Tag Archives: single life

I’m a Librarian, B^+<#@$!!!

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Four years ago, I had just found out that I was pregnant and that my ex-husband was lying about having a job… again. I was morbidly obese, starting my senior year of college, about to do my student teaching, and paying the bills through… well, prayer. I was petrified.

Today…

I am a fucking Librarian!!!!!!!

Suck my dick statistics, because I left the bastard and…

I. Did. It.

I followed through on all of my dreams and got that Bachelor’s degree and then that Master’s degree and now the job! My divorce didn’t lower my station in life. It opened up a universe of possibilities and opportunity.

  • Women who divorced between 2010 and 2011 were more likely to receive public assistance than men who divorced during this time, with rates being 23% and 15%, respectively.
  • Of women who divorced between 2010 and 2011, 27% reported a household income of less than $25,000.
  • Children of divorced parents are twice as likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college.
  • While men are financially better off than women after a divorce, they are more likely to suffer more emotionally.

I’m sorry. What was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of my I’m a Librarian, BITCHES!!! dance coupled with my ROAR OF AWESOME!!!!

A little bit o’ this…

… and a little bit o’…

.. and some nce, nce, nce.
Finally, some…

Yeah. They don’t let me dance at stuff.

Today, I talked the ear off the lady at the gym who asked why Librarians need a Master’s degree. Yesterday, I bought myself these… because I am just that cool.

dewey mugradical militant librarian

Sometimes, divorce is not a failure. It is the righting of a path. I wasn’t meant to be the miserable wife of a sociopath. I was meant to be right here.

Gail: “The divorce was not the mistake. The marriage was the mistake. The divorce was just what was required to correct that mistake.”

I’m not advising you to leave your husband because he won’t try that new thing in bed or he won’t put his fucking shoes away. If there’s something to salvage, fight for it. If you’re fantasizing about a life where he dies, through no fault of your own, because you’ll finally be free… if the marriage is truly awful and he or she is a truly poisonous person… there is a better life out there. No matter how scary it feels to go in search of it, it is so very worth it.

“It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.” – John Steinbeck

Yeah. I looked that up.
http://divorce.lovetoknow.com/Divorce_Statistics

I was a 23-year-old divorcée.

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I wrote this entry months before moving to WordPress, so very few of my 80 something followers have even seen it. It still greatly resonates with me and I find myself wanting to make the same points in newer posts, so I’m reposting it and I hate the “reblog” style.

The right idea…

In the Midwest, we marry young, often because we have kids even younger. There are a number of reasons for this trend, but to name a few…

One: you can buy a decent house here for well under $100,000, so a couple of 18-year-old kids can actually afford to care for themselves. Two: our parents did it and still effectively force smiles for the family photo. Three: if you have sex before marriage, you will get syphilis of the broken heart and Jesus will personally punch you in the head (or so say our middle school “sex education” classes). Four: country music said it was romantic

Mostly, we just make bad decisions.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some of these marriages that work, against all odds. Mine, however, was not one of them. Married at 19 (for an astounding number of terrible reasons), I divorced at 23 and can name at least 10 people in my graduating class who also want to start a club. One issue with marrying so young remains consistent regardless of location or motivation. When you marry at 19, you miss out on a ridiculous number of milestones and experiences that everyone else your age is having; or, in my hometown, that half of the people your age are having while the other half prepare for their inevitable divorces right along with you.

After high school has ended, we have the chance to go to parties and find other people our age who like the same weird crap we do and introduce each other to new things. We date and realize how and where to meet people, express an interest in them, recognize their interest in ourselves. We discover a personal style and catch up on any of the things we didn’t learn in high school, like how to flirt and dress up for a night out without looking too slutty. We discover what’s attractive on some and what works and doesn’t work for us. We learn how to let someone down easy or bounce back from a brush off. Maybe we even begin doing things alone and becoming comfortable with who we are. As I said, we have the chance. We also have the chance to throw it all away for a white dress that would’ve fit 10 years later and a whole lot of screaming.

Soooo… fast forward five years later. The divorce from the first boy you ever kissed is finalized. The crying and drunken phone calls have ended. You’re moving on. It’s healthy. And you have no idea what the fuck you are doing.

Divorce is bad enough on its own. You’re humiliated and you feel like you have to explain the story to everyone who hears the D word, so they’ll understand you’re not just careless with the sacred institution of marriage. Only, if you do, you’re that crazy woman who just told someone her life story for no apparent reason. You feel like a failure and if you’re religious, you feel like you pissed all over the Bible. Everyone acts like they knew it was coming from day one and you’re angry because they never told you. Logically, you know you wouldn’t have listened, but you’re furious at them for letting you get married and yourself for being stupid enough to do it in the first place. Everyone assumes you want them to badmouth the ex, but then you feel like an idiot for ever seeing anything in them. You have moments of such intense anger and hatred, you feel like no good and decent person could possibly think such thoughts. These are standard divorce feelings, from what I’ve heard, regardless of age.

A 23-year-old divorcée, however, has these and a whole host of excitingly unique problems. While everyone else was growing and adapting to the previously mentioned scenarios, I had stalemated as a person. Emotionally, I was still 19. Before my ex-husband, I’d never dated. At all. So upon my divorce at 23, I still had the dating skills of the 12-year-old who used to watch and rewatch the same episode of Roswell, desperately wishing she’d magically wake up Liz Parker. I had never changed a tire or filed my taxes or fried an egg. If you think growing up and learning how to be a big girl is embarrassing at 14, try doing it at 24.

