Happy 2016 and Other Stuff

Happy 2016 everyone! Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. I’ve been overwhelmingly busy with writing, copy editing, flower/plant jobs and now I’m onto a new venture that I’ll talk about more when I’ve got the details mapped out.

Suffice it to say that it’s exciting, involves writing and theatre!

Onward and upward!

So, yesterday was a weird day.

I set my alarm for 8:00 a.m. as I was supposed to be at the office to do my copy editing at 9:00 a.m. Well, in my extreme-tired-fogginess, I forgot to turn the damn alarm ON.

Ugh.

I hate the feeling of awaking, seeing the clock and going into an immediate panic knowing that you’re already late and there’s NOTHING you can do except show up late and look like a noodlehead.

Oversleeping is something I rarely do. This morning? I could sleep in all I wanted, but then, of course, my brain starts going zoom zoom zoom–the minute I even start fluttering my eyeballs open.

Which brings me to the fact that I’ve been working now for over three hours and it’s only 10:00 a.m. Alaska Standard Time. (We have our own time zone, for heaven’s sake!)

So if it’s 10:00 a.m. MY time, that makes it 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Now, I’ve lived in Alaska for about one year and seven months. That’s not a drop in the bucket, but it’s truly not that long at all considering the entire rest of my life was spent in Michigan or Massachusetts. There were some major travels to Europe and Africa and whatnot during those other 48.4 years, but for the most part I’ve been glued to Eastern Standard Time.

There is a constant adjustment for me to get used to the facts that: 

#1 – The ocean is on the wrong side; 

#2 – Alaska is REALLY far from everything; 

#3 – There’s a four hour time difference from what my body is used to, and; 

#4 ­– I’m no longer living near the 45^th parallel.

That last one might sound strange if you’ve never considered where you live in the Northern Hemisphere. I’ve generally hovered about midway between the equator and the North Pole. Ish.

Now I’m living on the 61^st parallel. It’s weird. It’s totally different. We had the full moon over Christmas and it was very odd. It doesn’t rise and set like the moon does when you’re 16 degrees lower in latitude. It’s kinda like it just spins in a fairly small circle above your head.

Same with sunrise and sunset at this time of year. It rises almost more South than East. And then it sets in the West. It’s a low, odd arc–blinding at about 3pm if you’re driving on a South/East facing road.

There’s a big shift in mood here, too, once the days start getting longer. People are cheerier, more outgoing, friendlier. There’s a lot of anger and strife before the equinox in the winter. There were a few people I consider to be extra good friends who were giving me some major grief (and it’s entirely possible I was doing something to deserve it) before the New Year.

I’m back to being good friends with two of the people, but that third one? I have no idea what the hell happened there. There's something she decided she didn’t like about me all of a sudden. And she’s keeping up the code of silence. Odd thing is she asked some people how I was doing …

I find that strange. If you really cared, you’d call me yourself. Don’t go asking around about me as if you truly care. If you really cared you wouldn’t have shut me off and told me that I was unwelcome in your life all of a sudden.

The thing that really gets me is that this person was really wonderful to me and then just flipped some imaginary switch and utterly and completely stopped talking, texting, calling or otherwise being my friend. She used to show up at my house all the time. She’d invite me over to her house. She’d meet me for a glass of wine or lunch.

How do you go from being around someone 3-5 times per week to NEVER and then suddenly not return any phone calls or texts?

I obviously am still struggling to understand her motivations or actions.

I will say this though: if she thinks–for one minute–that she’s going to be my friend again at some point? Nope. I don’t like flip-switchy people. If you’re going to completely cut me out of your existence? That’s really not nice and not how friends treat each other. At least that’s not how I treat MY friends.

And if there’s something wrong or something bothering you?

USE YOUR WORDS, pumpkin.

The silent treatment is a form of passive-aggressive behavior and I have no room for it in my life.

My ex-husband was a flip-switchy passive aggressive creep.  I don’t need “friends” who are going to engage in that same kind of co-dependent infantile behavior.

I was feeling terribly sad about this for the last few weeks. Now I’m just confused.

I will report that there was one person with whom I was “fighting”–which is not what we were doing, really–but we are no longer harboring those negative feelings. Anywho, this one person and I had a misunderstanding and then it got blown all out of proportion by getting a couple other people involved in the stupid drama.  

Drama amplifies exponentially the more humans that get involved. It’s a fact!

So, I took it upon myself to talk with him–in person, alone–on several occasions. We worked it out and I feel like we’re even better friends than we were before. We were able to USE OUR WORDS to express our feelings. He was feeling hurt and I was, too. And feeling hurt is a totally different animal than feeling angry.

Which is what brings me to the thing here. Over the course of my life I’ve realized that there were too many times I bit my tongue. Too many times I let things slide or ignored a mean comment or taken more than my fair share of shit from certain people.

I’m not playing that game any more. It’s too hurtful and it just does nothing but fester and then cause resentments and then, inevitably, the end of a friendship, marriage or job.

As I’ve said numerous times, being kind does not include being a doormat. If you are going to treat me with kindness and respect, you can–100% of the time–expect the same from me.

If you’re going to be nice to me, say 90% of the time? Well, what the hell? Why would I put up with 10% of your shit and turn around and be nice to you?

When I was in therapy, my therapist asked that question of me a lot. She would point out that if someone is nice to you 364 days of the year, but then there’s that one day that they’re crappy to you (on purpose, not someone having a crappy day–there’s a big difference)? Well, you run around in circles for this person because you’re constantly fearing that one day that they’ll be crappy to you. You never know when that one day will come.

Walking on eggshells is how I describe it.

My second and third marriages were like that. Constant fear of being told I wasn’t good enough or productive enough or skinny enough or hard-working enough.

Why the HELL would you want to be around a person who has made it their job to tell you how inadequate you are? Why on EARTH would I want someone to make me feel bad about myself?

You wanna know the answer? Because the answer is tough.

The answer is:

You teach people how to treat you.

If you don’t feel you deserve to be treated with kindness and respect? You’ll definitely find someone who will treat you in the shitty way you think you deserve.

I have no idea why Mr. Sunshine wanted to marry me other than he like the green color of my money and he liked to have sex. (Sorry Mom and Dad.)

The man spent much of his time telling me how much he doubted everything I told him. He doubted that I had done real estate development with husband #2. He doubted that I knew how to operate and navigate a boat. He doubted that I had actually met and worked with some well-known politicians (even though I have the letters and pictures to prove it). He doubted that I knew what I was doing as far as gardening or making a go of my gardening business.

He doubted that I was as smart and awesome and talented as I proved that I was.

It drove him crazy that I make friends quickly. That I am flirtatious. That I’m funny. That I’m a nice person. That I make mistakes and apologize for them.

My successes somehow equaled his failure.

That’s some crazy shit.

Can you imagine purporting to love someone and then sit around hoping they’ll fail?

I cannot fathom that.

So, this is the stuff that rattles around my psyche when I’ve had too much sleep and got up waaaay too early!

I’ll write more when I have time. Just not a lot of time right now.

Hope this finds all of you healthy and happy!

And welcome home to my beloved cousins–back from a deployment in Afghanistan!

Here’s to a kick-ass 2016.

Ciao for now. Thanks for reading.

xoxo