causing people to think I am a) bored b)angry or c)asleep with my eyes open).  If it were summer I’d say it’s a good beach read, but since it’s winter I’ll say it’s a good read for when you need something relatively mindless and uncomplicated after a very long and complicated day. I have a lot of those, which is why I love Sophie Kinsella so much.

Three times in the past two weeks, I’ve just gone straight to bed as soon as the kids were asleep. Note: that’s unlike me. I like to stay up and do a little something. The problem is that it’s not that I didn’t have anything to do. I have plenty to do, too much to do, and I keep taking on projects.  I am hooking a fucking rug as a Christmas present for chrissakes. WHO THE FUCK HAS TIME FOR THAT?!

Part of it is the holidays. Part of it is just the regular ebb and flow of life.

Regardless, I still need to find balance. I need to stop jerking around to each part of my life, trying desperately to complete a task before I am pulled away again. I should be doing other things than blogging right now but I’m exploding. I need to get some of this out.

I need to breathe. I don’t feel like I have time to breathe. And when I find time, I don’t feel like I have the energy.

How do you do it? How do you balance? What do you have going on in your life? Write me a book in the comments, I don’t care. I want it. I need to know how you’re managing. Or not managing. I don’t want to be alone in this struggle.

Your pain is palpable, and it affects me,
Sometimes I feel like I’ve run out of sympathy,
I want to make it go away,
But comes back day after day.

This poem sucks, but no matter,
You’ll never read it.

I like to think that last bit was poetic,
But honestly? It’s probably pathetic.
My English teacher would be ashamed,
Bad Poetry: One more thing for which I’m blamed.

You’ve said I’m uncaring, callous and selfish,
I’m not sure why you can’t see through my defense(ish).
You analyze every single action,
You don’t see my attempted benefaction.

It matters not how hard I try,
For in the end – I’ll surely cry.
Whether by your own hand,
Or “Nautrally,”
When you’re gone I’ll feel empty.

You seem to think that I don’t care,
But I care too much – none left to spare.

Your every word, wince, tear and scream
Hurt me more than you’ve ever seen.

I love you, not sure how to go on
When it’s clear you think I’m so wrong.

“I’ll never fix you before I die” you say,
That is how you hurt me today.
Tomorrow, it’ll be another phrase,
While I wander, crying, through this maze.

I’m so sorry that you’re hurting, and I’m so sorry that you are so scared. I’m scared too.  I just wish that you didn’t hurt me in your attempts to feel better.

I am afraid of what my children will write about me.

I want to be very, very clear. I love my mother. She is, essentially, a good person. Our relationship is at times many things that I do not like – but I usually know, in my heart, that she loves me. I usually can say, honestly, that she has been a pretty good mother for most of my life.

Our relationship is complicated, sometimes nonexistent. Our bond is tenuous but also somehow strong, because neither of us has yet walked away. It would be so easy to just walk away.  We’ve been told, so many times, by well-meaning friends and co-workers have told us to just hit the road and don’t look back.

I can’t.

Sadly, I have very few memories of my childhood. I am saddened and disturbed by this – and I’ve considered seeing a hypnotherapist in order to try and get some of those memories back.  I know that my childhood was not a bad childhood. It was not too tragic. Yes, my father decided he didn’t want a family, after all, when I was 4. Yes, my mother was and is a single mother. Yes, she was engaged twice after long-term relationships and neither worked out. Those things have affected me, but I don’t feel damaged by them.

Until I turned 17, my mother and I were great friends. Best friends. I told her everything. Around that time in my teen  years, however, I didn’t want to tell my mother everything. At that point, yes, I will admit – I lied to her. I think it’s safe to say that most teens lie to their parents at some point in time.  I tell you this to let you know that I realize I am not completely blameless in our struggling relationship, in this conflict. I realize that I have had a part.

