Teenie Thoughts

Breathing in Across the Atlantic Ocean

I loved Italy.

I have been rattling around with all the feelings of the trip and I can’t believe it was 2 months ago. It feels like yesterday. I have never had quite the experience that I did when I was there. Everything felt so—cleansing. Healing. Better. I came home better. I felt as though the weight I carried around for the last year somehow dissolved the second I got on the plane. My year of travel started and Etta and I jetted across the country and a continent to visit Sandie.

There are so many exciting, funny things that happened. And as Etta and I got on the first plane, we were so excited we just chatted. I kept looking at her and saying WE ARE GOING TO ITALY! The flight, incredibly long, felt like nothing compared to my excitement, anticipation, and overall “holy shit I am going to Italy”ness. I knew that when we arrived in Milan, we would would flip the time zone and suddenly be in the 9 hours ahead zone. We opted to stay up and not sleep on the plane. When we got to New York, I decided food and a beer were necessary.

Ok, it was two beers. And the best nachos I have ever eaten. Ok, not really, but on your way to Italy, everything tastes better.

Now, I do have to say when we got on the plane, most of the people were Italians returning to their homeland. They were exhausted from their trip. Etta and I? WIRED. THEN we found out that the drinks on the way over seas are FREE! NOT a good idea to know as you embark on a 9 hour flight. Did I mention the booze was free?

We certainly did not sit in first class, but we quickly made friends with the totally awesome flight attendants. I think that the first reason was that we were awake. The second was about 20 minutes into our flight, Etta and I stood to use the restroom (Let us note here, that if you are a HUGE ass plane and traveling far, and NOT first class, sit int the back. Easier to stretch your legs, get booze, and use the restroom.). We had been standing for about 5 minutes when Etta looks over to me and says, “You know, it is never a good thing when the person ahead of you is in the restroom for a long time. I am fearful.” At that exact moment, the dude walked out of the restroom. Etta goes to stand by the door and went HOLY SHIT it stinks. The flight attendant walked by (let’s call him Bob) and asked what was up. Etta and I laughed and told him and asked for air freshener. He stuck his head near the restroom and shouted, “OH MY GOD. WHAT DID HE EAT FOR LUNCH!?” Then, told another flight attendant to help him find the air freshener. That little bit of problem fixed, we were fast friends. He brought us these awesome first class bags full of goodies, including the night masks. Apparently, we would arrive as the sun rose, but our time frame it would still be 11pm.

I wasn’t tired. But, he was so nice, we decided to wear them for a little bit. He did tell us to HUSH when we were excited about them. Well, probably because he didn’t just give them to us, he walked by quickly and hucked them into our seat, turned his head back to us and mouthed, “Don’t tell.”

The other flight attendants also became our friends. We didn’t over drink but we did enjoy quite a few cocktails over the 9 hours. Ok, the first TWO hours.  We stood in the back and chatted with the crew. I learned alot about schools on the east coast and the crew. I swear the one dude was gay, (not the one with the air freshener–you know, Bob), but the other dude, we will call him Fred, he talked of his “family” but never of a wife. Just his family and kids.  I am not sure I remember all that I learned about their state testing, but we laughed a lot and the “head” boss lady was a buzz kill and told us all to be quiet. Apparently everyone ELSE was sleeping. We decided since it was only 2 hours into our flight, we should watch a movie and relax.

The seats were not too bad, the movie was decent, but the guy behind us was a bit of a creeper. He didn’t have anyone sitting next to him, so he was sprawled out with his legs sticking into the aisle and his hands resting against the back of Etta’s seat. His head was resting against the window and the lower part of his seat. All of this would be totally acceptable. However, his hand was pushed up between Etta’s seat against the window. Every time she put her hand down, he seemed to “tickle” her hand and freak out. I am sure he was asleep and reaching forward, but we started to poke at his hand and try to get him to move it away. I am pretty sure he didn’t. Creeper.

As we neared Milan, my heart started to race. I tried to not think that we were over the ocean and if we crashed I certainly wouldn’t be able to swim to safety and the sharks would eat me. I know, I would incinerate first, but I couldn’t quite get my mind off of the long ass swim and the giant ocean creatures with huge teeth. I knew I looked like a hamburger to them. We passed over the Alps and the view was breathtaking.

And then, the sun rose and my heart stopped.

I have always been a sunset girl… but this sunrise, over the Alps and my first view of Italy will forever have the spot in my heart for the best sunrise ever. I didn’t even have someone to smooch! I was in a place that was all about the moment. I held onto it and squeezed my eyes shut to hold onto every thing I felt. It was wonderful.

