Pig, pig!I've been everywhere that you've beenNow I've got nothing to lose and everything to win

I feel so betrayed by my family.
I'm laying here wondering what the point of this life is.
Is it to leave good impressions with people?
Is it to abandon everything you believe in to keep people in your life?
Is it to trust and keep on trusting only to find out you've been lied to each and every time?
I lay here wondering what's the difference between living and dying in front of these people.
I can say, honestly and without reservation that if it weren't for my birds I'd seriously consider the methods of suicide I researched on again and off again.
If getting help of my own accord and working on that help and actually changing only to have nothing else and no one else change what's the point?
I thought about the train tracks where I live before I got Olaf. But for some reason the trains around my home go incredibly slow so I think I'd choose sleeping pills.
But this sweet little bird along with Odette keep me going. Their love doesn't waiver based on their other children or grandchildren. Or because I'm simply seeking and apology from someone who wronged me.
I'm just always going to be wrong unless I'm silent and void of emotion.
Hopefully Olaf and Odette stay around for a long time or I find a man where I can have a fresh start and get out from under the opinions and ill wishing of people who are suppose to be closest to me.

I'm the big bad wolf, so let the games begin 🐖🐷

What a mess.
I feel like all the progress I've made mentally with navigating bipolar disorder has been ripped to shreds and thrown in the trash.
Why?, you may ask?
Someone in my family attacked me via facebook (the mature way and place to say to someone "hey I don't like what you said" or "I don't like how you said that") and then allowed their fiancé to do the same but by using bigoted terms about my sexual orientation.
All this because, yes believe it or not, I agreed with what she said on facebook. Now I'm portrayed as the person I tried so hard not to be, to get away from, and to make healthy.
All because I expected what anyone, Bipolar or not, would. An apology.
Did I get one? No. Why would I?
I'm expected to change, be different, roll over while everyone else can be the same animal they've always been.
Instead I got put on trial, like always, and had to scramble to find ways to prove myself, all the while this family member is slinging insults at me via text and not expected to apologize for that either.
I came to the conclusion today that I'm not going to treatment to make people like me, to be a show pony, or hinge the results of my hard work on the opinion of a pack of animals who have never been there for me and in the grand scheme of things play such a small role in my life and no role in my recovery.
I'm done focusing on the negative and putting myself in negative situations.
We have Christmas every year at this particular animal's house and I'm not going. I'm not going to set myself back for the sake of keeping up appearances.
The tables have turned and if they want to be in my life they have to work for it.
The only one from that side of the family that truly bothers me is my youngest niece who has said, not to me, to my mother over and over she supports me and sees a change, through that out at the first sign of difficulty. Well I'd like to thank her for clarifying that that was never true. Support doesn't just disappear at the sign of the first rough patch.
She's one of the reasons I've tried so hard. And I think that's part of the problem in this equation.
It's for me. Not anyone else. Support me or get out of my way.

Ima make 'em beg for it

So the saga continues. I continue to talk to this man and it continues to go no where.
" P-p-pussy power, pay me by the hour
I need me a braveheart, can't deal with the coward
I tell 'em they fiend balling, he should hit the showers
If I pick you, you lucky baby this money ours
All yellow gold on me like I'm Trinidad
Sitting drop top wonder where the ceiling's at"
I don't why I don't walk away. I'm so good at what I do I have ex boyfriends still begging for it.
It's not all about the sex but last time I checked I'm still human and it's been a minute since I've had any.
I feel like this man, the 43 year old, is afraid to try, to see where it might go or that he might like it.
I know if I'm in my 40s and still single I'd be on my way to giving up and praying for a miracle at the same time.
But this, this right here is the only reason I've ever felt like I hate being gay.
Monogamy is like the white unicorn and you have the same odds of winning retirement at the age of 18 from a lotto scratch off as you do for finding someone who is relationship oriented.
I can't tell you how many men have asked me out and are HIV positive because they've had sex with anything that walks for half their life and the only reason their sniffing up the tree of someone like me who knows how to keep their legs closed and wants a relationship is because once you have HIV the sex tilt-a-whirl has come to a screeching halt.
I hate to say it but so many stereotypes are true about the gay "community" it isn't even funny. It's embarrassing.
I use the word community very loosely, it's more like an orgy that occasionally dabbles in politics and stops having sex and snorting coke just long enough to make their point.
I don't want that kind of life.

