Adam started it. And then she did it. And so did she. Her too ! So, if they jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge I would too I decided I wanted to do it as well.

Now, being the procrastination princess I won’t do them all 30 days in a row, but spread it out as I go. Here’s the outline ….

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself. Day 02 → Something you love about yourself. Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for. Day 04 – Something you have to forgive someone else for. Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life. Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do. Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for. Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit. Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted. Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know. Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on. Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on. Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.) Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter) Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it. Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without. Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something. Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage. Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics? Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol. Day 21 → (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do? Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life. Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life. Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter) Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today. Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why? Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now? Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do? Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why. Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

So today, I’ll do Day 1: Something you hate about yourself.

I hate that I let myself get back out of shape after Gregory died. I went the opposite of most who lose weight. I gained it, and then some. Drinking copious amounts of wine and staying up all night and sleeping all day will do that to you. After losing over 60 pounds a few years ago and getting into an established and great exercise routine, I let it all go to hell. Now I have to start all over again, and the fact that I can’t find the motivation in myself pisses me off. I can motivate my ass to the Dairy Queen and I pass three gyms, several parks and miles of great bike riding roads in the process, and I always think ” I’ll start next week.” I need a friend or someone to help me get going, stick to it and get me off the “poor widow me” track I seem to be stuck on. And I hate myself for not being able to suck it up and do it myself. I know the insomnia, the blahs and the general feeling of craptaculars in general could be helped by exercise and feeling better. But some days, it’s just easier to lift a glass of wine than a dumbbell.

This girl would have kicked my ass for me ….

I hate myself for losing her.

Next time – something I love about myself…..

I’ve been in a mood.

Actually, I’ve been in all kinds of moods. Good, bad, indifferent. It’s been a weird 10 days or so, and really, except for the few times I’ve hung out with friends, I haven’t really felt like doing anything. I’m retreating again. I don’t know if it was another deathaversary of sorts, more probate crap or what, but I definitely planted myself firmly in “meh” mode for quite a good bit since returning from my August trips. I’ve narrowed my inner circle the last few weeks or so to just a few friends, co-workers and my late night internet buddies. I think I did it without even totally realizing I was, until the urge to stay home instead of going to hang out with friends I absolutely adore finally smacked me in the head with it’s stupidity. I went out instead, and had a fabulous time.

So this time I’m trying to fight it. I’m trying to do more than just my normal go to work, go home and back to work again pattern. I’m actually trying to be social. I’m putting away the widow woe-is-me pass and am making plans, people, PLANS.

Tomorrow I’m going to meet some online folks I’ve been wanting to get to know for over a year, and somehow I always found excuses not to. Tomorrow I’m not going to worry about the widow crap, the widow weight, or anything except having fun and making friends and just go. Then I’ll go to work for a bit, and then I’ll hang out with friends again after work. A twofer of sorts.

I have football games coming up, a bowling league starting, Sunday night softball, a neighborhood poker run, all kinds of things.

I’m getting out of bed, getting out the door and stepping back into my life. 18 months has been way too long without it. I don’t recognize it anymore, and though I know it has irrevocably changed, I think somewhere there’s a glimmer of the awesome that it was and can and will be again. Kind of like the edge of a golden ticket in a Wonka bar. And if it takes a bunch of candy bars to get there, well Mr. Wonka, I’m on my way.

As you get older, your friendships and your family ties are supposed to strengthen and mold into some type of safety net for your life. At least that’s how it happens on the big screen and in many books. Mostly fiction.

Real life is not always so warm and fuzzy.

It’s more of a sticky, syrupy haphazard obstacle course laid out like some game on which I find myself the pawn lately.

I’m tired of it. I’m making cuts. Severing ties. Doing for me. Me. ME. Or of you like the interwebz slang, MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !

If you’re not aware, there is the asshole uncle saga.

The ex-wife and evil step-daughter saga’s.

The other family drama I have yet to blog about for fear of the nuclear bomb it will unleash upon my barely hanging onto the definition of family.

And now, as it has been before, the frenemies saga.

The people in this picture were my friends. Two of them were what I would have called best and lifelong friends.

They were my friends before Gregory and I fell in love. They were mutual friends of ours. If not for them, there would be no Kim and Gregory. P was Gregory’s friend for 30 years. They went to school together, they lived together, they were like brother’s. C was a teenager when she and P started dating and knew Gregory for just as long. The have a lake house three houses down from ours. Their home is a 1/2 mile from mine, their subdivision borders ours. I worked with them, I cried with them, I played with them. Some of the best memories of my life happened at their home and at the many Auburn games we went to with them.We were as thick as thieves at one point. In the beginning of our relationship, they were less than thrilled with G and I being together. I’m still not totally sure why. There were things said, feelings hurt, but in the end, the friendship prevailed. After we got married, we still hung out, but not as much, what with jobs, the kids, etc. Gregory and P had a falling out, and we tried to repair the damages to save the friendship, but things were always different. One of the reasons we stopped hanging around so much was because of the atmosphere and some of the people in their circle. It just wasn’t good for us. So we retreated into suburbia, soccer practice, weekends at the lake, and us. When G went into the hospital, these people were on a cruise. They came to the funeral. They were “here” for me, to a degree. But really they were here for themselves. They are toxic. They are the kind of people that cannot stand for others to be happy, because they are not. Even though it took me awhile to see that about them, I mourned the death of our friendship as I mourned the death of my husband and slowly tried to put them out of my mind.

And then came the estate battle.

I hadn’t heard from them in months. I had heard about them, oh yes. About them hosting my ex-husband at their home. About their digging into mine and Gregory’s business. Then they showed up at my father’s funeral. It wasn’t the time or place to confront them.

Two weeks after we buried my father, I saw them again. Sitting on wooden benches in a Shelby County courtroom, with Gregory’s ex-wife and my step daughter. Neither would meet my eyes. They sat in that courtroom and listened to the testimony. For what? I don’t know. Neither were privy to our business decisions, personal or otherwise. At that moment they were dead to me. Gone. Ghosts in the machine. I deleted their numbers, threw out anything that physically had anything to do with either of them.

Today while I was mowing my grass, I missed a call. From C. She left a voice mail. I haven’t talked to her in so long, I almost couldn’t place the cadence of her voice. But then I did. I recognized the drunken slur. The “Hey girrrrrl” she always started off with when talking to me drunk. She wanted to know “how the hell I was doing” and why she hadn’t heard from me all summer. Really? REALLY.

At first I was MAD AS HELL. She has some damn set of balls to be calling me after all of this. Then I was sad. I was sad for the past, for the life that I had before, when everything seemed so perfect. Then I was mad again, mad that one call could send me into an emotional tailspin, questioning my emotions, my decisions, myself. Mostly mad at myself. I am in charge of me, no one else. And the me that’s in charge says the hell with her, the hell with them. All of them. All of the people who cause me anger, grief, and to question myself. I don’t need them in my life. Not right now. Maybe never.

They are going away. To some far off corner in my mind where they can stir the pot of crap they bring with them and make mayhem amongst themselves. I’m not dealing with them anymore.

From here on out, its all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns farting cupcakes.

Or as close as I can get.