I left home when I was 19 without saying a word. I was fighting for survival, but she fails to recognize this.  I was fighting depression, I felt like an outsider in my own family. I couldn’t say for sure at that time that my family loved me, that they respected me. I felt like a scapegoat. Memory is fickle and wavering – my emotions from the time may cloud the actual events.

I remember that there was financial trouble. I remember overhearing my mother tell my sister that I was just like our Aunt, and that I would leave them and desert them, that I wouldn’t stand by the family. I was so angry that she would say something – our Aunt is a hideous person, a waste of oxygen. To be likened to such a monster… to have my allegiance questioned after I had chosen to commute to college and stay home and try and help my mother, save the money and reduce financial aid needed… it was a slap in the face. It was more than a slap, it was like being pistol-whipped.

I thought that if I was going to be accused – if everyone was going to believe it, anyway – I might as well go. Because no one cared about me. No one in the family loved me. They didn’t, and still don’t, understand me.

I was, and am, very hurt. I know that my actions – leaving without so much as saying goodbye, were not acceptable. I realize that I hurt my family with these actions and I have been apologizing for the last 6 years.

Between the teenage lying, her disapproval of my boyfriends and what she perceived to be my sexual activity (much less than she believed it to be), she now refuses to believe anything I say.  I didn’t help the situation by getting married, secretly and by JP, telling her over a month later when she flat-out asked.  Today, she tells me that if I tell her the sky is blue, she will check – because she’s sure it will be purple.  Yes, I definitely helped create that problem, but I also haven’t lied as much as she believes. She believes that I am constantly deceiving her, that I am constantly going out of my way to make her miserable. She tells me that she believes I stay up at night thinking of ways to make her miserable.

I feel constantly misunderstood, often deliberately.

I have so much hurt harbored deep inside over things she has said… things I can’t imagine every saying to my children. My mother has struggled with severe depression for a long time, I realize that now, as an adult. I think I knew it as a teen but didn’t want to believe that could be the reason for her hurtful comments and actions.  Since I was about 16, I’ve known that my mother will probably die by committing suicide.No need for me to assume – she tells us on a regular basis.  I feel helpless.

When she’s feeling “rational”, it’s simply stated as an inevitable fact.

“Once you are all in college, then I’m done. I’ll get things in order and I’m ending this.”

“Once things are settled financially, it’s over. I can’t do this anymore, but I won’t leave you with piles of debt.”

When she is feeling angry, or hurt, it’s a threat.

“I am going to kill myself, and I hope that you find me. I hope you’re the one to find me, dead in my bed, because it’s your fault.”

“You are killing me, and I hope you can live with that.”

“One day, I’ll be gone and you’ll regret the way you are speaking to me.”

She says more. She is graphic. I can’t bring myself to write it here. It’s locked too deep, if I let it out it might never get back in.

————-

She is a wonderful grandmother to my children. She is amazing, really. They love her, and when she is with them, and I can observe them quietly, I remember why I love her, too. Why I am so completely, 100% tied to this woman.  She plays with them, listens to them, truly bonds with them. She teaches, she soothes, she kisses, she hugs.  I both love and fear this about her. If – when – she’s gone, I know that they will experience a hurt so deep I cannot fix it. They haven’t had 10 years to grieve the slow loss of this woman.

————-

When I was a teenager, she would tell me all the time that “you’ll be pregnant before you turn [insert next birthday here]!” She never believed that I was a virgin until I was 19.   She has told me that I am the worst mother that she knows. She has accused me of child abuse because we forgot to buy milk one night, and were short for Cupcake’s bottle. She tells me that I am permanently and irreversibly damaging my daughters. She tells me I am a cold, hard person. She tells me I have no compassion.  She says I have the mentality of a 12 year old. She says I am a bitch, and that’s why I have no friends. She says I am the biggest disappointment in her life. She says I am at the center of all her problems.  She says I am directly responsible for every problem our family has ever had.  She says I never listen to her. She says I never give her any time.