The landing, uneventful. I didn’t get eaten by gigantic oceanic creatures, nor did I land in a spiraling inferno of flames into a mass of water.

Getting off the plane and all that jibber jabber–probably the easiest I have ever had. Probably because after 15 hours of flying, I got this…

Shifting Gears

This year has already brought me so much growth in myself that I do not always recognize myself in the mirror. I have worked very hard at finding honesty in my feelings and also, in sharing those feelings with others.

We can all admit the divorce sucked. Finding out all the terrible things I did and trying to rationalize someone else’s stupid decisions didn’t allow me to heal. I was trying to understand. In the end, my understanding was realizing–there isn’t any true understanding. Someone ELSE made decisions that impacted my life. I didn’t choose those for him. I didn’t. He did.

That has been incredibly enlightening. Maybe part of that is finding out that he continues to choose the same path and cannot make the decisions to heal himself. I look now at the relationship he has with his daughters and I am sad. The girls deserve to be princesses to a Daddy and instead, he will continue to view himself as a King. The girls have done nothing wrong as much as it might suck to have to continue to partner with someone you would rather never see again, I also realize there comes a  point when you are driving so fast down the road searching for happiness, searching for peace, searching to heal the wounds, that you forget to downshift and look around you at those you are leaving behind in the get the EFF out of DODGE mentality.

The girls. They deserve to have that gear shifted for them.

I have also realized that letting so much go has allowed me to view it differently. I am in a better place now. I have stopped distrusting the world for someone else’s mistakes and untrustworthiness (I am going to say that is a word, EVEN if it isn’t). I have taken deep breaths in moments where my inner psycho of distrust would normally rage. People–NORMAL people just don’t want to ran rampant in the world and create pain for others or hide misdeeds. I certainly don’t and I don’t want to assume that everyone distrusts me.

My inner psycho has dealt with a lot. She is sometimes on the verge of a freak out. HA! But as I look in the mirror, I know that my path has allowed me to shift gears. I am slowing down. I don’t feel the need to run any longer. I want to stop and see the sights, hold hands, have a glass of wine and smile at people. I WANT to feel happy.

And I do. I am.

Because Carnivale Makes Me Happy

I have to say that Venice…Venezia….was all that I could ever imagine it to be.

We arrived by train. Sandie lives less than an hour from Venice. I cannot even say that this could be a wish of so many people. AN HOUR FROM VENICE PEOPLE. For like TWENTY BUCKS ROUND TRIP. I am not sure that I  would not even just be like, “HEY! It is Saturday, feel like Venice?” I fell in Love. IN LOVE. And that, in itself is saying a lot since I fell out of love with love a LONG time ago.

We arrived and I realized one thing. I do not speak Italian. At all. Oh, and Italians love Carnivale. Masks. Paint. Costumes. Everywhere.

I stepped off of the train and I wondered if I was at the train station where Harry Potter jumped on to go to Hogwarts. People were everywhere—and they were in costume and not. We were heavy with cameras and Euro and ready to enjoy every second of the water city. I am not sure what I expected but I started snapping pictures from the time we walked through the station until I saw the face painters. The gentleman who painted my face looked like a tiger. No shit. He looked like some sort of cat. He asked me what I wanted and told me it was 7 Euro. I told him, Surprise me! People started to take pictures and Sandie and Etta were done before I was. I started WAY before them. When I finished, I was like WHOA! FOR REAL! It is SO beautiful.  I tipped him. Apparently, people do NOT tip in Italy. I loved my cheeks….I wish I had a picture, but Sandie took all of them and my Nellie photos are not uploaded yet.

We walked through the city and I cannot even describe it. I felt like I was in a movie. Everything I ever imagined was coming true.

We walked through Venice, enjoyed everything. Shops. People. Italian. I bought a few gifts and we finally made it to the square. I have to say, I would not be myself if I didn’t actually get in trouble. We walked through the Basilica and Sandie and I got in trouble for giggling too loudly. OH and I snapped a bunch of illegal pictures since you are NOT allowed to photograph the Basilica. You might go to hell or something. It was funny though..Sandie saw Jasen in Venice. Well, at least she saw some very large copper horse balls. I laughed. Anyone would.

Carnivale–the last day in Venice. Amazing.

I am not always a fan of people touching me, but we faced the masses. The costumes–I am sure they planned them for years. YEARS people because they were too freaking perfect to not have been a plan to just show up in Venice for people (like me ) to say, Hey! “Photo?” “Grazie”

I felt like my painted on mask was far from superior to those freaking dresses.

