Month: June 2013

You Gotta Have Faith

Posted on by kmarrs

Faith and I met when Thomas was 1.  We last saw each other not long after he turned 2.  He turns 10 in less than a month.  So to say it had been a while is an understatement.

I’m not sure what happened to cause us to drift.  We weren’t extremely close, to begin with.  We hadn’t known each other long enough to reach extremely close.  She is a wonderful person and we got along well, the time just hadn’t been put into it.

She lived not too far out, but not down the street.  We both had kids.  My mental health was going down the tubes.  I feel like there was something more as well, but I don’t recall.  It wasn’t a big blow-out fight or anything dramatic between us.  Life just prevented us from hanging out and so we kind of drifted.

But we did keep in touch over various social media.  So I knew the major events of her life, and she knew mine, even if the fine details weren’t being discussed.

When Lisa moved and I questioned how I was going to find myself in a kayak again, Faith spoke up with there being local places that kayaks could be rented, she just didn’t know where and she didn’t have the guts to do it.

At least not alone.

Faced with all of my social life leaving the state, and hearing an offer of an old acquaintance wanting to give things a go, I didn’t miss the opportunity.

I sought Lisa’s advice on where to go, I planned well in advance with Faith when we could do this.

And yesterday I found myself in 1 of 2 rented kayaks, Faith in the other, and off we went on adventure.  An adventure we’ll never forget.  The trip we bought, which is self guided with instruction on where to get in and what to look for to get out, was promised to be 1-2 hours.  We took 3, with an hour of it sitting in our boats, anchored to the side of the river, just catching up on 8 years of history away from one another.  It was like we were never apart.  It was easy.  For all my social anxiety and awkwardness, it was so easy.

We got stuck, we found ourselves going through fast water spots backwards with little control of our boats.  We laughed.  We cried out in half terror, half amusement.  I found myself sitting in the middle of a river when we were too stuck to move without someone getting out.  I pulled her through it, working hard to not lose my boat in the process, and at one point just sat in the water up to my waist, to catch my breath.  I’ll tell you though, my hip was sore from sitting so cramped for so long, and that water was instant relief.

We came out soaked head to toe and thrilled with the experience.  We were a sight.  We elicited laughs from fellow boatmen, who were better at it than we.  But we made it to the end, proud, soar, and not the ones lamenting the loss of keys and socks to the river.

And we came out knowing that while we can’t get together weekly, she lives an hour or so away, gas isn’t cheap and time isn’t limitless, we will make at least once a month happen.  She works closer to me than she lives, so we’ll do the occasional dinner.  Her son is a couple of years older than Thomas, we’ll get the kids together somewhere roughly half way between our homes.  She and I will kayak or canoe again at the end of the season.

I’m not without hope.

I have Faith.

Our Song

Posted on by kmarrs

Since the day I crossed the stage and accepted my high school diploma and my (then) friend sat in the audience, his chest filled with pride, little knowing that I’d soon be his, this has been our song.

It’s meaning has increased for me, recently, as I truly appreciate all that he is for me. As he struggles to comfort me in an agony he can’t fix. That he can’t even suggest I throw a pill at because this is life, not mental illness.  Both of us knowing that he is so very much, but can’t be it all.

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

Hollow

Posted on by kmarrs

So rarely am I ever at a true loss for words.  You don’t have to know me long to know I’m happy to talk your ear off about anything and everything.  Rarely does a thought pop into my head that I don’t share, even if it’s simply out loud to myself.

So this struggle with words over the past week or two is astounding.  I’ve written plenty, sure, but not what I really need to talk about.  What I really need to bring up.

I feel this hole within me that only tears seem able to fill.  But the thing about tears is that they drain out of this hole quickly so I’m left with this need to refill the hole with more tears.  All while searching for something that just maybe won’t drain as quickly.  Nearly collapsing when I turn a corner out of line of sight of others at work, all activity stops for a minute of my body shaking with sobs fed from tears that won’t come, because I don’t have time to cry just then, but I can’t hold the anguish in so it has to escape as quickly as it can before I can reign it in.  No one check the vault tapes.  Those are private moments that don’t involve the green stuff.