She tells me that I am smart, and beautiful. She tells me that I am braver than she is. She tells me she is proud of me, of how well I fit into a corporate office, of trying to continue my education. She tells me that she can see I’m doing my best and trying to be a good mother to my children. She tells me to trust my motherly instincts. She tells me that she loves me. She tells me that I help her. She says thank you for listening.

We talk on the phone 5-8 times a day. She hangs up on me roughly 60% of the time.

I don’t lack compassion, I am hiding behind my fortress, trying to stay sane.

It’s a life of contradictions.

————-

She has had a very hard life. Abused physically and emotionally as a child – physically by her boyfriends, her sister, her sister’s boyfriends..emotionally by her parents and everyone else. My father was equal parts wonderful and hideous to her. She has been exploited and damaged by pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospitals.  She has been exploited by her own body. She has been tricked and coerced into financial instability and near-ruin. She continues to fight, and I cannot imagine the depths of her strength. When it really comes down to it – when I really consider… I can’t say that I would want her to continue living this way. I can’t provide a way out. So who am I to ask her to continue on, for me? How selfish is that?

She feels victimized, and she has been. I can’t see the world through her eyes, for that I’m thankful – I think her life and her current circumstances have colored everything, overlaid every action, look, tone with malice and deceit.  I think she feels attacked. I don’t necessarily blame her. That’s the hardest part.

She has a disability. I leave my children with her every day, and she is disabled. I feel so guilty, and it doesn’t matter that she won’t have it any other way. She makes sure I feel guilty. “I’m watching your children all day, so I can’t leave the house” and because I can’t afford to get her the car she needs or wants to get around with them. We tried. We failed. “I have a massive migraine, but I don’t have a choice. I have to watch your children.” I tell myself she wants validation, needs it. I tell myself she is not trying to hurt me. I pull out of the driveway and I cry, and think about how life would be if one of us died.  DaddyGeek could take the children and go stay with his parents if I were tying our family to her. We could walk away and believe we did everything we could, and try to live our lives and enjoy our family without constant guilt and stress, if she were no longer here to simultaneously push me away and pull me closer.

I called 911 last year because she got off the phone saying she was going to kill herself. She says she also said she was going to watch the baseball game. I didn’t hear it, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She wouldn’t answer the phone. I couldn’t reach my brother and sister. I was heavily pregnant, pacing in my apartment with tears streaming down my face, my heart in my throat. I called 911.

She was angry because the police questioned her. She was angry because she received a ticket in the mail weeks later because her dog is not registered in the town. She says I embarrassed her, I did it to hurt her, I knew she wouldn’t kill herself.

She doesn’t realize that if she calls at night and I miss it, I fret if I can’t or choose not to call her back. What if that was the last time I could have spoken to her? I worry that I will arrive at her home one day to find her in a pool of blood. I worry that I will arrive to find her missing, gone and I don’t know where.

She says that I am always making it about me, but she doesn’t see that nearly every single part of my life is about her in some way.

I worry.

I panic.

I cry.

I hurt.

I want to fix her life. I want to fix her life. I want to fix her life. I want to fix her….

************

Editors notes: I am in counseling on a biweekly basis to deal with many of these issues. I have the support of several wonderful online friends who are experiencing or have experienced similar situations. I have the support of  many, many wonderful friends, some who read this blog and who do not, mostly online but some offline. I have the support of my husband. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and my daughters by extension. I am usually OK. I am usually able to handle the stressors in my life with some modicum of grace and dignity. I fell apart earlier this week. I needed to let it out, and through Twitter and the comments on this blog, you have all aided in my healing. Thank you for that. I cannot repay you.

There are a number of reasons that my children stay with my mother while I work, both financial and emotional.  Trust me when I say that we have and will continue to evaluate all options and make decisions in the best interests of our children. They are happy with her right now. If that ever changes, our arrangement will change immediately.

