Written last night and continued this morning because I got stuck playing World of Warcraft like a good little addict...
Greetings from the Spawnling and I. We're looking mighty fly in our pyjamas at 9pm on a Saturday night. This seems to be a bit of a ritual lately. It appears that one doesn't have much activity on one's social calendar after one's third child.
'But Maven!' I hear from my four loyal readers (they would be: the jobless man with the skull bandana, the teenaged girl made to read my near-daily entries by her mom because she happened to mention that having a baby would be 'fun', and the weird couple down the road who are always going for walks and grin at me in that creepy, creepy way. Hi there.) 'What do you mean you don't have anything to do on a Saturday? Didn't you just say in your last entry that you're feeling overwhelmed?'
Why of course, my blog fan quartet. This very true. I have been feeling overwhelmed, but it's not because I'm going from one wine and cheese event to the next (which, incidentally, would not be much fun for a recovering alcoholic. I would get terribly gassy and increasingly rotund from eating nothing but cheese). I'm overwhelmed because my house has been looking more and more like the alley where they always find the dead bodies on Law and Order and less like a place where people won't be dragged under the couch and eaten by dustbunnies.
That being said, my week was chock full of activities. For example, yesterday involved breakfast with Jobthingy followed by lattes, birthday shopping for Geekster and a playdate with Mrs. Wailing and co. I came home, reheated the dinner made for us on Wednesday and the headed off to my Friday night AA meeting with the Spawn. He made nice with the regulars and cooed and smiled and left them smitten, as per usual. I swear they must think me a liar when I say he can be somewhat high needs.
I'm glad he's so accepted by my homegroup (Oh. Sorry, Jobless Bandana Man. I'll clarify: a "homegroup" is the group at which an AA member chooses to celebrate his or her milestones. Ergo, I'll be celebrating my 16th clean and sober year at my Friday night homegroup in June). That group is full of really great people who not only tolerate me but also the now jabbering thing that came out of me three months ago. I think some of them actually like me.
Not too right in the head, those alcoholics.
Truth is, I'm rather surprised at the amount of friends I've made this year. Not just friends, but female friends. I've always had a problem making friends with the fairer sex, because we end up throwing on our Bitch Olympics jerseys before too long and running head-on at each other in the field. Girl games suck, they hurt, they make me feel bad about myself no matter what team I'm on and I'm beyond tired of playing them. As a result I've been delicately tiptoeing through Friendship Fields, never stopping to smell the bloom of... wow, that analogy is not only dreadful, but it makes so little sense that I can't even finish the sentence. This is what happens when you leave a post open late at night and come back to it first thing the morning before having a caffeine fix.
Silly, silly Maven.
The Reader's Digest version of this story is that I've met some very nice people in the last few months. Lushgurl is a given, of course but there are others too. For example, one woman I've only spoken to a handful of times made a beautiful woodworked frame for Spawnling's room 'just because'. Just because? What the hell!? She must have spoken behind my back and felt bad or something. Team 2! Team 2!! Sign-up is in the locker room!
Er... yeah. See that? That's how I used to get into trouble.
The other thing that's interesting is how brutally honest I've been about my emotions. One member who I have great respect for and am so very much dying to make my sponsor (Bandana Man: a "sponsor" is another person in recovery whose work on themself you admire and who agree to be a person to help guide you in your own recovery. Please stop interrupting me and use Wikipedia in the future. Thanks.) asked me for my phone number again as she had lost it.
As I'm scrawling it down in my adorable chicken scratch writing, I said 'I have yours on the fridge, actually. I clean around it all the time.'
'Why haven't you called me?' questioned Future Sponsor.
'Oh. That would be because I'm afraid of rejection,' I replied, unphased. Nothing like honesty to get a conversation going.
She paused for just a second and I'm guessing in that time she was wondering if I meant I was afraid of everyone rejecting me or just her. Because if it was just her, she would have to wonder why. She's been nothing but warm, compassionate and kind since we met in the summer.
So I kindly explained that it wasn't just her. That this has been a problem since I was very little and I'm just starting to deal with it head on instead of patching up the problem with alcohol, an assortment of narcotics or, more recently, warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies. Oh god, those delicious cookies.
'I won't reject you, Maven,' she said with a firm gaze. 'Call me any time. Even at three in the morning if you need to. I will never hang up on you.'
See? She's totally Future Sponsor material. Anyone who accepts phone calls at that time is just asking to be a sponsor, even if they don't know it yet. Do I know how to pick them or what? As soon as I work up my nerve and she's foolish enough to say yes, we're set.
Fear of rejection. It's an icky feeling. I think a lot of people have it, whether or not we want to admit it. We want so desperately to belong to something and to be important to someone.
'But Maven!' cry my readership of four. 'You're important to us!'
Hell yes I am. Why do you think I write this damn blog? Because Bandana Man, Teen Girl Who Thinks Babies are Cute, and Creepy Walking Couple enjoy reading it and leave me comments to that effect. I like comments. They're validating in that you're-at-least-interesting-enough-to-tell-you-so kind of way.
Oh. And to work on my feelings. Yes. My feelings. My emotional exhibitionist feelings, anyway.
Look, if I were healthy in the head I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't be witnessing my mental train wreck in words that you oh-so-enjoy, so don't judge.
And also, a huge Happy birthday to Geekster, who reads my blog but never comments. He rejects me a little every day, but I love him anyway because we make cute babies together (the gremlins' bad behaviour is his genetics). Happy 34th, sweetheart. You're so old but you're still cute.