Living day to day as a single adult is a completely foreign concept when you’ve been with someone else since you were a child. Waking up in the middle of the night and knowing that you’re the only one to care for you is terrifying. The first time you get sick and no one is there to give a crap, you openly hope it’s Ebola and that all of this will be over soon. Knowing, without a doubt, that you are the only one paying the bills or cooking dinner or hanging photos or getting the oil changed or making the big decisions will cause you to hyperventilate. It’s half the reason you stayed married so long. Even buying your first vibrator is an admittance that you are all alone and caring for yourself entirely. That is scary as shit to someone who has at least been able to pretend someone else was carrying their share of the weight their entire adult life. These are just basic day to day functions, like learning to cook because that was the one thing he would do. However, while you’re fumbling to act like a grown up, you also get to face looking like one.

Bow chicka wow wow…

When you’re struggling to put food on the table and finish college, sex appeal just isn’t a priority. I had to learn, at 23, that hair can do something other than ponytails and braided pigtails. My best friend and a damned Youtube video taught me to apply eyeliner. Multiple times I have stood weeping in a dressing room because I don’t know how to be grown up. One month, I decided I needed a more attractive walk. In my defense, I based this on an interview seminar where the speaker demonstrated the importance of standing up straight. But the forced sway, was all my addition. I thought my usual clumsy stumbling must make me look immature. Only after seeing one of my guy friends imitate said walk, did I realize I looked like someone trying to balance on stilts without stilts. This was nothing compared to the actual interview that involved heels so high, I hobbled in and fell over, praying the manager didn’t see and ran out barefoot with similar aspirations. Figuring out that dresses are a thing, however, is hardly the most terrifying aspect of being suddenly single, though. If trying to master acting and looking like a grown up, simultaneously, when everyone else is years ahead of you, wasn’t daunting enough, there’s dating.

A common issue for even us young divorcées, is that we wonder if we have time to meet anyone else. In the Midwest, we truly are rushed to meet, marry, and procreate as soon as possible. Your 20s don’t really exist. The people who didn’t get married the year you graduated high school are mostly married just five years later. So, not only are you single after the divorce, you are the only single person ever, making dating even less appealing.In my case, I seemed to have polar opposite reactions to men. I either thought they looked at me and internally mooed or they were desperately clutching locks of my hair at night. My first blunder in this area was with a dear friend, who helped me through my divorce. I was on the rebound, terrified of the future, feeling lonely. C was kind and supportive and kept me company through my constant texting. Our mutual friends always made jokes about us being in love. I suppose these things naturally led to my conclusion that C, indeed, had feelings for me. He did not. The awkwardness between us passed and we are great friends to this day, despite the time I tried to kiss him because I figured it would finally set things straight. (Don’t do that.) But even now, a year and a half after the papers were signed, I’m still screwing up my signals.

Online dating was an obvious first choice. I still consider this a valid option. Many people do it and the percentage of them that are nuts is the same as in a local club. Only they don’t usually let you know this by grabbing your ass and saying you owe them for it, so you should come back to their place. The first time around, I wasn’t ready and stopped talking to the guy after he asked to meet me. The second time around, about a year after the divorce, I talked to a new guy for far too long, before meeting him, because he was overseas. He was mostly a nice guy, though too old for me at 30. I felt nothing and purposefully left my phone and purse at the table when I went to the restroom so I wouldn’t talk myself into bolting. Once he informed me that there was no way my divorce was as bad as his, I regretted this decision and ended the date with “I’ll text you.” He never heard from me again.

In hindsight, I regret the way I treated Combat Brian. I should have informed him I felt nothing instead of ignoring him. But this goes along with all of the things everyone else knows how to do at 24. I had no idea how to tell the guy I wasn’t feeling it and figured he’d get the point when he never heard from me again. He may think I’m dead. While Combat Brian did deserve a bit more respect, despite calling my marriage (about which he knew nothing) a bouncy castle, The Air Traffic Controller who told me he ran over a cat on his bike and was pissed that it may have broken his wheel, did not. He had weirdly placed ears, swore too much, didn’t tip the waitress, and told me I was in idiot if I paid less than $2,000 for a bicycle. He texted constantly, even when I didn’t answer. (What the hell? Who does that? Someone with a vagina, that’s who.) So, again, I employed my trademark finesse and just stopped speaking to him. I’m not sorry. However, in the moment he texted me when he saw me at Chick Fil A, I was indeed a bit remorseful… in my pick of restaurants. I smoothly told him I was busy with finals and not deceased. Having more dating experience than I, he took this for what it was, me blowing him off.

Every now and then, I’ll think I’m getting better at this whole thing. I can put on my eyeliner in under a minute. I’ve only found myself stuck in a dress in a department store, near tears, once in the last month. I love living alone and can make Hamburger Helper. I pay my bills and handle rejection from a man I meet online with just enough grace. I feel like I’ve got it all under control. That’s when I do something completely fucking insane.

Bartender was a boy I knew in high school and, something I discovered only recently, worked at a popular restaurant. He’s flirty with a tongue piercing and not my type at all. For some reason, I decided that this was just what I needed. I often feel behind for the fact that my Magic Number is a whopping ONE. Yes. Take the number of people you’ve slept with and divide it by itself and you’ve got mine. I figured casual dating wouldn’t be the worst idea when Bartender wanted to hang out. I took this as a date. He claims he didn’t, but I think he just took the chance to declare crossed signals after I drowned him in text messages for a week and Gail convinced me to send him a sexual solicitation just to see what he’d say. I got $24 for said text and hysterically cried to another friend:

“I suck at this. I have no idea what I’m doing. At least other girls sort of know where they stand. They can look at an orange and think ‘Oh, a fruit’, but I look at an orange and think ‘Yay! A bicycle!.”