We walked around all day. I bought an awesome green purse because I kept dropping my credit cards. Oh–the one I actually lost at the Hard Rock. OH WAIT. I think she forgot to give it back.

I 

I had not even embibed in enough Italian wine at this point, I was so in awe. Tired from being up 27 hours the day before and just excited to be in ITALY BITCHES! Etta and I kept looking at each other and saying, “HEY! Do you know I am in Venice!”

And Elvis? Our tour guide on the gondola? First, I must say, we were going to decline a gondola ride. We were tempted mid way through Venice, but the cost was a bit out of our range. When we took the water taxi bus thingie bob back to the start of the city, the gondoliers were desperate for customers since the whole city was in the square for the concert. The guy told us 60 Euro for two people, Sandie and I laughed since Etta was oogling trinkets–we said, there are three of us…he said DONE! So we said DONE! Since it was so much cheaper than earlier. Then, Sandie said, he is totally going to screw us with a shorter time. However, the totally cute gondolier (which was apparently the first cute Italian Sandie had seen) took us on a scenice route of Venice. He did upsell us for 10 Euro– we went by Napoleon’s house, and I can’t even remember where else, all I know is that 1. Elvis was adorable and shy and we tried to convince him to sing for us–and he said only if we joined him in the shower and 2. The view was amazing as the sun set. I was very content with the the price and the once in a life time experience.

O I pride myself on having words. The words to describe my life and I frantically took notes—putting down every experience so I could blog about it later and remember all the seconds of every day. Etta and I would say, WHAT ELSE am I missing…write it down, Tina. WRITE IT DOWN.

This is only the beginning of my trip. THE FIRST FULL 24 HOURS.

Trip of a lifetime. That is all I can say to describe it.

So Much For Posting Every Day!

I had every intention of posting every day! HA! Life gets you busy I suppose.

I have so much to post about. I hope this weekend will provide me some time to post about all of the things I have been doing, experiencing, living. I took a trip to Italy. Started to have the ability to cut the strings for my college kids. Looked to establish my friendships in a new way. Released much of my past–meaning, really trying to heal from all of the events that brought me to where I stand right now. I have really focused on trying to stop my ladders and what I consider right and wrong to listen to the other sides of stories.

I feel like maybe, truly for the first time in a really long time, I understand myself. I understand where I am at and what I need in my life.

My therapist would be proud.

The Snow, the Dark and the Understanding

Today I sit on a snow day…the world is bright, cold, and awesome as only Mother Nature can make it. I woke up knowing that I had today off from school. It is always unsettling to go to bed and wonder–will “they” call the day tomorrow and will “they” wait until the last minute before I know what I should do with my day. Snow days are somewhat of an anxiety as you can’t really plan anything and at the last minute, you are home, poor weather and wondering what to do with yourself.

I don’t mind the snow day.  I don’t even mind making the day up at the end of the school year. Today, the second snow day in a row, left me to dink around as I woke early to Mother Nature’s beauty. My back yard was flawless with a perfect blanket of snow. No footprints. No marks in the white that encompassed my deck. No mars on the pristine whiteness of the snow day.

I spent the first day a little shell shocked and then, ran a few errands as  I remembered I grew up in SPOKANE PEOPLE AND SNOW MEANS NOTHING!!! I made a few stops and then, became engrossed with sliding down a hill with friends and making inappropriate snowmen. I forgot how much I loved a snow day. My own kids enjoyed sledding, snow, and freezing their asses off.

Today, I sit on that snow day and I got a text from Amy and I was shocked again. Not by snow. Not by anything other than another blogger and writer who I have followed for–sheesh, I don’t know. Many years. Amy and I adore her writing and have emailed with her before about photography.  Amy said, did you read her post today? I immediately felt this foreboding in my entire body.

I know that most of you do not know who Heather is, but for me, I have read her posts and I understand. Today, I understand even more as in the brightness of today, I think of someone who is going through a very dark period of her life.

Separation.

I. Completely. Understand.

Life can suddenly take this change. This vault over everything that you know and you are suddenly alone. Facing days sharing children. Days with attorneys. Days with nothingness. I still think back of those days and I realize, truly, it was filled with escape. Wine. Friends. Family. Children. I pretended that I could make it through–and really, I did. I made it through. It was a lot of tears. A LOT OF TEARS.

And here I am. On a snow day, smiling. I had a beer with a friend as we sat on my porch and watched my neighbor and his kids have a snowball fight. I read through Heather’s blog..and her husband’s and thought…life goes on. It is never easy, but it goes on. I hope for her sake, and for the love she has inside, she finds a way to make it work. But only if she wants to.