Look, I totally got this up ON THURSDAY!

Porn. Oh, Lordy — what a can of worms I’ve opened up by posting this. Google Pervs, welcome to MommyGeekology. It is not what you expected.  Move along!

I like porn. DG and I watch together from time to time as part of our sexual relations, and I find that it really does help to spice things up. We are interested in a very specific kind of porn, and honestly, I’m a little reluctant to post it here.

Oh, what the hell? I’ll lose a few readers, but at least I’ve been honest. Geez, Girl Talk Thursday is really turning out to be a sort of confessional for me, huh? First I’m bisexual, and now I’m about to tell you that I we enjoy bondage.

omgIwanttodeletethatbutIamnotgoingto.

I don’t know what you’ve heard on the subject, or whether you’ve heard of it at all. I can tell you that we are of the milder variety, and I can tell you that it’s something that has been sensual and sexual to me for my entire life. When I was younger, I didn’t realize why I wanted to go be alone when I watched those shows where the woman is tied to the railroad tracks, but I did. I loved the Nancy Drew books, because inevitably she was captured, bound, and had to struggle her way out.  It made me squirm.  It still does.

I’m a little more sophisticated, now. I’ve done my reading, and DG and I have established our comfort zone, our limits. I’ve learned the difference between Bondage, D/s and S&M. We’ve learned that I don’t like 99% of S&M – I’ve learned that 24/7 D/s is not a lifestyle that we want to practice. We’ve read books about safety and technique, and purchased special tools and accessories to ensure that our experience does not end badly – tragically.  We don’t participate in bondage in any of its extreme forms, anyway, so the risk is slight. We do not open our relationship to other individuals or couples, lessening the risk even more.

I am a very strong woman. Many would say that my personality is very Type-A, very dominant, very “I wear the pants.”  Though my mother refuses to recognize it, I am the matriarch in my family. In that role, I make many decisions, and I am held responsible for nearly every aspect of our lives. I pay bills, I clean house, I plan dinners (though I don’t dare cook them!), I care for sick children, I care for well children, I organize clothes, fold laundry, schedule activities, and keep us on a budget and a diet (sort of).

Is it so strange, then, to want to simply not make any more decisions? To give myself completely, wholly, to my husband and to trust in him and his magic penis hands? I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s so unusual to want to know and to feel that he is stronger than I, that he is dominant, that he can protect me and, yes, pleasure me. I don’t think, for me, that it’s so unusual that all I want sometimes is to simply submit.

There is a power in that decision, an immense power. To decide to give yourself, your body and your mind over in that way is a powerful gift and privilege for the receiver.  And if I were to decide that I no longer wanted to give that trust, that power, to him – I would not.

Pornography is wonderful to help set the mood when we are ready.  Sex as a parent takes an immense amount of planning as it is – hardly sexy – add the props and special situation of bondage and D/s into the mix, and it’s a scheduling nightmare. A 10-minute pornographic video clip definitely helps us both release our tension from the day and remember how to touch and look at each other as lovers and not as “that other person who helps with the kids and the house.”

I won’t be surprised to check my FeedBurner stats tomorrow and see that my readership has dropped to single-digits – but you know what? That’s OK. I feel freer having said it. I feel relieved.

I can tell you now that it took me twenty minutes to get a damn corset on Tuesday night, and then I realized I had it on backwards (who puts the laces IN THE FRONT?) so I couldn’t wear it after all, but settled for a sexy dress I got for dirt on Red Tag Crazy and that worked to get us in the mood.

I can tell you now that when we were moving, I forgot to put all those toys away separately, and J and DG pulled out the drawer from under the bed and our entire sex life was exposed, right there, for all to see. J didn’t say anything, lol.

I can tell you now that I was never able to orgasm before my husband I started practicing bondage and D/s.

I can tell you now that I write erotic stories.

I can tell you, now, that yes I am a kinky bitch. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.