Trust me?!

So I didn't have coffee all day till just now, well about 30 minutes ago and I didn't really have any coffee yesterday (I know who am I?) so this tall coffee with cold soy has me all buzz'd up! Which is great because it was like someone hit my snooze button at 3 and I could have hit the bed for the rest of the day. I chose to caffeinate instead.

My cats drink water out of my fish bowls, just a sidebar of info., and I think it is really cute. Just hope they don't actually get the fish! I am thoroughly enjoying my job with the school district. My brother and his wife are going to have a daughter in February. My friends are all marrying and babying and I am trying not to eat too much caking!

Anywho so I don't have any drama to talk about right now, well except for the little pit of drama darkness that just kind of hangs out in the back of my head all the time. I keep a pretty barrier up around it most of the time.

Well except for last night when I got all freaked out about not knowing what is going to happen. Like in a situation between two people, I freaked out because things are all nice and calm and I was all OMG when is the bottom going to fall out. It took the form of me being accusatory and finger pointy and victimy but as I was talking my way through it I realized it was just my nerves, my anxiety, my worry. I get that from my maternal grandmother, Nanny, ooooo that woman could worry.

So there it is, my worry. It is always there, the ability to just loose all control of my rational self, that understands that a lot of the joy of life is the wonder and the not knowing, and fling my mind into this existential moshpit. What does this mean? Will it end? Everything ends, oh no what will happen when it ends...you get my drift.

I must say, however, that I have begun to study my mental moshpits. I try and figure out what happens to trigger them, and how do I get out of them. Well meds help some but I stay on extremely low doses of everything I take because I want to to be more me than meds. But it seems that talking through the pit got me to the base of it and back out again a lot faster than normal. By talking through the irrational outer layer I was able to get myself into the inner layer of understanding. I figured out why I spiraled. It is said that someone like me who grew up in the situation I grew up in has a harder time grasping and sustaining healthy  relationships because they are unknown.

The bottom always falls out. Well it always has before so doesn't that mean that it is going to again? Maybe, but the difference is I have more control over it than I used to. I have more knowledge as a tool to help me. I could pull a nanny and worry myself sick over what is going to happen, but I don't want to do that.

If someone you love breaks your trust the worse thing you can do is stop trusting, or stop loving. For me trust issues are like, duh. I mean I am not even going to get into all the crazy scenarios I have actually lived through that then turn themselves into worry when I am in new situations because I will think oh God what if that happens again. Um whoa brain, let's just hold our horses. What if it does happen again? You lived through it the first time and look how brilliant you still are (a little praise is needed from time to time, right?) So then let the record show that you are alive and the better for it.

So boom, problem solved. Well you know not exactly but it is a start. I think trusting someone new, or again, or for real, is that little flutter you get. Sometimes when I think about how much I love and care for some people I get that little flutter, and yes it is because I love them but it is also because I trust them, and that's a good place to start!

At least someone appreciates my DRAMA!

Seriously, last Saturday was pretty dramatic for me! I start off on a 3 mile run and end up on a ball crying on my floor! But then I wrote about it! I got mad and sad and cried and posted it on Facebook and Twitter and you read all about it! The emotional lawnmower of the past year and a half! A lot of people commented in extremely supportive ways, others told me I need to take it down because it made me look lame! Whatever, I don't give to salt shakes how it makes me look! People, professional people, will tell you that when you are going through something extreme, something traumatic that you should share it! That goes for the good and the bad! "They" also tell you that if you can find something healthy that will make you feel better than by all means get on it, what are you waiting for? So I did, I got on and got it out!

I kid you not by the end of the day I felt so completely refreshed! Crying alone can just make you feel better, like you have this ish inside of you that needs to come out and the only way to get it out is just to let it fall in salty tears down your face and in my case onto my floor! It is a bonus when you scare your cat, I love scaring my cats! It also helped me realize that *Liza cat, not so good with the comforting, first sign of the water works and she was off to the living room to lounge on the sofa in the sunlight, clearly she is a Bender! However, my *Ranger kitty was right there with me making biscuits on my back trying to make me feel better. His purrs normally warm my heart but there was a no go at that point, not until I wrote it out!

