Day 14 – Now With 30% More Happiness!

Describe the last moment you felt really, truly blissful. According to commercials, I should feel pretty blissful every time I do everything from crack open a new box of dryer sheets to indulging in a tiny square of chocolate. I’m pretty sure I’ve never made the bliss face like the ladies in the yogurt commercials. Maybe the chocolate did it once, but I doubt that’s the kind of real bliss we’re talking here.

When trying to think back on a time when I felt truly peacefully happy, I have a hard time. I’m not really the blissful type…or the relaxing type. I have a lousy tendency to ruin my quiet moments by thinking about things that I should be doing instead of enjoying myself. As a single mom, there are more chores than I care to think about. I do occasionally catch myself in a me moment but not much does it. Even during my last bath I was uncomfortable, vanilla scented salts and all…

I started with  a memory of the beach. Where I currently live is the furthest from the beach I’ve ever lived. Until now, I’ve always been within walking distance. There’s a real sense of inner peace that I’ve gained from the ocean during every crisis in my life. The past several times I’ve managed to get to the nearest shoreline, my son has not enjoyed it much. He’s a mover. He needs to entertain himself by climbing and jumping and dismantling things, so sitting pensively and listening to the waves isn’t in his nature. That joy is something I miss and it’s a memory that’s far too old.

Then it hit me. Not long ago, I did find myself grinning ear to ear, excited and truly happy at the core. Something I never expected happened and it lit me up inside.

When I started this challenge. I did it as a personal jump-start, like a writing prompt because I’d been blocked for so long. I also loved the idea of delving a little further into those questions. I was used to no one reading this page but me. Then my friend read it. Then a few. Someone I didn’t know read it, and then I got a like. Then followers! Soon…minions! Bwuhahahahaha!

Ahem. Ok…maybe not.

Anyway, I’ve had quite a few more than I could have expected. When I saw that I had people reading it, I was first completely nervous, but then, I felt awesome. I had such a sense of happiness and I remember noticing that I was grinning wide which usually makes people run for the hills since it’s such a rare sight, people assume I’ve cracked…kind of like seeing Wednesday Addams smile…but smile I did.

I’ve been working so hard to make my book happen; so much time worrying and wondering what the next step should be, that I hadn’t taken the time to enjoy the process anymore. How can I find my voice? How can I find which way to go? Can I ever write anything again? How will I know if anyone will ever enjoy this stuff? Fret, fret, fret. It’s my M.O. Doing this turned out to be the greatest kick-start I could have asked for. I feel a bit of momentum behind me now and a lot of gratitude for everyone who’s looked at the page. It truly has brought me happiness. My few posts are certainly no grand accomplishment, but I never expected the confidence I’ve gained from it or the renewed enjoyment of writing. It’s been the best kind of gift. Plus, it’s a really good excuse to get a new party dress!

Day 13 – Sub-Text

Describe how you met the last person you texted and talk about your friendship/relationship. Isn’t that a pip of an assignment? It just so happens that the last text I sent was to the Doubtful Guest…my Mr. Big. I think I may just refer to him as D.G. from now on. It’s short and sweet, like J.R. or D.J. Works for me. Anyway, I was hoping for an answer I didn’t get.  As always, things are complicated with D.G. He’s far away. He has his own son about my boy’s age with many of the same things going on; school, homework, holidays, etc. There’s a huge time difference. When I’m free he isn’t and the like. It can get frustrating sometimes. At any rate, on with the story.

D.G. and I met through a mail exchange service. I had just watched a heartwarming and rather odd animated film called Mary and Max about a little girl who becomes lifelong friends with her pen pal and thought it would be a sweet idea. I wanted new people to talk to and I missed writing letters. I made a few friends and still write to one other fellow I met there about once a month by old-fashioned paper mail.

D.G. was interesting from day one. He wrote me this hugely long introduction letter that reminded me of Edward Bloom from Big Fish, just a little larger than life with stories too numerous and amazing to be entirely true. Something strange happened from that first letter. I can’t tell you what it was. Usually I’m very guarded with new people, especially if I suspect them of being possibly full of it, but I wrote a long letter back. I was much more freely myself than I normally would be with a stranger. From that day on, we emailed back and forth four or five times a day.

