Mom to Bee

30 Posts of Truthiness Question Number Four: What is something you have to forgive someone for?

Today’s post is about forgiveness and to be honest, forgiving people? Not really something that I do. Seriously, I can hold a grudge like a rusted-shut bear trap. So I really had to sit down and think about who exactly I need to forgive.

Do I forgive Bee for ruining what was once a semi-decent (“semi” being the key word) body?

Do I forgive Bug for throwing up on me daily, including today on my beloved iPod?

But I decided to do something on the blog that I don’t usually do:

Get serious.

You see, there seems to be some confusion recently so let’s clear this up once and for all: this is a humor blog.

As in, if you don’t have a sense of humor, please feel free to click that little X in the right hand corner of your window.

And as such, there may be a sprinkling of, I don’t know, JOKES posted on this blog.

Some may be crude. Some may be offensive. Hopefully most are funny.

But that’s me. THIS BLOG is me. I’m loud, offensive, inappropriate in mixed company and, again, hopefully sometimes funny. Yes, I’m crass but I’m honest. I’m loud, but maybe a bit funny. In your mind, I may push the envelope, but if no one did, the world would be pretty damned boring, wouldn’t it?

And if you know me in real life and you don’t think I’m all of the above, you must be blind, deaf, and maybe just a little bit mentally handi-capable.

Just know one thing: I don’t write this blog to push the envelope. I’m not trying to stir up controversy in order to get a few more readers. And if I use the occasional “bad word” or twelve, it’s because that’s the way I speak in the real world when I’m not working and/or at Bee’s preschool.

I know that this blog isn’t for everyone. I know that I’m not for everyone. And this is where the forgiveness comes in.

Don’t ask me why, but I always really want people to like me. Not in a “I’m the center of attention oh oh look at me” kind of way. I just want to be everyone’s friend. I want to be a good friend to you, too. Not a “talk shit behind your back unless I can be your hero in a time of need” kind of friend, either. A real, genuine friend.

And if you don’t like me, it kills me. I don’t need everyone to be my BFF, but I hate it when I find out that someone doesn’t like me. I mean, why? I’m pretty goddamn awesome! (<-- that'd be a joke for those confused. Please see above.) Even if I don't like the person...scratch that...even if I really dislike the person, I still want them to like me. And the blog, for that matter. Just knowing that there is someone out there putting out negative thoughts in my direction (or even worse, recruiting others to think poorly of me as well), well, it just eats at me.

But I’ve realized recently, that it’s okay.

I don’t need everyone to like me.

In fact, it’s okay if people really don’t like me. Especially if I don’t particularly love them either.

It’s okay.

And I forgive you.

You don’t have to like me.

If it makes you feel better, you can go on thinking that I am a distastefully, cruel and unfunny person who will soon suffer the wrath of Karma.

I forgive you.

Just know that I am none of those things. And if you think any of that of me, then you don’t know me at all.

It’s just too bad you never really tried.

Song title: The Right to Write Me Off by Amber Pacific

Because I know you love these “it’s all about me! me! me!” posts and because I can’t possibly force my brain to construct anything unique, witty and/or entertaining, I’m continuing today with Question Number Tres of my 30 Posts of Truthiness.

1: What is something you hate about yourself?
2: What is something you love about yourself?

Question 3: What is something you have to forgive yourself for?

In response to these questions, I’ve been typically going with my immediate gut response because, really, what could be more truthy than using a Rorschach Ink Blot Test strategy?

This particular gut response will probably be the lamest answer to one of these questions, but we all know how much you love my gut (and it’s long list of issues), so here we go.

Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I had energy in abundance (oh, those were the days), my family got a dog named Licorice. We adopted Licorice when I was a wee seven or so years of age and for like fifteen years, this doggie was just the best.

She would let us dress her up in our Cabbage Patch doll clothes and even put dog treats in her mouth like a cigar and take photos.