I’m not suicidal.  That would be ridiculous.  I’m responding to life, and this emptiness I’m feeling won’t last.  I’m not self sabotaging.  That would only make things worse for me.  So clearly skills are working and I will pull through.  This isn’t even BPD.  I say that with no doubt or hesitation.  Anyone wondering how I know isn’t paying attention.

I’m working 50 hours weeks.  It’s a job I love.  A boss and team that makes me feel important daily, unlike I have ever felt before.  I’m working 50 hour weeks week after week while raising 3 kids and going to school.  I love every bit every one of those 3, but I’m tired.  I thrive under pressure and I adore a packed schedule, but I too must rest.  I too have my breaking point.

We have no staff at work.  No tellers, anyway.  The other side of the room is beautifully staffed.  Except that they end up having to run teller windows because we have no tellers.  So we must pick between one side of the room or the other having no staff.

It isn’t even the lack of staff alone that has me feeling this way.  We have a solid team.  We are Human Sigma 6 three times running for a combined 18 months.  There is no higher honor when it comes to customer and employee loyalty.  We set the bar others strive for.  Our staff is currently small.  But it’s solid.  “This is my family, I found it all on my own.  It’s little and broken but still good.  Yeah, still good.”  Our numbers need to triple behind the line but who we have is the best damn team you could ask for.  So where others would fall apart, we hold strong and show you WHY you are loyal to our branch, customer and employee alike.

It’s the reason we are short that has me hollow.  We didn’t lose our last 2 tellers because they were done with us and simply took a different job down the street.  Life decisions took them far away, from my world.  One to Chicago and one to New York and with it went what little local and true friendship I really have.  My branch is my family, but those were the two that made a point of hanging out with my weekly outside of work.  Board games or bars.  Pool or Kayaking.  Climbing or Walking.  Those girls showed me what real friendship was actually like.  Lisa was the first real, solid, healthy friendship I’ve had ever in all my years.  I met her when I was 20-fucking-8-years-old.  28 years of thinking unhealthy settling was the best I could have.  The best I deserved.

Years of asking what the hell is wrong with me?  What the fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck is wrong with me?  Is it me?  Is it you?  In thinking that there is either something wrong with everyone else, or simply something wrong with me.  As much as I’d like to think I really was born with an over abundance of awesome and the rest of the world just can’t handle it, the reality is that if it seems like everyone around you is an asshole, you have to seriously consider that the problem is actually you and they are responding to what you are putting out there.

I am the Sheldon Cooper of my word.  Only less brilliant and I really am crazy.  “My family had me tested.”  I could get away with it if I was some super genius.  Or regular genius.  But despite being a human calculator, all I am is the sole member of my bank team that actually likes math.

A tired, lonely, empty, human calculator.  If only I ran on batteries and not heart.

Instead, I’m all heart and as such it breaks over and over and over.  As you walk away from 10 years of, admitted unhealthy friendship, over a pair of shoes.  As my local close friendship moves away.  As I reach out to you for companionship and you show no interest.  As I see how socially awkward I really am but don’t know how to fix it.  As I know based on well establish pattern that the majority of the people in my life who have been the closest to me, tolerated me the best, I’ve never met face-to-face because I’m best when there is an entire internet between us.  Which would be glorious if going to a movie together didn’t involve having to find a movie that starts at the same time despite time zones.  If going to the bar or playing board games didn’t involve plane tickets.  And I don’t mean to diminish that friendship because these people I may have never met, at least not yet, would be there for me for me in a second, shovel in hand, asking who I know with a decent backyard.  They laugh.  But not because they don’t agree.

But as amazing as that friendship is, it isn’t enough  Not since I have learned what it is to have a regular girl’s night, in or out of the house, just hanging out not caring about a thing but spending time together.

I have a few I could work into my life more.  I girl I went to school with who has a kid Sambam’s age.  We talk about setting up play-dates.  She is about 10 minutes away  A girl I knew a long time ago that I’ve causally kept in contact with over the past few years.  We’re going kayaking next Saturday, in fact.  She is the furthest at an hour or so away.  Another woman I met at work as a customer, who is fun and I’ve hung out with her a few times.  She lives about half way between the other two.  But you know the difference between a friend, or even best friend, and an acquaintance?  While you can indeed hang out with both, one fills a deeply driven need, the other fills an afternoon.  And that’s Ok.  Not everyone should to be everyone’s BFFOREVER!  But I could appreciate the acquaintances more, because I’m sadly currently incapable of appreciating them as much as they deserve, if I had a local BFFOREVER.