We became fast friends and talked about anything and everything which was wonderful. He told me about where he was from, I returned in kind. He believed in my work. he sought to bring me up instead of tear me down (a new thing for me). He got my weird references for the most part, everything he said was something I would say, and then it got even more interesting. There were times when he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. He’d email me something I had been thinking the night before, no kidding. He would write long letters of his opinion that were exactly the same as my opinion. I thought either he’s in cahoots with Ed Harris producing my lifelong tv show (thank you Jim Carrey for the paranoia) or we really are meant to be great friends and maybe more.

We’ve had some ups and downs since, mainly due to the fact that I had feelings and never managed to reconcile them until recently when he admitted to his own. I kvetched I can tell you. I was miserable as a person could be. I could write an entire chapter but it’s best to stay to the main bullet points here. Basically, I’ve given up the outcome to fate. I haven’t given up hope but there’s still a huge distance and other things to overcome. He’s everything I want except for the most important thing…readily available.

Things have distanced us over the past year. He has more concerns (some serious ones) and less time. I’ve had some setbacks and need more support. It hasn’t found a happy medium yet. Some days I feel like all I get is a drive by greeting or a message to explain the lack of a message, and it’s crushing. Other times it’s like the first days when we talk and laugh over everything and make grand plans. There are still new and exciting things to learn.

For the tough bits, I blame the increasing tension of distance. He’s not here to hold me when I’m sad or to bring me tea when I’m sick. He’s not here to cuddle with on the couch or to laugh with when I make a stupid blunder or trip gracefully over something in plain sight. He’s not here to say goodnight to or to geek out with eating junk food and picking apart movies made from our favorite books. Sometimes that breaks my heart. Sometimes it makes me mad.

For now we just text and call and email and hope that when the time is right, serendipity will kick in…or it won’t and I’ll find out that it was all a huge pile of wishful thinking and feel the hopeless part of hopeless romantic for trying to push a close friendship somewhere it was perhaps never meant to go. A relationship is hard to quantify with so many intricate moving parts and outside influences. I have my own biases and blind spots. I can only hope that they’re not too huge at this point to know when to walk away for self-respect’s sake. If it all goes to hell, I’ll be somewhere crying, yelling at Ed Harris and shaking my fist at the sky.

Day 12 – Victory!

I wanted to say that my proudest accomplishment was my son, but I can’t really take credit for that, at least not all the way. I steer a little here and there but he’s his own driver. It’s also a cop out answer.

An accomplishment should be something that you plan and work toward and complete from beginning to end without quitting. That’s what makes my answer hard. I’m not really great at celebrating victories or taking note of small steps, which really is a lousy habit. I tend to notice the things I didn’t do. I never learned to swim. I can’t ride a bike (no, really), I never got that degree out of indecision…

An accomplishment is something that should have you falling asleep in your corn flakes, buying extra concealer for the dark circles, and drowning in coffee. Thinking back, I do this every year in a contest called NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month, It’s really more of a challenge than a contest because you don’t really win anything other than a little winners badge and the satisfaction of knowing you’ve written 50,000 words. I’ve finished every year for the past few. I have a bunch of almost-books in the wings just sitting there waiting to become something. 

One of them, however, I actually went back to, revised, revised again, and revised again until I had a 300 page piece of…work. I stayed up day and night for weeks. I drank tons of coffee. My eyes went blurry. I did laps. I procrastinated. I tore out hair, I yelled out loud and sat alone at my desk in the middle of a world of my own making. It was mostly a filthy world because I was too tired and engrossed to do much cleaning, or actually anything else, but hey, I was dedicated. I wrote when I hated writing. I had fantastic moments of sudden inspiration. I came up with things that were amazing that I can’t believe I wrote and then I came up with things that were horrid that I can’t believe I wrote. The experience was both wonderful and so much more difficult than I can ever describe.

The book is still nowhere near perfect. It’s still not agent ready let alone sitting on a book store shelf, but I did see the story to the end. I fleshed it out and I intend to keep working on it until it is something that people will read. Now those people may be the population of my office and my family home, but hey, it’s people!