After things didn’t seem like they could get any worse, I kept texting him to convince him that I wasn’t insane. At first, it was in the way you’d expect, by explaining the situation… way too many times.Then it was at one week intervals, about unrelated things.

“See. I couldn’t have feelings for you when I’m just texting about True Blood. I’m so casual and smooth. Not crazy at all. Right? I mean, that’s what you’re getting out of this, isn’t it?………..

………..

………..

Lafayette’s my favorite.”

Finally, I’ve realized that the best case scenario here is that the heavy drug use will wipe me from his memory. Really? What was I thinking?

But all of this has taught me some valuable lessons. I now know to let them come to me if I don’t want to risk rejection. I also know that endless texting is really fucking annoying, no matter your intentions. Even the constant self-consciousness has faded a bit. I can now go to a movie alone and not wonder if everyone around me is whispering about why a woman is seeing a movie by herself. (I swear, humans are ridiculously self-centered and Facebook is not helping to convince us that we aren’t constantly being watched.)

This is what everyone in the theater sees…

However, I still find myself assessing every man in the room and looking for a ring. I wonder what they think of me, whether I’d be interested or not. If a sleeve tattoo is one that covers your arm, then the tattoo artist who touched up my foot yesterday had a ski mask. I still could not stop thinking about how badly I wished I’d shaved my feet before this. I may be able to sit through the movie alone, but it’s still awkward to eat out. I know that if I couldn’t take the most basic rejection, I really couldn’t handle a one-night-stand. My brother tells me all the good men are taken at my age and I can hear my biological clock ticking because I wasted so many good years and everyone in the Midwest thinks your soul has died if you don’t have a family of your own by now. I still sometimes cry in the dressing room because I don’t know if I look edgy or silly.

Appropriate for my first day of work, right?

But sometimes, another girl from high school tells me she’s getting divorced and I have some insight. I can relate to how she feels and let her know that, of all places, our hometown is the place to not feel alone in this. And lastly, I can remember that I’d rather be weeping in a dress, because I don’t know if it fits correctly, than weeping in wedding dress because I know it’s all wrong.

Four Reasons I Shouldn’t Breed

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So, I’m really not a maternal person. I used to think I was, but then I miscarried and Gail’s daughter, whom I adored, died six months later. Now, babies make me completely paranoid. I don’t even like to hold them, because they might choke on something and die in my care. If I’m invited to a baby shower, I don’t even look at the registry. I just buy glass bottles so your baby doesn’t get brain cancer from the plastic ones. I understand that you’ll probably return it, but whatever. I’m not contributing to the death of your kid and that’s just the same as giving a gift card. I hope that, one day, if I ever give a guy a second date and it eventually leads to marriage, he’ll be confident in my mothering ability and pressure me to breed, because I generally think I’d like to give that another go… when I’m like thirty… two. In the last few years, however, I’ve become convinced that I’m completely incapable of being a mom. It’s not even because I don’t like kids all that much. I’m sure it’s just other people’s kids I don’t like. Rather, I’m focusing on the trivial, background moments in life as a sign of something greater. For example…

I can’t keep a cactus alive.
That is not an exaggeration. I’ve killed several… and some ivy. For years, the weather would warm up and I’d think “Plants! Plants would look great on my patio!” So I’d spend $30 on the prettiest little full sun flowers Lowe’s had to offer and they would look great… for four days. Four days y’all! Inevitably, day five would hit and these pretty pink flowers would start to brown and wilt just slightly. I’d water them more, because the Southern sun was just too severe on the west side of my apartment complex. By day seven, they would be pitifully shriveled and I’d still be someone who worked two jobs and was in graduate school and I’d ultimately just say “Fuck it. It’s just a stupid plant.” A part of me, however, wouldn’t want to give in, so I’d just leave the flowers on the patio. I mean, I spent $30 on them! So, my pretty little patio with its white southern rockers and discount wind chimes was also adorned with dead plants. A year ago, I figured out the solution. I’m upstairs. You can barely see my patio plant life. That means you can’t tell that I just bought some fake flowers from The Dollar Tree and shoved them in some soil. You can’t do this with babies, y’all. You can’t just let them die and pretend they’re still alive and then replace them with dolls. People are going to notice.

dolls
My son and daughter… no really.

I keep my dog alive… because he reminds me.
Okay. So the plants are hopeless, partly because I don’t notice I suck at plants until they’re half dead, partly because of my “it’s just a stupid plant” mentality, and partly because I could kill a fucking redwood. I’m just a really busy person. I don’t have time to keep anything alive unless it’s cute. My dog, however, is five years old with the same energetic spirit he had when he chewed up a pack of pens at 9 months, happily giving me his puppy dog grin with ink all over his mouth. Clearly, I can keep something alive and healthy, right? You see, Jude and I have this little… routine… it’s more like a skit really. I go to wash my hands and he barks and howls at me. It’s fucking adorable. It’s also because I forgot to give him water. In my defense, I’d probably remember if it weren’t for our little play. At this point, I’ve just accepted the fact that if he’s thirsty, he’ll tell me. He free eats as well, meaning I give him a huge bowl of food and he just eats it as he wishes over the next several days. Then he bugs the hell out of me when I have food to remind me that he’s out… or that he’s just spoiled and wants table scraps. It’s an imperfect system. He may even get into my bag looking for food (even if he has some) and chew open a pack of bullets or eat my headphones. Yes, we’d make a great sitcom about an inept dog owner who let her puppy eat a pack of pens… and possibly a bullet. I can’t even imagine that ER visit with a child.

