pink people person

Up until two days ago, I thought I was "anti-social." Honestly. I thought I was an introvert, who just sometimes felt like being around people. I like hanging out at home. I like napping. I like reading for hours in total silence. I like doing my own thing on my own time. Somehow I thought this meant I wasn't someone who craved connections with people.

Nope. I'm a people person. 

Friends have always been a huge part of my life. When I look back at my childhood, my adolescence - its the people I remember. Bike riding with neighbor kids. Sleepovers with bffs. My huge group of friend's from the Beehive/Young Woman's days. My first crush. Shedding old friendships and forming new ones. 

Then 2007 happened. 90% of the people in my life (on a semi-consistent basis) as of 2015 I have known since at least 2007. Is that fucking crazy? I've made many friendships since then; but I've lost almost as many. Seven years. There's been a lot of pain and loneliness in that time. I guess that's why, in the last seven years, I've convinced myself that I don't crave people in my life. Okay, you reading this blog -- that might seem ridiculous to you. Maybe from an outside perspective it is pretty fucking obvious that people are important to me. Did everyone know but me? I honestly had no clue. 

I am a people person. A one hearted, sometimes horned, feet on the ground, pink people person. 

Right now, I have a void I'm desperately searching to fill. One left by my family. No matter how I tough I think I am, my people person heart will always ache for those who have left it. God. Is it embarrassing to list the people who have left my life but never my heart? Do others keep an invisible collection of dusty names, pulling them out to cry over the grime whenever lonely desperation hits? What happened to this person? Why are they no longer in my life? Why do I still care? Was it my fault? Should I do something about it? Is it too late? 

I regret: JIHO. KAWY. ASEL. MAFL. CABU. ABPE. TEANBE. CAKR. KASC. BROR. JUBR. CAOL. KENI. 

And no person was more important than my mother. And I've done my damndest to do replace it. I'm beginning to think - trying to open my mind to the possibility - that I can never fulfill the void left by her -- by anyone but her. I hate it. I want to punch my pillow and scream at the sky. She doesn't DESERVE me in her life. But do I deserve to miss her forever? How do I allow her crazy in my life without letting it drag me down into her twisted reality? I'm clearly not there yet, not even close. But my therapist keeps bringing it up. He knows how pissed off I get whenever he does. He sees me with my crossed arms and angry scowl. I've been running this narrative in my head, telling myself he just doesn't understand how poisonous she is. And maybe he doesn't. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Because what he does see -- somehow, inexplicably, through all the rage and toughness and "over it"ness and stubbornness -- that I miss her. That my heart craves the family of my childhood. It won't ever go away. Denying it hasn't helped. I've tried, for months now. Maybe its time to stop and try to find a true solution. It wouldn't be easy. It would never, ever be easy. But have I ever gone the easy route? 

Christmas is about family. I cling to what I have left. I mourn the family of my past. And then I turn on some Christmas music (I've made Jesse learn this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omb94O8f_fw to sing in a round with me), look at the Christmas lights, and plan for the holidays. Gift giving, parties, yummy holiday foods (homemade hot chocolate, cheese balls, baked potato bar, scotcheroos, Terry's chocolate oranges), decorating a tree, watching Its a Wonderful Life -- I will celebrate it all with my family of the present and future. 

YOU GUYS. I'M HAVING A SUPER-AWESOME CLASS-AS-FUCK COCKTAIL NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY.

YOU SHOULD COME. AND SO SHOULD YOUR FRIENDS. Because friends are important.

love,
lisapink

I love my... Bet you can't guess

I love my husband. Sometimes I get super fucking annoyed with him. But I have never even dreamed of a person I'd rather spend my life with. Maybe Obama. I decided he's the JFK of my life. Fucking coolest hottest youngest president I may ever vote for.

I love my best friend. Her name is Chelsey but I only call her Chels or Babe. We've had hard times. We've seen each other through fucked up times. We will always love each other.

I love this hellish year I've gone through. It's been awhile since I've had to grow this much. Not since 2010 I think. I've cut contact with half my family. I've worked my ass off as leadership at a new job. I've had incredible experiences that have helped me define who I am - bisexual, loyal as fuck, "anti-Mormon", caring, stronger than ever before. I thought high school made me strong? Losing every friend i had made in my childhood, letting go of a long-term abusive boyfriend, breaking ties with girls who were my bridesmaids -- fuck. None of it compares to the searing emotions of the past twelve months. Good and bad. Listen: I'm a badass motherfucking cunt and I will own my life no matter what.

I love my new therapist. Sometimes he drives me nuts. Sometimes I know this is the guy that is going to save the emotional wreck that I am.

I love the goddamn siblings who I trust my heart to. Anna. Lance. Kevin. Michelle. They are my family and I would do anything for them. They freed me from the black sheep prison I was too afraid to break out of. They love me even if I bug them sometimes. The moment they broke out of the "family oriented church" they loved me more truly than my family ever had before.

Let me drop some fucking knowledge right now. My mom blames me for our lack of relationship. She's wrong. I am her family. She chose to create this family. She is the fucking matriarch of this family. It is 100% her responsibility to do everything she can to love and protect and care for and hold this family together. I did not choose her. I did not choose my siblings. I chose Jesse. I chose Lincoln. I chose to let Anna and Kevin into my heart. They are my family. My mother? I owe her nothing but what she gave me. And if she gave me rejection and revenge and bitterness, I owe her nothing more. She's getting old. She tries to camouflage this by adopting a young girl. But it's true. Soon she will have nothing but the family she created. And if she cannot accept half of her family for having opposite and yet just as strong beliefs: she will lose out. It is her that will be alone. I still have decades to make friends and family. My life is just beginning.