I didn’t want to anymore. I quit. I admit that. Finally. It was better to quit than to fight the nothing I felt when I was trying. Jasen quit too. He sought his affection and happiness elsewhere. I started to find that I invested myself in work, friends, and kids.

Here I am. A snow day. Smiling. I like my own company. I like myself. I am thankful for all that is around me–friends, family, me.

I hope Heather finds herself out of the darkness on a snowday….  because I understand.

Birthday of a Lifetime

I am a Christmas Baby. I often joke that I need a t-shirt that says, “Jesus stole my birthday glory”. But truth be told, I wouldn’t have my birthday on any other day. My family has always ensured that Christmas and Birthday were separate. I can think of many birthdays where I was so anxious to open my gifts after dinner. I was very fortunate to have understanding family who made my day special too.

The one downfall to having a holiday/December birthday is it is very difficult to have a birthday party. As an adult, I can not think of every having an actual party for myself. In fact, I know that I went out with friends a few times to celebrate my birthday, but never have I thrown myself a party and said CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES with ME! I am not sure what prompted me to do it this year, but Jessica and I decided that we would host a bday party for “us”. I have written many posts on my social blogs about how grateful and thankful I am to have such good friends celebrate me this year. My door bell rang and people stopped by. Birthday cards, bottles of wine and emails were prevalent every day. I have never had such an out pouring of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! AND I am not even FORTY yet!

I totally enjoyed my two little neighbor girls, Josie and Gabby, walking over to deliver  a bottle of wine for my birthday. I am pretty sure the bottle was bigger than they were. I wanted to take a picture, but wasn’t sure if their Mom would approve. Who am I kidding? She sent them over with the wine! OH and they told me, JUST in case I didn’t know, that they were indeed, delivering a bottle of wine to me for my birthday! LOVE!

The party. I have to say, I am pretty sure I didn’t drink much. I was too busy consuming the liquor in the form of jello. All the people I love and consider my good friends rallied around Jessica and I to endure a night of beer pong and celebration. I have to admit, I have never played beer pong in my life. I now can also admit, there are no winners in beer pong. Somewhere along the evening, my Jerry Seinfled bizzaro world collided. College. Work. Old married friends from lives before. Bunco. Moses Lake friends. God, I think there could have been a highschool friend attending, but alas. I just know this. THEY ALL LIKED EACH OTHER. I cannot believe the exchanging of business cards, dinner invites, and “let’s get togethers” I heard. It truly made my birthday so much more special—to know all the people I LOVE, also, liked each other. No one wants to hear, “Hey Tina, why are you friends with that bitch?”

Highlights? From what I can put together–I did eat a lot of jello– beer pong was nearing Olympic categories in the garage and close to 100 jello shots were consumed. Beer? I have no idea. Food? I have no idea as I woke up and thought I would just sell my house instead of cleaning up. My lovely friend, Jen, was so cheery as she cleaned the kitchen. I am typically NOT hung over, but I felt like I was hit by the truck that delivered the boxes of jello to Safeway.  There was much laughing.  MUCH roasting of my shortness and boobs. I think the midget jokes were flying the second people opened the door.  I opened a present from Bucky to proclaim, “THIS T SHIRT IS NOT GOING TO FIT!” only for him to respond, “Uh Tina. It is yours. You left it in my car after the hash.”

OOPS. I do remember that after I almost DIED of hypothermia after falling in the river. That is another story. One filled with much mud, freezing water, The Marines, and HOLY CRAP WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO!?

There were people hugging and sticking some awful black and white stickers on each other. Some others included, “I steal office supplies for fun” or “I farted”. “Office Slut”. I think that same person who was the stickery-stickerman also bought me glow in the dark body glitter. Yeah, you never know when that might come in handy!!!

Jessica was bound and determined to keep Emily’s purple converse (which if she wasn’t so busy trying to steal them, she would have known they didn’t fit Beezy anymore and she could take them legally!)  Of the 30 or so people who attended, I have to say, I have never felt so loved or celebrated. It was truly one of my greatest memories. Well, aside from the sticky floors and dirty pong balls. However, Andrew’s bag of ping pong balls aptly labeled, “Sterilized ping pong balls for beer pong” was entertaining to read again and again. Amy had me open her never ending gift! I felt like it was the purse from Hermione that was full of so much stuff! INCLUDING  a FAB purse AND 14 Hands. OMG 14 Hands. Seriously. FOURTEEN HANDS.The wine of the gods. I think it actually may have been delivered by Hera herself.