The point really is that I finally did have that experience of seeing something through. I know now that I can do it. The next time it will be a little easier and hopefully a lot better. I hope to have book signings and maybe a graphic novel (and maybe people arguing on a forum about what some nit picky thing in one of my chapters really was supposed to mean) one day. Why not dream big? There’s nothing to lose by dreaming. Anything can happen. Make it big and then a little bigger! I just want fan boys! Not too much to ask…

Day 8 – Five to Wish On

Today’s challenge is to whittle down the floor length scroll of traits into…Five things that are most important to you in a future mate. This one was much easier than I expected considering that I started with a laundry list of no less than… *cough* fifty *cough*… things on my already reduced list of must-have traits that I wanted in a mate and I felt that each and every one of those things was a priority. As kids we all have summer afternoons where we lay in the grass and daydream about our true love, about what they should look like (our movie star crush), how they dress (like our pop star crush) and what they like (mainly everything about us)…

Being much older than that 12 year old pining over my Sixteen Magazine, different things come to the forefront. The sheer number of criteria could have made me miss out on the core, happiness inducing soul of the matter. So the nominees for best quality in a leading man are …

He Gets Me ~ This is sort of a tall order. As anyone who’s read more than one of my entries can see, I’m challenging to say the least. I can be pretty random jumping to everything from the Vermicious Knids from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Blanche DuBois in Streetcar to the Jaffa from Stargate and a million other things. I can’t help it. I will go on a tangent and make a joke out of something at the drop of a hat and it would really be helpful if the guy would, you know, laugh…or even better, have a corresponding dry response. Nothing’s better than having someone get the ins and outs of your thinking and spending time doing things with someone who knows what you’re going on about. If he comes out with random exclamations too? He’s a keeper.

He’s Committed ~ This doesn’t mean he’s situated in the cell next to me, though that might not hurt in understanding me some days. What I mean is that he’s the kind of guy who’s at the point in his life that relationships are a priority.  He will be giving of his time and attention. The immature macho stunts are behind him, which is not to say that every night is spent behind tv trays doing the daily crossword… but he doesn’t have to prove anything by jumping off big rocks or breaking his hand on some guy’s face because he’s a  grown up. He’ll understand that relationships take consistent effort and won’t assume ever that I’m a foregone conclusion or take our life together for granted. He won’t risk us on impulsive stupidity, midlife crisis car excluded.

Matching Values~ Everyone has a different idea of what constitutes “values”. I’m no different. For me, I’m really adamant about what I believe and what I can’t deal with around myself or my son. We love and respect everyone equally in our house regardless of gender, race or orientation. (Actually, I might like drag queens a bit more than everybody else.) I can set my opinion of a person by how he treats animals…and waiters at restaurants. If you’re trying to be impressive by making anyone feel less than, you’re out, Buddy! Bullying doesn’t fly! Neither does selfishness. The things we believe in are the core of who we are and should be the deal breakers. Seriously, be a gentleman…

The Art of Fatherhood~ It may not be fair to thrust upon any guy, but I’m a package deal. My kid comes first. I have to think of what’s best for him before making any big moves or changes. I also have to consider if the guy, who might meet all of my personal criteria, is going to be a good dad to my son. Is he stable? Is he reliable? Is he supportive and patient? Will he love my son as if he were his own? Will he sell the boy to the Goblin King? As a mother, these concerns are HUGE. As the all too harrowing teen years approach, my son is going to need an image of masculinity to look to for guidance on how to be a man, and I’d rather that not be Tony Stark…well, the science part is good… or someone from Jackass. That’s another tall order and enough to make a guy run for the hills, unless he’s the right guy.

How He Makes Me Feel~ I learned a while ago that more than any list of things a guy could be, if he makes you feel unwanted, like an inconvenience, or just not important to him, no amount of money or movie star good looks will do anything to fix it. I’ve spent most of my life being criticized and having my judgment questioned.  I’ve been around a lot of mean men who love to make mean jokes at my expense; who love to get me upset for their own amusement…so that’s why I feel so strongly about this one.

First comes feeling loved,supported, listened to, and respected… Feeling cherished and adored is up there too along with wanted and missed.

I want, well, Gomez Addams.

When Morticia walks into the room, his eyes never deviate from her. She is the only woman on earth. He has never, after however many years, stopped showering her with attention and she thrives because of it. They definitely found just their kind of weird in each other and appreciate every second. It’s my picture of perfect, solid and long lasting and quite frankly, I could use a guy who wouldn’t mind hanging out with me in the cemetery.