I have fun with acquaintances.  Girlfriends know my soul.  And that’s what I need.  Someone local who would never need to read a word I wrote because they already knew it all.

Yes, that’s what I need.

I need to fill this hole.  With something that lasts longer than tears.  The vault is getting soggy.

Princess Bear

Posted on by kmarrs

Years and years ago, when Thomas was so very little, less than 6 months, but after I went back to work, he went through a fussy period each night.  His siblings later went through the same period.  It was the, “Thank God mom is finally home, I can go ahead and tell her how much I missed her” hour.  Not colic.  Not even close.  But still infant misery hour.

So it was when Thomas was 2 months old that I wrote him this song

Hey there, Baby Bear

Go to sleep

Momma’s here, Daddy’s near

Your safety we will keep

Recently I substituted “Princess Bear” in for “Baby Bear” when Sambam gave me the “I ain’t no baby!” look.

Speaking of Princesses, Sambam has her own royal throne now.

She isn’t fully ready, but she is so very close.  Close enough for the purchase so she can get comfortable with it being something known.  I’ll show her later how to use it.  Then in a couple of months I’ll gently start encouraging its use.  Then in September I’ll actively try to enforce its use.  If she doesn’t beat me to it.  She is rather excited about it being in the house.

She also has a padded seat that goes over the big potty.  Should she prefer.

After all, I true princess gets their choice of thrones.

(Edit with up-to-date additions taking place after the rest of this was written: Apparently while at Grandma’s house over the weekend, the second she found herself naked for her bath, she made a beeline to the little potty my mom has in her bathroom from when Luke was little, and used it without anyone even suggesting it.  Which means my kid is potty training herself.  Your jealousy is OK and natural.)

Random Bits

Posted on by kmarrs

None of these are long enough for a separate blog post all their own, so they are having a lesson in sharing.

Speaking of sharing, my boys share a room.  And almost every morning they wake up ready to brawl, waking the rest of us with the sound of their fighting.  I say “almost” because once a week they wake up in separate homes.  One with my mom, the other here.  So I’ve decided to take a creative approach.  Mind you, I think so far out of the box that my box doesn’t even exist.  What the hell is a box?  This box you speak of, does it hold candy?  Only then am I interested.  Or, maybe if it were a box of puppies.  I digress.  So I’ve decided that from now on, every morning that they wake up and immediately start fighting, that night they have to share a bed.  My husband finds this twisted.  I argue the horrors of sharing a twin bed might shock them into getting along.  Oh, and we’ll go top bunk since it is much harder to fall out of when your brother tries to shove you to your own side.

Hey!  Speaking of falling out of the top bunk:

The NASA technology is gone, now there is just a brace in its place for the next 1-2 weeks.  But only when he plays.  It’s still healing but he needs to be able to let it move when he isn’t being rough and tumble.

On a different note, Guess who is getting a perfect 100% in the first college class she’s taken in over 5 years?  That’s right, this bitch!  It started easy but once you see it possible, you keep it possible.  If you tell yourself you’ll settle for a pass, you’ll only pass.  When you tell yourself you are an A student and you will pull in A’s you get A’s.  I’m telling myself I am capable of perfection. (I’ll settle for A’s.  What do you think I am, crazy?  Yeah, don’t answer that.)

My husband told me he broke the hair clippers, basically meaning I can’t shave my hair off anymore.  And that’s how I got blood stains on my hands.  Then he told me he fixed them so I brought him back.  Slightly zombified.  Slightly.  Or, it’s possible he only seems like a zombie because he threw out his back?  This paragraph has no real purpose other than OMG I finally can get rid of this hair that is way too long.  I spent a week thinking I could maybe grow out my hair.  HAHAHAHAHAHA.  No.  It’s touching me. (I’m not crazy, I’m eccentric.)