Now I will admit that the post itself is histrionic, and melancholy! Which is kind of beautiful in its own way because what is delight without melancholia and what is the blessing of reserve if you don't completely blow it away in the most over dramatic way possible! I am not trying to diminish what I wrote. That junk is a mess, I have been through a pile of it and have started to dig my way out, but let's be honest here, I have a lot of staring in the mirror a head of me!

Really, none of this happens if I walk away, hindsight 20/20 is all that I know but that is not an excuse! I don't get to make terrible decisions about my love life and just wash them away with the cleansing cloth of hindsight. I make TERRIBLE decisions when it comes to love and relationships!

 Yeah I have other excuses and reasons and I went through a helluva a lot growing up that most don't have to, I grew up day one and never looked back! But I still am the one making those decisions! Ugh. over and over and over again! I am the one who answers that phone when he calls I am the one who cries and goes back for more. But I am also the one who will stand on her soap box and talk about how the world is just a long list of choices that we make! We create the life we lead by the choices we make and the responses we give...it is so frustrating to not be able to take your own advice, to have insight and wisdom to give others but to completely toss it in the air and hide from it like a child when it comes to my own life. (the image of me making it rain with insightful one liners pops in here)

Now I will say that on Saturday night I asked, well demanded really, that my a couple of my (non-pregnant) girl friends take me out on the town. I needed some social interaction. And I must say it was a total success! I danced and people watched and felt good about how my taste in men has changed since the last time I was out at a bar with a glimmer in my eye! I know what I want and I am not afraid to wait for it! I did meet a good looking guy who was smart and tall and hey interested in me! I gave him my number but he hasn't called. And I don't really mind, I don't feel let down or rejected by the guy who didn't call I mean hell just giving him my number was a big step and helped me get my confidence back! It was easy! Besides if he didn't call then he probably wasn't looking for anything more than a one-night-fun-stand, and hey I am no prude but you can guarantee it is going to take a lot more than a witty repartee complemented by a gin & tonic (or 2)! Having that confidence that you are not going to be paralyzed with self doubt because a guy didn't call is for lack of a better word, freeing! Bring it on! Sure I will give you my number, I am not going home with you but if you want to talk again call me, if not I am gonna be juuuust fine!

I am totally flawed and totally fine with it!
I am totally dramatic and totally thankful for it!

*Liza Kitty not caring about the drama.

**Ranger Kitty being all "I care"

The Campaign

I'm starting a campaign. A campaign to get the awesome back! In the past year and a half I have done some pretty great stuff! I joined the Board of Directors at Trustus Theatre, a place that I have dedicated many years of my life. I stage managed several shows, threw successful fundraisers, stared in a critically acclaimed show. I got a job working for the school district I grew up in, one that I have always been proud of and thankful was where I spent the majority of my childhood. Not only am I working for the district I love I am working in the Visual and Performing Arts Department. Talk about finding a good fit. My best friends have gotten engaged, married, pregnant and have had babies.

I have watched the Columbia arts community rise up two years in a row against a Governor that feels the need to cut funding for so many of the things that make this state such a treasure. I occupied the state house grounds with a belief and a conviction that things in this country can and will be better. I have met amazing people and shared amazing dreams. I have created and exhibited works of art. I have seen shows that have shaken me to my core. I have travelled and shared experiences with so many wonderful people. But so much of that awesomeness has taken a back seat to one person, one relationship, one less than awesome situation.

I met a man, and knew felt the red flags go up from the start. This man is not good news. But this man is charming and funny and extremely into me. So I have spent the past year and a half of my life in constant turmoil with this man. He loves me and holds me close, he laughs with me and is tender and sweet. Then he throws me away and ignores me. He searches through crowds of other people to find anyone but me to talk to and be with. Many times have I cried and yelled and cursed and begged. I have left and hated and vowed. Then he would come back, and break down my resolve with his words and his touch. He would pull me back in and stroke my anger back down to compliance. He would give me days of joy and togetherness and companionship for which we all search.

Then he would drop a bomb. I don't think we should be exclusive. I am just not that type of person, and I would try. As much as it hurt I would allow him to go out with other women. I would put on a facade that I was strong and cool and didn't care. All the while panicked and defeated and just praying that he didn't meet someone he liked more than me. I saw it as a bizarre challenge, that the more I could get him with me the less he would be out there looking for others. The more a made myself what he wanted in me the less he would want someone else. So I did that, I played that game.

