Clearly I'm A Big Deal

I saw this the other day.... and well... I laughed way harder than I probably should have. But then I started thinking about it. Seven days. The entire world. Mountains. Oceans. Trees. Animals. Sunsets. The Grand Canyon. All of it?  Seven days? 

Meanwhile, it took nine months to put together this masterpiece known as me? Honestly, that tracks. Have you met me?

Apparently creating a planet is one thing. Creating someone who loses her glasses while wearing them, walks into a room and forgets why she’s there, and spends twenty minutes looking for her phone while talking on it… that takes time. A lot of time. Quality craftsmanship cannot be rushed. Maybe the extra two months were spent adding sarcasm. Lord knows I have that in abundance ...  Or stubbornness. Or the ability to remember something embarrassing I said in 1987 but not what I had for lunch yesterday. It could have been the sense of humor that took a little more time. Lord knows that received extra testing. 

The more I thought about it, the more it made perfect sense. I’m not saying I’m more complicated than the entire universe… But the math is right there. 😏

So yes. The world may have only taken seven days. But I took nine months. Clearly, I’m kind of a big deal.

They Walked Away… We Kept Living

I’m gonna just say it… I was a single mom for seven years. And to be honest, I loved it.

Was it hard? Of course. Was it my own fault? Yep. I picked the biggest losers I could find to marry and have kids with. I own that. But once I accepted that reality, I quit wasting my time wishing people would be different than who they had already shown me they were.

One thing is for sure—my kids didn’t do without. They had a roof over their heads, food on the table, birthday parties, school activities, and a mama who showed up every single day. In a lot of ways, they actually did better without the chaos, disappointment, and broken promises.

This year, I’m calling out the dads who left. The ones who walked away from responsibility, child support, birthdays, school plays, sick kids, and every hard part of parenting. The ones who disappeared and left women to do it all… not even caring if it worked out or not. Not even knowing if their children had what they needed. Not even checking to see if they were okay.

And here’s the reality: a lot of us women didn’t just survive without them—we thrived without them. We raised good kids, built stable homes, and created happy lives. We worked, paid bills, sat up with sick kids, attended parent-teacher conferences, worried about money, and carried the entire load ourselves.

They missed every milestone, every memory, and every chance to know their own children.

Children grow up. They start connecting the dots. They remember who was there and who wasn’t. They remember who came to the games, who helped with homework, who stayed up when they were sick, and who simply disappeared.

I don’t care if people think this is harsh. It’s the truth. People make decisions, and then they live with them. Choosing not to be in a child’s life is a decision. Walking away is a decision. Missing birthdays, holidays, graduations, weddings, and grandchildren someday… those are all consequences of that decision.

And their families know it too. They saw it then, and many of them still see it now. Many of them chose not to build relationships with those children either. They had birthdays they could have attended, phone calls they could have made, and memories they could have been part of. They chose not to. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and a leopard doesn’t change its spots.

Many of these men are still exactly who they were back then—still blaming everyone else, still avoiding responsibility, and still running from accountability. And if their lives are a mess, that’s not on the women who stayed and did the work. We earned our peace. We earned our families. We earned the respect of our children.

And if today some of those men are hearing “Happy Father’s Day” from a sibling, a parent, or another family member while their own children don’t call, don’t text, and don’t acknowledge them at all… I hope it stings. I hope they realize that being a father and being called “Dad” are two different things. Titles are earned, not biologically assigned. And I hope they understand what a fraud it is to celebrate being a father when they chose not to father their own children.

Because we didn’t take that title away from them.

They gave it away all by themselves.

They missed out on amazing kids and the adults they became. We didn’t miss out on anything. We got the privilege of raising them, loving them, and watching them grow into incredible people. The loss wasn’t ours. It was theirs.

I Miss Being Young… For About Five Minutes

Every once in a while, I think it might be nice to be young again. Then I remember what being young was actually like.

For starters, I was broke. Not “I should probably watch my spending” broke. I mean counting change for gas broke. Living in a low income duplex broke. Choosing between shampoo and electricity broke. I didn’t have a 'savings' account. I had a 'hope' account.

Then there were the relationships. When you’re young, every relationship feels like the one. Every breakup feels like the end of the world. You spend hours dissecting conversations with friends like you’re working a cold case. 

“He said this...” 

“Yeah, but what do you think he meant by this?” 

Now? I wouldn’t give two rats’ ass what he said or what he meant. If a grown man wants to play games, he can buy a PlayStation. I don’t have the patience or energy.

Then there were the jobs. When you’re young, everybody tells you to 'follow your dreams'. Easy advice when you’re not the one living on ramen noodles and change you find in the couch cushions, wondering if your checking account will make it to the next payday that's still 7 days away. Back then I worked hard and worried about every bill in the mailbox. Lay awake at nights worrying! Today I still work hard, but at least I know the lights are staying on.

The truth is, I don’t really miss being young. I miss having a younger body. I miss reading a menu in a dimly lit restaurant without holding it at arm’s length. I miss eating whatever I wanted without my body filing a formal complaint the next morning. I miss shopping for and wearing a bikini!

But the rest of it? The uncertainty. The bad decisions. The drama. The lack of money. The terrible taste in men. No thank you! 

Every now and then I think it might be nice to be twenty-five again. Then I remember I was twenty-five once. And honestly, I’ll take sixty-one with money, wisdom, grandchildren, and a good husband over twenty-five, clueless and men that can't get their shit together...  any day of the week. 🤣

Not Everything Needs an Audience

Maybe I’m showing my age, but whatever happened to excusing yourself to fix a wedgie?

People used to slip into a restroom or at least wait until nobody was looking.

Now?

They’ll stop right in the middle of Walmart, Apparently that’s the perfect time to perform what looks like an emergency excavation and grab a handful of pants, and perform a full-scale recovery operation without the slightest bit of embarrassment.

The rest of us are left staring at a box of cereal, pretending we didn’t just witness it.

I don’t know when public wedgie removal became socially acceptable, but apparently I missed the meeting.

I’m Not Ignoring You, I’m Regulating Myself

​Leave Me Alone So I Can Lick My Wounds

I have to wonder… am I the only one who, when I don’t feel good, just wants to be left alone?

In today’s world, it seems like everyone immediately goes online and lets everybody know exactly how they’re feeling. They post if they’re sick, sad, mad, overwhelmed, or having a rough day. And honestly, that’s fine. Social media is how a lot of people keep in touch now, and for some people, talking it out helps.

But me? I’m the opposite.

When I don’t feel good, I tend to disappear a little. I want to be by myself. I want quiet. I want to go lick my wounds somewhere and just deal with whatever is bothering me on my own.

It’s the same when I get upset. I don’t usually want an audience, advice, or twenty people asking me what’s wrong. I need space. I need time to process my feelings and let my emotions settle down. Being alone somehow helps me regulate myself.

Maybe it’s because I’m more introverted these days. But when I really think about it, I’ve always been this way. Even when I was younger, I preferred to retreat, think, and come back when I was ready.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. We all cope differently. Some people heal out loud. Some of us heal quietly.

Neither way is wrong.

I’m just curious… am I the only one who wants to be left alone to lick my wounds, or are there more of us out there?