I guess staged photos are kinda my thing…

I loved that dog even when her backyard escapes resulted in me scouring the neighborhood in my car at 2 miles per hour, dog treats in hand, screaming, “LICORICE!!!!! SNAAAAUSAGES!!!”

Let me tell you, that little dog could run, yo. It was totally ridiculous. If she got an opportunity, that dog would take off like Sarah Palin after a pack of wolves in a helicopter.

But sooner or later, life caught up with our little roadrunner and when I was away at college (away = a 30 minute drive north), Licorice got sick and eventually had to be put down.

It was horrible. And, my dear friends, something I have never forgiven myself for is making the decision not to be there when it happened.

I could have gone to the vet with her and my family. I could have given her one last snuggle. I could have whispered in her ear that it was all going to be okay.

But, instead, I cried uncontrollably in my dorm room, simply unable to force myself to attend something that I knew would just crush me. So Sissy and Dad had to take Licorice in to the vet and say their last goodbyes without me.

Was I a chicken? Absolutely. Was my behavior understandable? Maybe. Have I forgiven myself for being a complete coward in the face of a difficult situation? Not in the least.

And despite years of loving that sweet dog, part of me is convinced that she’s hanging out with her dawgs (heh heh) in dog heaven (or whatever exists for dogs when you are an agnostic), talking doggie smack talk about her loser owner who wouldn’t drive thirty minutes to give her one last snuggle.

You’d think that ten years later I would have forgiven myself for not having the strength to endure that pain. Maybe I’d feel better if she could ghost poop in my slipper or something.

Song title: Please Forgive Me by Bryan Adams

Today is Day Two of Mama Bee’s Thirty Posts of Truthiness! Yep, can you believe that I’ve stuck with it for this long?!

1: What is something you hate about yourself?

In the name of honesty, I probably would’ve given up on it already except I have absolutely nothing to talk about other than how my children were so horrible the other day that I seriously contemplated “going out for cigarettes” and moving to, well, anywhere other than my house.

I really think that water-boarding or getting my eyeballs pierced with red hot pokers would have been more enjoyable than listening to both children scream for two hours straight. Sissy assures me that this is “normal kid” behavior. Our best guess is that Bee was just so hungry from my lack of milk and her crappy latch that she simply couldn’t muster the energy to cry when she was an infant.

Needless to say, I’m really rethinking this whole feeding the baby thing.

Same goes for the three year old.

Feed a fever, starve a tantrum-throwing toddler, right?

Anywho, that’s not what you all came here to read (who am I kidding? That’s exactly what you came here to read)…today’s truthiness question is:

What is something you love about yourself?

This question was a little bit harder than the last one because, really, how much time do we have?

But seriously, I think I knew how I would answer this question pretty much immediately. It has, however, taken me years to really discover and develop this particular thing.

The thing I love about myself is my ability (imagined or not) to humor and entertain people.

Sweet baby Jesus in a manger, please don’t tell me that it’s imagined!

It may not surprise any of you to find out that I was definitely the ham in our family growing up. I was the girl pretending to be Vanna White in front of the television while we watched Wheel of Fortune, turning the letters (you know, before Vanna got all fucking lazy and forgot how to TURN THE LETTERS. Touch screen, my ass.) and walking back and forth in from of the television, which I’m sure was not at all annoying to my dear family trying to be Wheel Watchers.

But while I am constantly cracking a joke (defense mechanism much?), it took me years and the Interwebs to really discover and explore my love for humor and writing. I never thought that starting a family blog a year and a half ago would blossom this love and need really to write and make people laugh.

What started off as a diary to record my menial daily tasks and even more menial thoughts, like cutting my hair and house shopping, has turned in to…well…a diary recording my menial tasks and thoughts. But with a side of funny!

This blog has become not only a hobby, but a passion, and has gotten me started thinking about things like writing a book (I’m like the ONLY blogger to have this goal, right?) that in the past seemed not only impossible, but ridiculous. I mean, who the hell would be interested in what *I* have to say?