I abused an electronic doll.
The graduating class of 2006 was the first to try out the new Baby Think It Over dolls. The edition before this required the user to jam a key in the doll’s back with enough force that it couldn’t be duct taped until it stopped crying… just like a real baby? I don’t know. I don’t have children. Anyway, the 2006 version required diaper changes and bottles placed to the lips. It sounded like a real baby that eats way too loudly and only breathes periodically. Our school didn’t have a fantastic budget for this program, however, so we got to take it home for just one day, while the neighboring town requires four. It pretty much taught me that babies are absolutely fucking adorable and everyone wants to hold them, so I’ll get tons of attention for having one, too. Fantabulous. The point of the project was not to just stay inside and chill out with no other responsibilities, however. You were supposed to take the baby out and multitask to care for it while old ladies in the grocery stores gave you dirty looks. Since I lived for shock value at 16, Gail and I had a ton of fun with this assignment. Then I got my grade. If you’ve read anything I’ve written, you should know about the time I wept over a 98.5%… like six months ago. When I got my 92% on the baby project, I was upset enough to ask why.  “A low A?!?!?! Why did I get a LOW A?!?!?!” The teacher explained to me that while she’ll excuse one head drop (the baby had a wobbly head you had to hold up), she had to take off points for the second one… and the child abuse. Apparently, not only did I drop this child’s head twice, but in my attempt to quell the baby’s cries in the milk aisle, I tried to burp it too enthusiastically and the computer registered this as if I threw the poor thing up against a wall. While this project taught me that babies are the most fun a 16-year-old girl will ever have and child abuse isn’t that bad, I’m still a paranoid person. I accidentally abused a hypothetical child. What if it wasn’t while burping it? What if I blacked out? Oh, God, what if I have some kind of neurological issue that makes me hit babies?!?!

I killed my water baby.
Come to think of it, that wasn’t, in fact, the first time I abused a tiny pretend person. It could be neurological! Okay, I have to stop joking about that or I’m going to find myself crying uncontrollably in an MRI machine. The first time, I was four years old. Water baby was the most awesome toy on the planet after the umbrella we used to hold while jumping out of trees in an attempt to fly. I had a really unsupervised childhood, which might explain why I had free usage of dangerous kitchen equipment at fucking four. The best thing about Water Baby was that it felt like a real baby when you filled it up with warm water. I, however, couldn’t get the plug out of its back on my own (an admittedly ideal feature) and my mother wouldn’t just refill the baby every time it cooled down. Some mothering instincts she had, huh? So, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Please do not misunderstand this. No part of me was worried that my baby was feeling uncomfortable cold. I was just frustrated, because I wanted my doll warm. Purely selfish reasons. Ask any four-year-old how they make something warm quickly. The answer is obvious. Microwave it. Yes, yes, I did blow up my baby doll. Not only that, but I didn’t even realize until later when I asked my mother what happened to my Water Baby and she explained that it had a hole in it. I wasn’t even concerned. I just wanted a new one. Again, you can’t do this with real children. You don’t just get another one after microwaving the first.

water baby
Just add radiation.

Summary: If my baby can make it out of my hostile blender of a uterus, I may leave it out to die in the elements, forget to feed it, accidentally kick it in the head, and then pop it in the microwave. Anyone need a sitter?

Divorce is not an option… you know… until it is.

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Ah, Facebook trends. Guess who’s about to go on another No-One’s-Divorce-Is-Any-Of-Your-Fucking-Business Rant?

…as I did in Toasters, Marriage, and the Good Ol’ Days and Your ONLY marriage? Why didn’t I think of that?

no divorce again

The Facebook status update I made much later was:
“The wedding pictures you posted last month are a lot cuter than the judgemental little sayings you’ve been posting about divorce ever since. You don’t know anyone else’s pain.”

What I wanted to say in direct response to the above, was:
“Oh, suck my big fat furry dick, you’ve been married for eleven damned days, you twit.”

Once again, this shit implies that the rest of us went into our marriages considering divorce an option, because we just don’t value the sanctity of marriage as much as you do. It’s nice that you’re an adorable couple and you get along. I’m truly happy for you. Now fuck off.

divorce cake

You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

Yeah. That’s why we all got divorced… because we got mad that one time. Not to mention, if that’s how he talks to me, no wonder I’m mad.

Grammatical errors aside, that is not the solution to real divorce-inducing problems.

“You have been on that couch for four damned years!”
You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

“I had the rent money right here. What did you fucking do?”
You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

“You shook our baby?!?!”
You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

“Look at these bruises!”
You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

“You killed the dog on purpose?”
You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

“Kiddie porn?!?!”
You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

“You molested our daughter!!!!”
You mad? Take your ass in the other room and calm down, cause we gone work this shit out.

Divorce is not an option… you know… until it is. On that day, I hope people are more understanding of your pain. I’ll even withold my “I told you so”, because I know it hurts that fucking much.

“Get your hourglass off my uterus. It’s heavy.”

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A co-worker is having a baby.

I’ve been trying to discreetly discover her age, as if that will give me some indication of my time limit.

I go out and my Gramma asks if I met anyone.

“Get your hourglass off my uterus. It’s heavy.”

She laughs…

because I’m fucking funny.

My brother asked if I ever wanted to get married again and have kids…

as he started his stopwatch.