I love every single person that attended and I cannot THANK them enough for loving me, celebrating with me, and continuing to put up with me. I cannot remember smiling so much as I was able to spend an evening with friends to celebrate Jessica and I. Who needs to turn 40—well Jessica’s 50th bday ends on the end of the Mayan calendar so we might need to think about that…. either way, I can’t think of a better way to turn 29 or end 2012.

Posting Posting Posting….

I am working hard at posting every day. I looked back through my blog and I have some serious blips in my writing! I also have a zillion “pending” posts that I have not finished and are in draft form. I think this weekend will be a good chance for me to catch up….and I am even starting to think I will insert an excerpt of my book for those of you who may want to take a peek….. let me know what you think! The editor I am working with checks my blog too, so if you stop by, leave a comment! I moderate them, so once I have OK’D you, you are free to post whenever without moderation! I just happen to get weird SPAM posts!

So, the promise to myself to write is also here. Even if it is just a bunch of bullshit sometimes! HA!

Sun and Sand

My brain is here on cold Pacific Northwest Friday.

This photo was taken just under two years ago in Cabo San Lucas. I think, truly, I think, it could be my favorite place in the entire world. I am missing it today when I need some sunshine, the sound of rushing waves on the beach, and someone to bring me a continued supply of rum punch or Corona.

Sun and Sand, that is where I am.

Santa!

Yesterday my good friend Jessica and her son, Nic, came over for dinner. The best part was, she made the dinner! YAY! As we are sitting around the table eating the white chicken chili, we share how our days are going and as we transition to playing a cool new game (ZERO), Jess talks about a kindergarten student at her school.

She shares that he is a challenged student (academically, speech, etc) and he loves to see her. He had walked out of his classroom to find her during the day. Everyone was on alert for the special needs kid, who in the end, had found Jessica.

She proceeds to tell me that she ended up keeping him in her room for a while and was talking to him about Christmas. He has a speech issue and she was talking as he does to show how hard it was to understand him. She said he was telling her that “Jana” came and gave him a “race car”. Jessica was interested and said, “OH, that was nice of her.” The little boy replies, “JANA is a MAN”.

Now, Jessica was explaining to us that stranger things have happened so she figured some man was named Jana in this little guy’s life. I looked at her and said, “Aren’t you lisping the word SANTA?”

She stopped what she was doing, looked at me and said, “OH CRAP! He was talking about SANTA!”

The funny part is all of us at the table figured she was talking about Santa in the first place and just lisping Jana to show how hard it was to understand him. Nope. Jessica thought Jana.

Better believe in Santa or else Jana might be the one bringing your gifts!!

The Dark and Gray

Holy winter batman! Today when I left the house, there was a beautiful blue sky with pink clouds–well, from one direction. As soon as I turned the corner the sky had this ominous black convergence of crap. Nasty black crap that looked as though the whole world was sucked up into it and would spew out rain, hail, wind, and cows. You know what I am talking about if you ever in your life lived in the midwest.

The day was cold when I got to school and by about mid after noon, the rain started to drop and the black cloud seemed to have settled itself right above my portable. It is DARK outside. DARK and rainy and yucky. I looked at the weather station to see if something would just blow over. Well, no. Not really. Seems like a bunch of rain and a bunch of wind. That is full of AWESOME.

I do not mind winter storms. However, when it is just dark and rainy with no potential for anything other than dark and rainy? That just plain sucks. Bring out the snow. The hail. The wind and losing power. If it is going to rage outside, don’t make it just shitty outside, make it a STORM where I can OHHHH and AWWWW about it. Not just get pissed that my hair is wet and my car was washed yesterday and now the freaking rain is making it look like dookey.

I actually started tanning last week because I wanted some LIGHT. LIGHT PEOPLE. You know, the brightness and the warmth that comes out of the sky? That. I had to find some sort of fabricated version so I didn’t lose my eye sight and start wiggling around like a nake mole rat. Trust me, no one wants to see that.

The effect is nice. I feel a little better and I want to snuggle up against the bulbs. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the absence of light in the winter can make you feel a little (Ok, a LOT) depressed. I need the light in my life. I miss waking up to the sunshine. I am like, what? Dark? Is it morning? Didn’t I JUST go to bed? WHO STOLE THE SUNSHINE!? Isn’t that some sort of mythology story? Some dude plucked the sun out of the sky and hid it in the ocean? I don’t know. It sounds like it happened here though.

Either way.. I am ready for some stinkin snow to reflect what little light there is or for the sun to climb out of the ocean and be the magnificient orb of light it is.