It's gonna be fucking awesome. I'm going to do things. I'm going to love people. I'm going to make a difference. I will never. Ever. Reject those I have chosen to love.

Except maybe I have. I should probably apologize to those people.

My puppy is laying on my lap. I've always wanted a lapdog. It only took two years to get here. He's a good example. I don't care what people think, he's my child. And he's an asshole and a terrible dog and someday I may lose him forever because of it. But I fucking love him. I will always love him, and he's mine, and I chose him, and I will do everything I possibly can to protect him. Because that's what being a mother means.

I have a new hobby. It's coloring. I love that coloring books for grown ups are now a "cool" thing to do. I love that I can do it while I watch TV to relax from work and shit in my life. I love that no one will ever care what it looks like but I fucking love how it turns out. It makes me happy. I've been doing it for weeks and I've only finished one page, started another but haven't got far. There's no pressure. And it makes me happy. It's dumb but it's me.

Here it is. My first page. The color schemes are important things in my life; things I love. Here are the schemes: bisexuality, politics, my favorite color combo that represents by girly love and my badass-ness, Lincoln, my love of the earth, my formative high school years, some other pretty colors, and me and Jesse's wedding colors surrounding it all.

If you can guess which is which I will literally take you out to dinner. Like I'll pay for you and not even mind if you order the most expensive entrée plus two cocktails. In fact I will encourage you to alcohol. That's just who I am. Godspeed.

drinking is pretty

I'm feeling really good right now. It doesn't make sense that I avoid things that make me feel good, when in the moment all I can think is that I always want to feel this way.

This week has been better. I feel more confident in myself. I am actually pretty goddamn awesome. And I shouldn't dismiss the people who believe that. They're not as crazy as I assume they are.

There will be others.

I've been thinking about moving. Not just moving houses (as we will be doing shortly) but moving away. I need to get out of Utah. Being in the minority culture group really fucking sucks. Somehow it means that everyone else gets a say in my life.

But I also have no idea where to go, or even where to start looking. There is nowhere specific that pulls me; at least that we'd have any hope of affording. How do you decide where you want to spend your life? When you are born somewhere, it's hard to even fathom going about your day-to-day existence somewhere entirely different. But then I think, well I'll get used to it and when the majority of my free time is Netflix does it even matter?

And the rest of life is working. Which is why it feels so important to eventually work with more like-minded people. I don't know what my dream job is but I know how it feels. Is that odd? I want to feel that I'm contributing to this world in a measurable way. I want to feel as though my heart is interesting/good enough to help someone else's. I have no idea how to go about it.

Right now none of that is possible. And so I'm drunk again. Does it make it better? I don't know. It softens everything, and even the bad emotions feel beautiful. That's something, I guess. The last time I opened up to my mom - when I begged her not to leave me - she claimed I had told her that drinking made me "more emotional." As if that was the only conceivable reason I'd have to be devestated. As if years of emotional distance hadn't dragged deep wounds into my heart. What really pissed me off is that she was lying. I had never, at any time, ever spoken to her about my drinking. Certainly not how I feel when I drink. Because she already had her judgements formed, and if there is one thing I know about my mother is that nothing can change the reality she lives in. Jesse and I were talking about that the other day.

Fun mom story. Apparently on Thanksgiving, my mom's adopted six or seven year old daughter was having a meltdown (because that's what highly damaged adopted children do) and as my mother was trying to get her in the car, some guys nearby thought it looked like my mom was kidnapping this girl. So they called the cops. They also apparently decided they couldn't wait for the cops to save this girl, so they started "hitting" and "attacking" my mom's car trying to get to the girl. Listening to this story, Jesse and I did feel a bit sympathetic for my mom -- after all, adopted children are difficult and its not always easy for outsiders to understand the situation. And it seems like theses guys overreacted (in getting violent), which must've been scary. However... I couldn't help but think... that every mom story has something left out. We must not be getting the full truth. She must've been doing something or saying something that caused more suspicion than the situation warranted. I don't even know what, I just know that in the last two years I have learned that my mother never tells the full truth. She will always, conveniently, "unintentionally" leave out the parts that make her look bad. When confronted with this, she generally keeps twisting reality. That way, she never has to confront her own sick behavior. 

Ironically, the way I learned this was from a previous "daughter" that my parents considered adopting before they gave up on her. She was 17, though. She was old enough that when I heard her tell stories about fights with my mom, she would tell me the facts. And they always included facts that my mother would leave out of the original story. And it occurred to me (for the first time) that my ultra-religious mother is the dirtiest fucking liar I have ever met. And that to trust her is to continue getting hurt. 

Drinking helps. I don't give a fuck if that is wrong. You know how a lot of artists are alcoholics? I kind of get it. There's something about it that makes me feel so... pure. Everything I see and feel is beautiful. I want to make beautiful things. I want to express the beauty around me. I tell Jesse, in a couple years - when you get a high-paying job and I stop having to worry about everything in the world -- put me in rehab. For now, I'll keep functioning and using this as my time to let go of all the burdens, to give myself a moment to goddamn breathe without worrying the world will explode. Its one of the few times I can feel like each moment is perfect.

I love my husband. For all the reasons I have to be in therapy, I'm glad he is there to make life worthwhile. I was super mad at him today. We're both incredibly stressed. That's uncommon for him (it reminds me of when we're both sick and then who the fuck is going to take care of me??). Then when I got a chance to just spend some time near him tonight... I realized the only reason I was mad at him is that I can only be truly at peace if he is with me. God, I love him. I know how ridiculously lucky I am to have a man like that be by my side through all the shit and sunshine of my life. 

love,

lisapink

P.S. I couldn't convince Jesse to spontaneously hit up the strip club tonight. His compromise was taking me to see Mockingjay a third time. I can live with that.