“I’M TWENTY-FUCKING-FIVE AND IN GRADUATE SCHOOL! SUCK MY VAGINAL LIPS!” I want to yell.

I don’t…

usually.

There’s something about the phrase “vaginal lips” that upsets people.

disgusted

“If you ain’t got two kids by 21, you’re probably gonna die alone.. at least that’s what tradition told you.”

“Tiny little boxes in a row… ain’t what you want, it’s what you know.”

I sing along with the country station.

woman singing

The song wouldn’t be popular were the singer and I the only ones who felt that way.

I’m going to stop feeling like my time is running out…

because it doesn’t have to be get married and have kids.

They aren’t connected moves…

obviously.

I can do babies alone.

One year, I knew I’d miss the fair if I waited for someone to go with me.

No one wanted to go.

So I went alone.

I had a great time.

I saw what I wanted to see.

I skipped what I wanted to skip.

I left when I wanted to leave.

It was awesome.

happy woman

On the last day, Jay and Ward went with me and it was fun then, too.

Babies are the same.

I can live without ever being married again…

but I want babies.

If I hit 30 with no prospects…

I’ll just have them…

and if a boy comes along later, that’s great…

but I’m not risking my chance for family on said hypothetical man.

I told my country, old-fashioned, blue collar dad as much.

tim

“Good. Other women are weak. You don’t need anyone else.”

Go dad.

Go me.

I imagine looking for love will be a lot more fun now.

broken hourglass

All I Want For Christmas Is Me: A Single Girl’s Christmas Ramble

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At Least 12 Things I Shouldn’t Have Said This Christmas

Discussing my cousin’s bracelet made of her horse’s hair:
Me: “Well, I’m glad you like it, but it’s weird.”
Other Cousin: “It’s not weird. It’d be like if you made something out of your dog’s hair.”
Me: “Or maybe I’ll just cut off his foot and make it into a necklace… or a keychain for good luck!”

Discussing same bracelet later:
“I once donated my hair to Locks of Love. That’s sort of the same.”

Me: “So where’s your gal?”
Cousin: “Oh, we’re not together.”
Me: “What?”
Cousin: “S and I aren’t together.”
Me: “What did that mean? Like today or anymore?”
The answer was anymore and I. Am. Smooth.

“Come on. The gifts we get at the big family Dirty Santa always suck and everyone knows it.”

“Oh, no. The library carries all kinds of books. If it’s in demand and the public wants to read about his throbbing member, then that’s what we have.”

“Next year, when you play the game with us for the first time, just know that it’s tradition for the youngest member to get an adult gift, preferably from a sex shop.”

“Taste this and tell me if I’m just not a wine person or if it really does taste like vinegar… and salt… and urine.”

Discussing my four and a half year old niece:
“You know… I think she’s old enough now, that she’s gotten to the age where I really don’t like her anymore.”

“Icy Hot in the lube.”

Brother: “Why’s she crying?”
Me: “She’s being a brat.”

Aunt: “Now why didn’t L and L come?”
Me: “Because they’re selfish and self-absorbed.”

Discussing Uggs:
“I know they’re covered in sheep blood, but they’re so freaking comfortable, I don’t even care.”

Christmas Confessions

I took the batteries out of my vibrator and put them in the Furby my Gramma got me.

I danced to Michael Bluble’s Christmas CD wearing nothing but a pink sparkly Santa hat.

My dog has a Christmas stocking and I played Santa.

The gift I made for you that seemed so thoughtful? I forgot about you this year and found that in my yarn bin, leftover from last year.

It’s possible that I worked on your Christmas present on the toilet.

My Homemade Themed Dirty Santa contribution was a hat I’d made for myself and messed up.

I only gave you that peanut brittle, because it was the batch I botched.

I Made Your Christmas Present Because I’m Cheap and Didn’t Want to Buy You Anything

lily's hat

britt's hatIt’s a baseball.

cross

Proof That My Gramma Knows Me

ove gloveI burn myself every time I cook… usually while talking on the phone with her.

furby
Hellz yeah, nostalgia!

shoes

Proof That My Grandpa Doesn’t

sparkly spongeIt’s a blinging pink sponge. To be fair, I do like pink… and clean stuff.

A Single Girls’ Christmas in Photos

storm air quotesIn the Midwest, we threaten to cancel Christmas for this “winter storm.”

dog stocking My stocking… and the dog’s.

hair dryerI don’t need a boy to clear the ice off my car! VAGINA POWER!

pina colada

pink santa hat

redmecl wine glass Redneck wine glass I won in Dirty Santa. Don’t worry. There are two, so they’ll match.

Fantastical Failures…

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… or why I’m too high-strung for my own sexual fantasies.

woman_alone_bed_m-425x282

Okay. So maybe we meet at a bar over drinks. Wait. If we’re drinking, who’s driving? I’m not doing it with him in a bar bathroom. I mean, even the cleanest bar bathroom… That’s illegal, isn’t it? Okay. So he doesn’t drink much and we take his car to his place. I met the guy in a bar. I don’t want him to know where I live. But wait. Do I want to go to his place with him and leave my car? It would be super awkward to ask for a ride in the morning. I can’t exactly sneak out and call one of the guys to pick me up. Ugh. Fine. We take separate cars. So no one drinks? I don’t want to sleep with someone who drinks irresponsibly and I don’t want to get a DUI. They don’t let you be a librarian if you have a record. Who am I kidding? I couldn’t have a one night stand sober. I’d be halfway to his place and just decide to get McDonald’s and go home. Ugh. Fuck it.