Greetings from the Spawnling and I. We're looking mighty fly in our pyjamas at 9pm on a Saturday night. This seems to be a bit of a ritual lately. It appears that one doesn't have much activity on one's social calendar after one's third child.
'But Maven!' I hear from my four loyal readers (they would be: the jobless man with the skull bandana, the teenaged girl made to read my near-daily entries by her mom because she happened to mention that having a baby would be 'fun', and the weird couple down the road who are always going for walks and grin at me in that creepy, creepy way. Hi there.) 'What do you mean you don't have anything to do on a Saturday? Didn't you just say in your last entry that you're feeling overwhelmed?'
Why of course, my blog fan quartet. This very true. I have been feeling overwhelmed, but it's not because I'm going from one wine and cheese event to the next (which, incidentally, would not be much fun for a recovering alcoholic. I would get terribly gassy and increasingly rotund from eating nothing but cheese). I'm overwhelmed because my house has been looking more and more like the alley where they always find the dead bodies on Law and Order and less like a place where people won't be dragged under the couch and eaten by dustbunnies.
That being said, my week was chock full of activities. For example, yesterday involved breakfast with Jobthingy followed by lattes, birthday shopping for Geekster and a playdate with Mrs. Wailing and co. I came home, reheated the dinner made for us on Wednesday and the headed off to my Friday night AA meeting with the Spawn. He made nice with the regulars and cooed and smiled and left them smitten, as per usual. I swear they must think me a liar when I say he can be somewhat high needs.
I'm glad he's so accepted by my homegroup (Oh. Sorry, Jobless Bandana Man. I'll clarify: a "homegroup" is the group at which an AA member chooses to celebrate his or her milestones. Ergo, I'll be celebrating my 16th clean and sober year at my Friday night homegroup in June). That group is full of really great people who not only tolerate me but also the now jabbering thing that came out of me three months ago. I think some of them actually like me.
Not too right in the head, those alcoholics.
Truth is, I'm rather surprised at the amount of friends I've made this year. Not just friends, but female friends. I've always had a problem making friends with the fairer sex, because we end up throwing on our Bitch Olympics jerseys before too long and running head-on at each other in the field. Girl games suck, they hurt, they make me feel bad about myself no matter what team I'm on and I'm beyond tired of playing them. As a result I've been delicately tiptoeing through Friendship Fields, never stopping to smell the bloom of... wow, that analogy is not only dreadful, but it makes so little sense that I can't even finish the sentence. This is what happens when you leave a post open late at night and come back to it first thing the morning before having a caffeine fix.
Silly, silly Maven.
The Reader's Digest version of this story is that I've met some very nice people in the last few months. Lushgurl is a given, of course but there are others too. For example, one woman I've only spoken to a handful of times made a beautiful woodworked frame for Spawnling's room 'just because'. Just because? What the hell!? She must have spoken behind my back and felt bad or something. Team 2! Team 2!! Sign-up is in the locker room!
Er... yeah. See that? That's how I used to get into trouble.
The other thing that's interesting is how brutally honest I've been about my emotions. One member who I have great respect for and am so very much dying to make my sponsor (Bandana Man: a "sponsor" is another person in recovery whose work on themself you admire and who agree to be a person to help guide you in your own recovery. Please stop interrupting me and use Wikipedia in the future. Thanks.) asked me for my phone number again as she had lost it.
As I'm scrawling it down in my adorable chicken scratch writing, I said 'I have yours on the fridge, actually. I clean around it all the time.'
'Why haven't you called me?' questioned Future Sponsor.
'Oh. That would be because I'm afraid of rejection,' I replied, unphased. Nothing like honesty to get a conversation going.
She paused for just a second and I'm guessing in that time she was wondering if I meant I was afraid of everyone rejecting me or just her. Because if it was just her, she would have to wonder why. She's been nothing but warm, compassionate and kind since we met in the summer.
So I kindly explained that it wasn't just her. That this has been a problem since I was very little and I'm just starting to deal with it head on instead of patching up the problem with alcohol, an assortment of narcotics or, more recently, warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies. Oh god, those delicious cookies.
'I won't reject you, Maven,' she said with a firm gaze. 'Call me any time. Even at three in the morning if you need to. I will never hang up on you.'
See? She's totally Future Sponsor material. Anyone who accepts phone calls at that time is just asking to be a sponsor, even if they don't know it yet. Do I know how to pick them or what? As soon as I work up my nerve and she's foolish enough to say yes, we're set.
Fear of rejection. It's an icky feeling. I think a lot of people have it, whether or not we want to admit it. We want so desperately to belong to something and to be important to someone.
'But Maven!' cry my readership of four. 'You're important to us!'
Hell yes I am. Why do you think I write this damn blog? Because Bandana Man, Teen Girl Who Thinks Babies are Cute, and Creepy Walking Couple enjoy reading it and leave me comments to that effect. I like comments. They're validating in that you're-at-least-interesting-enough-to-tell-you-so kind of way.
Oh. And to work on my feelings. Yes. My feelings. My emotional exhibitionist feelings, anyway.
Look, if I were healthy in the head I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't be witnessing my mental train wreck in words that you oh-so-enjoy, so don't judge.
And also, a huge Happy birthday to Geekster, who reads my blog but never comments. He rejects me a little every day, but I love him anyway because we make cute babies together (the gremlins' bad behaviour is his genetics). Happy 34th, sweetheart. You're so old but you're still cute.