I never fucked Wayne I never fucked Drake

The more I talk to men the more I like my birds.
Speaking of birds I finally got to take home this conure I had been visiting every time I went to my local pet store for the past 6 months.
He's adorable. He reminds me of my first cockatiel, Tila. Ridiculously affectionate, funny, cuddly, and just wants to be around me. I named him Olaf.
I've been talking to this 43 year old man and at first it seemed promising but as the weeks go by the potential for anything happening between us gets smaller and smaller.
I'm not an agest. But if the shoe was on the other foot I'd be a little more interested in a 28 year old who isn't a 2 who wants to bark up my tree than he is.
Although he doesn't look his age he has adopted some actions and behaviors that are that of someone even older than himself.
He's extremely set in his ways. He hates talking on the phone and when I do call him I feel like he's Linda Blair from the exorcist and I'm the priest throwing holy water at her. He acts tortured and almost as though it's a presentation he has to sit through.
He has no problem texting but the way he texts almost always leaves you wondering what he meant by it or requires clarification.
He doesn't act like he wants me. He acts like I'm a side dish he could take or leave. I'm so much more than that.
Where are the men who want to stand up and fight for the one they want? Who understand what dating means and isn't afraid to take that jump, roll those dice, take that risk?
As far as I can tell, they're gone and soon so will my will to keep looking.

Sex Metal Barbie

Today was a day of many mind blowing, perspective spinning, unrealistic reality affirming moments.
It started with me looking at my timehop app. For those of you not familiar it's an app that will take you up to 5 years back in time harnessing your facebook and twitter as a means of showing you where you were and what you were doing via your posts.
I was besotted with images of me and my beloved Effie. I had gone to a reptile show and one vendor had bird items and I splurged on a whole bunch of things for her.
There were pictures of Effie and I. Her on my shoulder or finger, her looking like she was posing for pictures. A small knife was driven into my heart and luckily all the children were asleep and my coworker put out of the room when I couldn't help but cry.
Through out the day I was heavily concentrated on a manic episode I had the night before, trying to bait someone into an argument whom I would take a full magazine of bullets for.
Being bipolar isn't a focal point of my life. Rather it's like a baby taking their first steps and every step from then on becomes a laborious process requiring all their thought and physical concentration to continue the process of putting one foot in front of the other, instinctively knowing now that they've begun this mode of transportation it would be a requirement for the rest of their lives.
I don't walk around seeking sympathy from people. I just want to keep on the journey I chose to start when I sought out treatment and like that baby have begun a mental mode of transportation I will have to continue the rest of my life and to boil it down to it's simplest form I'm just trying to figure out all the mechanics.
I'm not fixed or cured because I have a therapist and psychiatrist and pills. This is the hardest part to get anyone to understand. I've been this way my whole life and it's gone unnoticed. Even by myself until not so distant events made me realize something else was going on.
Then at the end of the day I find out a girl from my graduating class died yesterday. We were by no means friends. We were enemies by the rawest definition but she still played a large roll in a good portion of my life thusly.
I don't think it's ill to speak unkindly of the dead. I think it's ill to not speak the truth about them.
At my funeral I want people to come up one by one stating both my flaws and good qualities.
We veritably hated each other. She did her best to torture me until graduation when neither one of us had power over the other one. I started a rumor about her that I don't think she lived down for a few years after high school. Sometimes the lowest underdog can strike gold.
But I would never wish death upon someone for high school childishness that I equally participated in once provoked. She was one of many cookie cutter girl bullies who once they lit the fire couldn't extinguish it and wish they had never started it once they found out their boyfriends were in a room somewhere at a kegger with me instead of them.
Her death is an eye opener. Here I am worrying everyday about if I'll die when I survived and she never saw it coming.
May she rest in peace and now have full view of my exploits from above and have more than a few good laughs.
I remember one day she grabbed my arm in the hallway and yelled at me "why don't you like me?!" after she lost yet another boyfriend to my black widow like web. She caused all my books to fall and my cd player to skid across the hallway. I looked at her and I said "because of what you do. What you do to people like me. Because you don't think I matter and I matter more than you've come to realize or ever will. People like me are survivors"
Who knew how true that would be.