Okay. It’s an established relationship. We’re parked where no one can see, in the bed of a pickup. Wow that sounds uncomfortable, unless there’s a blanket. It would have to be a pretty thick blanket, too. What guy just keeps a super thick blanket in his truck? It would probably be dirty if it were just in there, anyway. Fine. I brought it along. But wait. It would be cold. Or it would be warm and there would be bugs. Maybe we were out earlier in the evening and put on bug spray? But that would be greasy and kind of gross. Maybe there’s a camper? But that would limit movement. Ugh. Fuck it.

Same relationship, we’re in the cab. That wouldn’t really allow for a lot of space, either, though. If I’m 170 and 5′ 5.5″, he’d have to be at least 6′ tall and over 200 pounds. I mean, this is a fantasy. No reason he should be dainty. Would there even be room if we did it in the driver’s seat? I mean, of course he’d be driving. I don’t want to drive. If he had a nice truck, he probably wouldn’t let me drive. I’m a terrible driver. Fine. It’s a ridiculously extended cab and he can move the whole bench seat back so I don’t have to worry about the discomfort of a bucket seat. I mean, I would so get my leg stuck and hurt myself and that would totally ruin the moment. Wait. If it’s that extended of a cab, why not do it in the back seat? Ugh. Fuck it.

Okay. Established relationship. We’re at home. Kitchen table? My kitchen table is way too small for that and it’s held by a central support post in the middle. The table would tip. Fine. It’s a different table. But the wood would be awfully cold. Maybe I keep some of my clothes on? Is this really even that sanitary of a fantasy? We eat there, presumably. I guess I can’t remember the last time I ate at my table. But I live alone. I wouldn’t want to be the couple that sits on the couch to eat dinner every night. That’s not sexy. Ugh. Fuck it.

Okay. We’re on the couch. I straddle him. Wait. I’d have to get up in the middle to take my pants off. Fine. I’m in a dress… commando. I would never do that. Whatever. I was trying to be sexy or something and I’ve failed like nine fantasies already, so I need to just fucking go with this one. Wait. I don’t like to be on top. How the hell do I even know that? I haven’t had sex for like 12 years. God, I exaggerate everything. Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about God while I’m doing this. May as well think about my dad. Great. Now I’m thinking about my dad. Ugh. Fuck it. I’ll just go read.

An Honest Online Dating Profile

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So we all pick and choose… we all gloss over things. But wouldn’t it be funnier if we didn’t? Here’s what my online dating profile would look like were I more forthcoming.

“I’m a 25-year-old divorcee. I may or may not want to get married again, because he broke me. I may or may not want kids, because babies die sometimes. If you want either of these, you might have to badger me until I agree. I’m not even sure I want a relationship, but I know I’m supposed to, so this seemed a good approach.  Clearly, I have enough baggage for two, so you’ll need to keep yours to a minimum.

I’m not a laid back person. At all. I want you to be laid back to balance that out… but not too laid back. You should be good with money and really into your career so that I know you’ll keep a job. I will totally accept someone who works 80 hours per week. You should probably be pretty clean, too, because if you can’t respect that my media is alphabetized by series then title then format, I’ll feel like you don’t respect me, even though I know it’s irrational. Okay. So maybe you shouldn’t be laid back. Maybe you should just be more laid back than I am. The good news, though, is that that’s not hard to accomplish!

You must be taller than me, because it makes me feel dainty.

You must be equal parts country and intellectual. If I’m a better shot than you are and you don’t drive a pick up, you’re not man enough for me. If I rant about how great a book series is, though, you must think it’s cute and in return, be able to rant about science or history at a later date… over sushi. No jokes about my career choice. Ever.

I won’t have sex with you in the near future. My phone may autocorrect ‘can’t’ to ‘cunt’, but having a filthy mouth doesn’t change the fact that I can count on one hand the number of people who’ve seen my vag. You’re not getting any for awhile. I have no more information on the time frame.

Romance freaks me out. Valentine’s Day is lame. Change my oil and we’ll call it even.

I’m conservative in my beliefs and you should be, too. You’re the boy. You pay. You open doors. You call me after the first date if you’re interested in another. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you’re uninterested or that you would’ve expected me to pee standing up. In return, I won’t do gross boy things that you’d rather pretend girls don’t do. I’ll wear lots of pink. I won’t bait my own hook and I’ll scream like a banshee when I see a bug. You must kill said bug. In general, I’ll do your boy activities and enjoy them if you tell me of them in advance. If I’m in a pretty dress and you get us stuck in the mud, go fuck yourself. I’m not helping. If I knew the day might lead there and wore jeans and ratty tennis shoes, I’ll giggle in the red dirt with you.

I have a degree in Home-Ec, but I don’t cook. I burn Easy Mac 1 in 5 times. I cook like Cher from Mermaids. If you want me to make you dinner, gear up for the most meh sweet potato fries, fruit loops, and peanut buttered bread ever.

You must accept and be accepted by: my best friend, my Gramma, my daddy, my guy friends, and my dog. I will continue to hang out with my boys all alone. I will not ask permission, but I will not have sex with them. You’ll just have to believe me on that one.

So if you message me and I message you back, let’s get together and have coffee sometime. I’ll order the smallest thing they have, because we might not like each other, in which case, I don’t want to owe you anything. You’ll possibly never hear from me again, because of some bullshit reason like the fact that you wore flip-flops and I could see your toe hair or your head was too big. If that is the case, do not expect a response later, when you text to try to sell me something, which has totally fucking happened.

