When Your House Stops Feeling Like Home

I have what I call a dead house.- You know that weird stage of moving where you still technically live there, but it doesn’t really feel like you live there anymore? That’s where I am.

I’ve taken everything off the walls. Pictures are gone. Decorations are packed. All those little things I’ve collected and placed exactly where I wanted them are now wrapped in paper and sitting in boxes. Basically, I have removed every expression of ME from my own house.

And I hate it.

The walls are bare. The shelves are empty. There are boxes everywhere. It echoes differently. It doesn’t feel cozy anymore. It doesn’t even really feel like home. It feels like we’re squatting in somebody else’s house while waiting for our actual lives to start again.

The ONLY room I haven’t touched is my bedroom. My pictures are still there. My stuff is still where it belongs. It still looks lived in. It still looks like me. So naturally, I’ve decided I may never leave it. 😂

Unfortunately, I’m going to be living in this dead house for two more weeks. I know there’s something exciting waiting on the other side of all these boxes. A new place. New walls to decorate. New places to put all my crap. I’ll get to unpack everything and make another house feel like ours.

But until then? If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my bedroom.

Stop Wasting My Time

Absolutely. I’d keep the advice angle but make “Stop Wasting My Time” the bigger point:

Somebody Needed to Say It: Stop Wasting My Time

If you’ve already decided what you’re going to do, don’t ask me what I think and then get pissed because I thought. 😂

You didn’t want advice.

You wanted confirmation with an audience.

There’s a difference.

“Do you think I should text him?”

No.

“Well, I think I’m going to.”

Okay.

“Do you think that’s a bad idea?”

Yes.

“Why are you being so negative?”

Ma’am, YOU CALLED ME. 😂

If you want me to tell you you’re right, just lead with that. Save us both some time.

And if you’ve already made the decision, TELL ME THAT TOO. Don’t make me spend 30 minutes analyzing your options, weighing the pros and cons, and trying to help you figure out what to do when apparently we weren’t considering any of those options anyway.

Just say, “I’ve already made a terrible decision. I need you to support me emotionally while I do it.”

Perfect.

Now I know my role. 😂

You don’t have to take my advice. You don’t even have to like it. But if you ask for my opinion, don’t punish me for giving you exactly what you asked for.

Because asking for advice, arguing with the advice, ignoring the advice, and then doing exactly what you planned to do before you asked me isn’t asking for help.

It’s wasting my time.

Somebody needed to say it. 😂

I’m Tired of Carrying the Conversation

I’m not as talkative as I used to be. Is this an age thing? Or am I finally out of things to say? I mean, I’ve had something to say about pretty much everything for 61 years, so maybe I’ve finally used up my word allotment. 😂

And I have apparently always been this way. When I was little, I used to tell my siblings, “You rest. I’ll talk.” 😂 I mean, if that doesn’t sum up my entire personality, I don’t know what does. I was carrying conversations before I even knew they needed carrying.

Dennis isn’t a talker, and I’ve always found myself filling in the gaps when we’re together. How did a talker and a non-talker end up together? I guess it worked because I had enough words for both of us. But I think I’m worn out. I don’t want to be responsible for keeping the conversation going anymore. I want to be entertained!

I hate empty silence at the dinner table. Car rides are fine because you’ve got the radio filling the air. Dennis and I can drive 30 miles without saying a word while Pour Some Sugar on Me is blasting like we’re still 25 years old. 😂 Sitting in the living room is fine too because there’s usually a show playing. But the dinner table? There’s nothing. Just two people chewing. I can hear a fork hit a plate and suddenly I feel responsible for starting a conversation like, “Do you think squirrels know they’re squirrels?” 😂

The kids always kept things going. I can ping if somebody else is pinging! Throw something out there and I’ve got something to say. Dennis does join in a conversation, but that’s if everyone else starts it and carries it. Otherwise, he sits at the dinner table to actually eat. Apparently he thinks that’s what we came there for. 😂 For years I didn’t mind being the one who kept things going, but now I don’t want to be that person all the time. Somebody else entertain me. I’ve done my time.

The funny thing is, I recently realized my daddy was the one who carried the conversations in our family. We were lively and we ALL had shit to say, but Daddy was the one who kept it going. My mom was much more like Dennis. Crazy realization, really. When Daddy passed, it was hard on her because suddenly she had to learn a whole new trait. The person who had always filled in those gaps wasn’t there anymore, and now she had to figure out how to do it herself.

Which, of course, got me thinking about Dennis and me.

I hope I go first.

Not for some sweet romantic reason like I couldn’t bear to live without him. 😂 I just think after all these years of me filling in the gaps, it’s only fair Dennis has to learn to talk more.

Knowing him, though, he’ll probably just turn the radio on. 😂

I May Not Spell It, But I Thought It

So I have written this blog for about 17 years. I have even published it into a couple of books that sit in my library, so I never have to shut up or stop having an opinion, even in death. 😂

I tend to write my words like I’m just talking. It helps, if we’ve ever had a conversation, to read it the way you know I would say it—with all my little inflections and theatrics, because maybe then it won’t come across quite so sassy sometimes. 😂

I have always loved to write, and this gave me a place to vent and get my frustrations out. Kind of like a therapy session, only free and I get to do all the talking. I’ve never tried to make it some big talking piece or even something people know about. Occasionally I’ll share a story on Facebook. And I say occasionally because my brain is busy, y’all, and I write almost daily. I have over 1,000 posts, so most of them never make it to Facebook.

My grandma kept a journal, but she only told you she went shopping and how much every item cost. 😂 So I guess we both felt the need to document our lives…we just had different priorities.

Anyway, I only discovered ChatGPT in November of last year when I had a major surgery. I knew very little about it until recently and thought, Wow, she can make me look smarter! 😂 But then she started turning my words into someone else’s words, and they didn’t sound like me. And I realized it’s more important for my personality to shine through than it is for me to sound smarter.

So my pieces are still authentic works of art by a simple person with opinions and insignificant thoughts, just like my title suggests.

But getting the spelling right? That’s all ChatGPT! 😂 I may not know how to spell all the big words in my head, but she does.

And really, that’s all the help I needed

There Are WAY Too Many Graduates of This Program

I’m starting to think How to Be a Dumbass 101 wasn’t just a popular class. It was a degree program. 😂 Because every day I see someone do something completely predictable, get the completely predictable result, and then act absolutely SHOCKED.

You poked the bear. The bear bit you. And now we’re holding a community meeting about the aggressive bear. 😂

There are times life genuinely blindsides us. This isn’t about those. This is about lighting the match, dropping it on the carpet, and then wondering how the house caught fire.

We’ve all heard play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Except now we play stupid games, win stupid prizes, and demand to speak to the manager about the prize. 😂

My daddy used to tell me, “Ya can’t fix stupid.” The older I get, the more I realize that man knew some things. Sometimes the universe isn’t against you. Sometimes you just made a dumbass decision.

Next semester, take Common Sense.

Somebody needed to say it. 😂