Then one day he met someone he liked better than me...for the moment. An older woman with money and a glamorous job. For her he had to stand up straight and watch what he was saying, he couldn't let her in to see the mess that is his real life. With me I saw all the dirty darkness and knew exactly who he was when his guard was down and his humility high. And I loved him still. She made him a proposition. Her job was sending her to Italy, Africa, Dubai and she didn't want to go alone, so she offered to pay his way. He told me this in a casual conversation one afternoon. I was devastated. I was reeling and couldn't believe this was happening. Yet I loved him still, I told him to take the trip of a life time but that we were over. And I hoped we were. But then he called.

He kept calling and pulling and twisting and bending me. And I gave in, I stayed with him until the day he left on his trip. I spent the next three weeks in complete misery. I became seriously ill and depressed. I can't remember much else of the time except for that. But he wrote to me. He sent me an email telling me he was thinking of me. And I read it and loved it and somehow that made me feel like I was winning. But I decided NO, I am being crazy what is wrong with me I am better than this. And I got well and I got up and got over him. Well at least I thought I did.

Then he came home. The day he came home he called me. And he called me. And he texted me. And he emailed me. And for the first time he started giving me the attention I had always wanted from him. Slowly he began to get back into me. He told me he loved me and that it took getting that far away from em to realize it. So I was sold. And everything went so fast after that, we moved in and we were happy and we spent Christmas with his mom and I thought this was good. Until it wasn't. The romantic notions from his trip overseas started to crumble and so did his desire to be with me. So he left me, alone, at his house. He would go out all night or spend the night on the floor of his art studio. He wouldn't tell me where he was or where he was going. He would ignore me when he was in the same room as me and lie next to me in the bed like a stranger.

So I moved out but we stayed together, I know right it is exhausting. We would spend 2-3 days/nights together and they would be great, then he would spend the next 4-5 days/nights doing his best to avoid me. This went on for most of the summer, until now. Until finally for some reason I woke up. I feel like I have been asleep through all these AMAZING things that have happened in my life because I was only half a person. He had half of me, my heart and he wasn't letting it go. I was a mind and a body walking around in search of my heart. But I am taking it back.

I told him goodbye and wrote him several emails that just spewed all the hatred that had built up in me. I am so mad at him for doing this, and I am so mad at me for allowing it to happen over and over and over again. On my run this morning I noticed his car parked outside of that woman's house and I it crushed me. I ran home and cried my eyes out, on my hardwood floor. So many questions. Why did he come back to me, when she took him on that trip why had he come back wanting ME. Especially since he's just ended up right back in her bed. But as I told a friend it had to happen. I had to see that. I had to empty it all out. Every last bit of love and emotion from hatred to compassion and kindness and jealousy, has to all come out for me to move on. And I feel like it is, and I will.

SO my campaign to bring back the awesome. I am going to get up and go try on bridesmaids dress for my best friend's wedding. A woman I am so lucky to have in my life and who is going to marry the man that treasures her above all! (More than dirt and football) And I will go to Trustus and watch the last night of the last show of Jim and Kay's last season. I will be there on Monday as we say good-bye to them and the end of an era. I will be with family. I will be with friends and I will find my awesome even if it begins with some red eyes and a tear-streaked face.

Kitties for SALE!!

Not MY kitties. I love my kitties, my bf may have less than love for my kitties but he deals, sometimes better than others!

Anywho I digress.

Last month we had a late night show at Trustus in the Black Box space and I asked my friend Katherine to do some art work for the lobby area. The show was called Kitty Kitty Kitty, a dime store version of the plot would be that a cat fell in love with himself and cloned himself then that clone cloned himself and so on and so forth until there was nothing but cat hysteria! Well Katherine did a great job of coordinating the art outside to the art inside, with her kitty art adaptations!

Having sold 5 of the water color paintings already and with one on hold I am posting the rest to see if any of you would like to buy one!! Here they are in all their $40 (negotiable) glory :

 These last two are a little more special and are of the $50 varietal!

If you are interested just leave a comment or send an email to thegallerytrustus@gmail.com

Get your kitty face on!