On the off chance that this works out, we met where we met… i.e. we met at Starbuck’s or that one bar, not http://www.&#8221;

I was a 23-year-old divorcée.

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The right idea…

In the South, we marry young, often because we have kids even younger. There are a number of reasons for this trend, but to name a few…

One: you can buy a decent house here for well under $100,000, so a couple of 18-year-old kids can actually afford to care for themselves.
Two: our parents did it and still effectively force smiles for the family photo.
Three: if you have sex before marriage, you will get syphilis of the broken heart and Jesus will personally punch you in the head (or so say our middle school “sex education” classes).
Four: country music said it was romantic

Mostly, we just make bad decisions.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some of these marriages that work, against all odds. Mine, however, was not one of them. Married at 19 (for an astounding number of terrible reasons), I divorced at 23 and can name at least 10 people in my graduating class who also want to start a club. One issue with marrying so young remains consistent regardless of location or motivation. When you marry at 19, you miss out on a ridiculous number of milestones and experiences that everyone else your age is having; or, in my hometown, that half of the people your age are having while the other half prepare for their inevitable divorces right along with you.

After high school has ended, we have the chance to go to parties and find other people our age who like the same weird crap we do and introduce each other to new things. We date and realize how and where to meet people, express an interest in them, recognize their interest in ourselves. We discover a personal style and catch up on any of the things we didn’t learn in high school, like how to flirt and dress up for a night out without looking too slutty. We discover what’s attractive on some and what works and doesn’t work for us. We learn how to let someone down easy or bounce back from a brush off. Maybe we even begin doing things alone and becoming comfortable with who we are. As I said, we have the chance. We also have the chance to throw it all away for a white dress that would’ve fit 10 years later and a whole lot of screaming.

Soooo… fast forward five years later. The divorce from the first boy you ever kissed is finalized. The crying and drunken phone calls have ended. You’re moving on. It’s healthy. And you have no idea what the fuck you are doing.

Divorce is bad enough on its own. You’re humiliated and you feel like you have to explain the story to everyone who hears the D word, so they’ll understand you’re not just careless with the sacred institution of marriage. Only, if you do, you’re that crazy woman who just told someone her life story for no apparent reason. You feel like a failure and if you’re religious, you feel like you pissed all over the Bible. Everyone acts like they knew it was coming from day one and you’re angry because they never told you. Logically, you know you wouldn’t have listened, but you’re furious at them for letting you get married and yourself for being stupid enough to do it in the first place. Everyone assumes you want them to badmouth the ex, but then you feel like an idiot for ever seeing anything in them. You have moments of such intense anger and hatred, you feel like no good and decent person could possibly think such thoughts. These are standard divorce feelings, from what I’ve heard, regardless of age.

A 23-year-old divorcée, however, has these and a whole host of excitingly unique problems. While everyone else was growing and adapting to the previously mentioned scenarios, I had stalemated as a person. Emotionally, I was still 19. Before my ex-husband, I’d never dated. At all. So upon my divorce at 23, I still had the dating skills of the 12-year-old who used to watch and rewatch the same episode of Roswell, desperately wishing she’d magically wake up Liz Parker. I had never changed a tire or filed my taxes or fried an egg. If you think growing up and learning how to be a big girl is embarrassing at 14, try doing it at 24.

Living day to day as a single adult is a completely foreign concept when you’ve been with someone else since you were a child. Waking up in the middle of the night and knowing that you’re the only one to care for you is terrifying. The first time you get sick and no one is there to give a crap, you openly hope it’s Ebola and that all of this will be over soon. Knowing, without a doubt, that you are the only one paying the bills or cooking dinner or hanging photos or getting the oil changed or making the big decisions will cause you to hyperventilate. It’s half the reason you stayed married so long. Even buying your first vibrator is an admittance that you are all alone and caring for yourself entirely. That is scary as shit to someone who has at least been able to pretend someone else was carrying their share of the weight their entire adult life. These are just basic day to day functions, like learning to cook because that was the one thing he would do. However, while you’re fumbling to act like a grown up, you also get to face looking like one.

Bow chicka wow wow…

When you’re struggling to put food on the table and finish college, sex appeal just isn’t a priority. I had to learn, at 23, that hair can do something other than ponytails and braided pigtails. My best friend and a damned Youtube video taught me to apply eyeliner. Multiple times I have stood weeping in a dressing room because I don’t know how to be grown up. One month, I decided I needed a more attractive walk. In my defense, I based this on an interview seminar where the speaker demonstrated the importance of standing up straight. But the forced sway, was all my addition. I thought my usual clumsy stumbling must make me look immature. Only after seeing one of my guy friends imitate said walk, did I realize I looked like someone trying to balance on stilts without stilts. This was nothing compared to the actual interview that involved heels so high, I hobbled in and fell over, praying the manager didn’t see and ran out barefoot with similar aspirations. Figuring out that dresses are a thing, however, is hardly the most terrifying aspect of being suddenly single, though. If trying to master acting and looking like a grown up, simultaneously, when everyone else is years ahead of you, wasn’t daunting enough, there’s dating.