But every day that I succumb to the blog gods and check my blog numbers, I realize that, shockingly, there are people reading this piece of shit blog and are actually entertained by my mediocre writing. To top it all off, when I happen to write about something meaningful, such as my religious coming out (Losing My Religion) or anxiety issues (Who I Am), and it hits home to a reader out there? BLISS! You mean that I can use all my ridiculousness to help connect with other people?! Best. Thing. Ever.

And while most bloggers probably want more readers to gain notoriety and fame, I simply want to entertain more people! If 25 people think I’m funny, then I want to make 50 laugh. If 50 people are chuckling, then why not 1,000,000 100? I obviously have a niche market – not everybody is going to enjoy a detailed depiction of one’s ass being violated by a camera – but there have to be more people out there who could use a little smile (if even at my expense)?

So while I and this blog may offend some people’s delicate sensibilities, it’s not only a honest representation of me, it’s also my passion and, besides my two little nuggets and my husband, probably one of the coolest things I have ever been a part of.

And I love that.

Song title: I Love Myself Today by Bif Naked

My interweb buddy, Rachael at Scientific Nature of the Whammy, recently started participating in this awesome writing project called 30 Days of Truth. Because we’re all about truthiness here (how do you write about a colonoscopy and NOT be honest?), I thought that it’d be a great way to get the creative bloggy juices flowing!

But because we’re also full of the Procrastination, you know there is no way in hell that I’m actually going to be able to blog/post every day for thirty days. So instead, I am debuting today…

Mama Bee’s Thirty Posts of Truthiness

Each post has a theme or question, if you will, that I will be writing about. Some important ones like “What do you love about yourself?” and some relatively insignificant ones like “What do you think about gay marriage?”

Oh wait, I might have mixed up the questions just then.

Today’s inaugural question is:

“What is something you hate about yourself?”

Okay, to be fair, we all know that I’m obviously Full of the Awesome, because, uh, duh. I mean, I know you are all sitting around reading this blog, nodding your head and thinking, “Man, I wish I had her anxiety-fueled pooping issues and profanity-laced speech patterns!!”

It’s totally understandable, yo. ((blows on nails and buffs them on shoulder))

Shockingly, I actually don’t like some things about myself.

(This is where you gasp. I’ll wait…)

Hate is a strong word, but mulling over this question for thirty seconds or so hours, I think one of the things I dislike a lot about myself is my tendency to do everything half-assed.

It’s not that I don’t try at things, I mean I went to law school for Christ’s sake, but it’s especially obvious with my education that I do my work, I try hard, but I still feel like I’m giving only 90%.

With law school, I chose to go at it half-assed. To this day I remember a second-year student at orientation explaining that most relationships fail during school because of the stress. A month later, I found myself starting a relationship with a sweet man you might know by the name Mr. Bee. It was then that I made a choice between working 24/7 on my grades and possibly sacrificing my relationship OR accepting mediocre grades and allocating some time to build this potentially serious budding relationship. Obviously I made the right decision in that case, but boy were my grades half-assed!

Even with my job I feel like I could give more. I get so many compliments from colleagues, clients, venues, etc. about how good I am at my job, but I still feel like I’m just doing the obvious. I don’t go above and beyond and if I don’t go above and beyond then I’m really just half-assing it, right?

Worst of all, this 90% feeling hurts when I think about my parenting. Somehow even though I have a 3-year-old who is starting to read, can write her name by herself, etc etc, pretty much all the credit goes to PBS Kids.

But as I type all this out and force myself to read the words, I think what I hate most about myself is clearly this feeling of inadequacy. That somehow, no matter how much effort I put in to something, it’s not enough. That I could still do MORE.

Maybe one day I’ll realize that I’m doing my best and that’s all that matters.

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even believe it.

Song title: I Hate Myself by Kill the Hippies