Any job letter of reference that starts out

Jane Doe can rappel down skyscrapers with a single bound.  More importantly, you can trust Jane’s set-up so that you too can rappel down skyscrapers, in a single bound of trust that she can get you safely to the bottom.

is a winner.  You want me to write you a letter of reference.  I’m qualified.

I’m a touch slap happy.  We just survived the 1st of the month in banking with an entire 7 employees for the entire branch.   We’ve been known to consider ourselves short on the 1st with a full 12 employees.  Tired doesn’t cover it.  But I’m flying high because I took on a role of leadership over something we were trying to logic out.  I presented the plan, ran it, and it worked like I knew it would.  Flying.  High.

Hey, speaking of leadership.  I would have had a chance to get a promotion that I turned down.  Again, not crazy.  First, starting school and being promoted within weeks of each other does not lead to perfect scores in school.  Oh, I’d still pass, but at what cost?  Sanity is a fragile thing.  And that box is currently upside down as it is, as “this side up” points to the floor.  Oh hey!  There’s my box!

But also, this promotion had I been given it, would have taken me from my branch.  It isn’t like I won’t ever leave my branch, but we are days away from being down to 2 tellers.  One of which, not me, is pregnant due to pop in less than 2 months.  Full line, FYI, is 6-7.  Me leaving before we hire at least 3 more would cripple the branch.  And I can’t do that to my team.  I can’t.  If I had absolutely nothing left to learn from them, it would maybe be different.  Hell, my boss would push me out the door.  She’d rather that than hold me back.  But I still learn something new there daily.  Plus, we have a new teller supervisor(!!!!!!) starting next week.  I am so excited to work with her.  She will be amazing for our line, branch, team.  She use to be a trainer.  She trained all of our personal bankers in fact.  Moral is high just thinking about her joining our team.  It’s her job I’d be taking at the other branch.  It’s a position I’m after in general.  But I’m excited to learn from her first, and then move on.

Finally, and the boss lady only told me about this after I decided not to apply, the other branch is so slow.  I mean so very, very slow.  There isn’t even anything to clean or organize.  I’d last about 2 weeks before they’d have to lock me away because I tried to put the ceiling tiles in proper order based on how many dots or bumps or specks of dust they have.  Hint: it’s so clean there is no dust.

But what matters is that the boss lady told me about the position because she thought I’d be perfect for it, and confessed she got depressed at the idea of losing me.  And not just because I’m a warm body running a window.  And when she told the other manager to expect my application, and then told me I should email the other manager if I wasn’t going to apply after all, the other manager actually put up some fight.  I don’t know what boss lady told her, but my heart if full of warm and fuzzies.  Perhaps my ego too.

Perhaps my ego needs those warm and fuzzies.

Perhaps my boys will be grateful they have adequate jammies as they spend a few night crammed into a twin sized bed, learning how not to fight.

Perhaps I can pull a perfect 100% in every class straight through my bachelor’s and my MBA.

Perhaps you too can rappel down skyscrapers in a single leap of faith in Jane’s rope work.

Perhaps her name isn’t really Jane Doe.

Perhaps I am even more eccentric than you anticipated.

Perhaps.

But You Got To Have Friends

Posted on by kmarrs

I lie here in my bed lonely for companionship outside my marriage and family. Friends I can go out on the town with. Bars, movies, outside adventure. Who really cares what, when there are friends involved?

I have a couple best friends. Both live in another state. I have a another good friend soon to move.  An acquaintance who is near enough but doesn’t fill that need.

So I reflect back to the one I lost over a pair of shoes and I think how stupid. Am I being too stubborn?  Then I realize I’m on the side that should be stubborn. I didn’t let her get away because of a pair of shoes she wanted to wear. She let me get away over a pair of shoes I need to wear for a medical condition.

This goes beyond being stubborn. This goes to the definition of friendship. No one is good enough for her, she simply tolerates people to various degrees.

And I want friends who don’t simply tolerate me.

Right now though, I just want friends I can actually hang out with face to face.

A year ago when I was in this same boat, I didn’t know what I was missing. But since then, I’ve had a span where I was really out of the house with a social life.  So now that it’s gone, I’m back to where I was, only this time I know exactly what I’m missing out on.