A common issue for even us young divorcées, is that we wonder if we have time to meet anyone else. In the South, we truly are rushed to meet, marry, and procreate as soon as possible. Your 20s don’t really exist. The people who didn’t get married the year you graduated high school are mostly married just five years later. So, not only are you single after the divorce, you are the only single person ever, making dating even less appealing.In my case, I seemed to have polar opposite reactions to men. I either thought they looked at me and internally mooed or they were desperately clutching locks of my hair at night. My first blunder in this area was with a dear friend, who helped me through my divorce. I was on the rebound, terrified of the future, feeling lonely. Chad was kind and supportive and kept me company through my constant texting. Our mutual friends always made jokes about us being in love. I suppose these things naturally led to my conclusion that Chad, indeed, had feelings for me. He did not. The awkwardness between us passed and we are great friends to this day, despite the time I tried to kiss him because I figured it would finally set things straight. (Don’t do that.) But even now, a year and a half after the papers were signed, I’m still screwing up my signals.

Online dating was an obvious first choice. I still consider this a valid option. Many people do it and the percentage of them that are nuts is the same as in a local club. Only they don’t usually let you know this by grabbing your ass and saying you owe them for it, so you should come back to their place. The first time around, I wasn’t ready and stopped talking to the guy after he asked to meet me. The second time around, about a year after the divorce, I talked to a new guy for far too long, before meeting him, because he was overseas. He was mostly a nice guy, though too old for me at 30. I felt nothing and purposefully left my phone and purse at the table when I went to the restroom so I wouldn’t talk myself into bolting. Once he informed me that there was no way my divorce was as bad as his, I regretted this decision and ended the date with “I’ll text you.” He never heard from me again.

In hindsight, I regret the way I treated Combat Brian. I should have informed him I felt nothing instead of ignoring him. But this goes along with all of the things everyone else knows how to do at 24. I had no idea how to tell the guy I wasn’t feeling it and figured he’d get the point when he never heard from me again. He may think I’m dead. While Combat Brian did deserve a bit more respect, despite calling my marriage (about which he knew nothing) a bouncy castle, The Air Traffic Controller who told me he ran over a cat on his bike and was pissed that it may have broken his wheel, did not. He had weirdly placed ears, swore too much, didn’t tip the waitress, and told me I was in idiot if I paid less than $2,000 for a bicycle. He texted constantly, even when I didn’t answer. (What the hell? Who does that? Someone with a vagina, that’s who.) So, again, I employed my trademark finesse and just stopped speaking to him. I’m not sorry. However, in the moment he texted me when he saw me at Chick Fil A, I was indeed a bit remorseful… in my pick of restaurants. I smoothly told him I was busy with finals and not deceased. Having more dating experience than I, he took this for what it was, me blowing him off.

Every now and then, I’ll think I’m getting better at this whole thing. I can put on my eyeliner in under a minute. I’ve only found myself stuck in a dress in a department store, near tears, once in the last month. I love living alone and can make Hamburger Helper. I pay my bills and handle rejection from a man I meet online with just enough grace. I feel like I’ve got it all under control. That’s when I do something completely fucking insane.

Bartender was a boy I knew in high school and, something I discovered only recently, worked at a popular restaurant. He’s flirty with a tongue piercing and not my type at all. For some reason, I decided that this was just what I needed. I often feel behind for the fact that my Magic Number is a whopping ONE. Yes. Take the number of people you’ve slept with and divide it by itself and you’ve got mine. I figured casual dating wouldn’t be the worst idea when Bartender wanted to hang out. I took this as a date. He claims he didn’t, but I think he just took the chance to declare crossed signals after I drowned him in text messages for a week and Gail convinced me to send him a sexual solicitation just to see what he’d say. I got $24 for said text and hysterically cried to another friend:

“I suck at this. I have no idea what I’m doing. At least other girls sort of know where they stand. They can look at an orange and think ‘Oh, a fruit’, but I look at an orange and think ‘Yay! A bicycle!.”

After things didn’t seem like they could get any worse, I kept texting him to convince him that I wasn’t insane. At first, it was in the way you’d expect, by explaining the situation… way too many times.Then it was at one week intervals, about unrelated things.

“See. I couldn’t have feelings for you when I’m just texting about True Blood. I’m so casual and smooth. Not crazy at all. Right? I mean, that’s what you’re getting out of this, isn’t it?………..

………..

………..

Lafayette’s my favorite.”

Finally, I’ve realized that the best case scenario here is that the heavy drug use will wipe me from his memory. Really? What was I thinking?

But all of this has taught me some valuable lessons. I now know to let them come to me if I don’t want to risk rejection. I also know that endless texting is really fucking annoying, no matter your intentions. Even the constant self-consciousness has faded a bit. I can now go to a movie alone and not wonder if everyone around me is whispering about why a woman is seeing a movie by herself. (I swear, humans are ridiculously self-centered and Facebook is not helping to convince us that we aren’t constantly being watched.)

This is what everyone in the theater sees…

However, I still find myself assessing every man in the room and looking for a ring. I wonder what they think of me, whether I’d be interested or not. If a sleeve tattoo is one that covers your arm, then the tattoo artist who touched up my foot yesterday had a ski mask. I still could not stop thinking about how badly I wished I’d shaved my feet before this. I may be able to sit through the movie alone, but it’s still awkward to eat out. I know that if I couldn’t take the most basic rejection, I really couldn’t handle a one-night-stand. My brother tells me all the good men are taken at my age and I can hear my biological clock ticking because I wasted so many good years and everyone in the South thinks your soul has died if you don’t have a family of your own by now. I still sometimes cry in the dressing room because I don’t know if I look edgy or silly.

Appropriate for my first day of work, right?

But sometimes, another girl from high school tells me she’s getting divorced and I have some insight. I can relate to how she feels and let her know that, of all places, our hometown is the place to not feel alone in this. And lastly, I can remember that I’d rather be weeping in a dress, because I don’t know if it fits correctly, than weeping in wedding dress because I know it’s all wrong.