At the end of the day...or the begining

This quote from Demi Lovato is something I struggle with constantly. It's definitely one of those day to day struggles.
Yes I can be happy. This I know I'm capable of. But in spite of what other people think is a goal I seldom achieve.
It's difficult to be happy with yourself when there are others around you who disapprove of you completely, especially those you're forced to be with on an almost daily basis.
It's a goal I'm working on.
I work with children and see how naturally this skill comes to them but then I wonder if it's just the blissfully naivety of youth that enables them to not even consider what the person across from them is thinking.
Just another gem social anxiety has to offer.
I have a long day ahead of me.

Like a skyscraper

Being diagnosed with Bipolar depressive disorder has been a real eye opener.
It finally gave me the sight that so many take for granted. I lived a life of constant conflict. Conflict with people, situations, even every day tasks.
Now I'm able to look at these situations and take a step back, get a good 3 dimensional look before I react.
I won't sit here and type and say I have this mastered. If I did I'd be the first on the planet.
I also would be lying if I said it didn't feel wonderful and freeing. It also is terrifying in many aspects. I can now look back and see all the damage I created and it's been a lot of work to try and go back and mend those fences and rebuild those bridges.
Part of me wonders if people think I'm totally fixed. If they expect me to walk around with a permanent smile on my face and be lost in a haze of happiness and that if I do have a negative reaction to something or someone if it just gets chalked up to me being bipolar.
Am I suppose to be void of negativity? Am I suppose to be super human?
How long am I suppose to try to show people who are important to me that I've changed before giving up?

Phil Robertson

How anyone can think that this man expressing his hatred and misguided interpretations of the bible is beyond me.  I'm seeing all these memes and graphics on Facebook of people proclaiming they support his right to state his opinion or worse, comparing him to our president as if that's even possible. 

If anyone else had made the remarks regarding black people or homosexuals we, as a nation would be after them with pitch forks and torches. Is it because this man is clearly a red neck white piece of trash that it's OK and we don't expect anything more?  

We will condemn Miley Cyrus for twerking and acting in a suggestive manner but it's OK for this inbred to say racially insensitive things and to condemn homosexuals? 

Martin Luther King Jr would be turning his grave.  Does this person have the right to express and assert his opinion? Absolutely. But his not above criticism and condemnation.   If I had openly said on my Facebook all fat people are disgusting and do it to themselves I wouldn't hear the end of it.  I don't feel that way.  I was born naturally thin and have never had to watch my weight.  But I would face a never ending stream of condemnation and hatred.  

This person, I won't say man because a real man doesn't need to judge others to be one, deserves the same fate.  Heaven forbid a "human" suffer the consequences of his statements when he is on a tv show of such high quality and cultural importance...

Do I as a homosexual hate him? No.  I wouldn't expect anything less.  What I don't understand is people defending him like he's the Pope or some one else of mass influence. He's from a show about white trash that makes duck whistles.

Yes we all have the right to freedom of speech.  But we all face the same fate and repercussions of saying whatever we feel whenever we feel.

At what point

At what point do you give up? 

I have 3 people who I'm on the precipice of giving up on but I don't know if that is the right thing to do or if my feeling negative because of their actions is enough. 

The fist? Someone I've gotten close to fast and know it's as if I've become an annoyance.  Whenever I talk to them there is always some excuse to not hang out or spend time together even though I was sure we were friends. 

The second? A boy I've had a crush on since middle school who persists I'm making more of our brief time together than should be. I haven't made any demands or applied any pressure. I haven't tried to pressure him into a definition of what we are or aren't. I just generally enjoyed his company and genuinely enjoyed his company. Nothing less, nothing more...and suddenly because I reach out and text him I've become some sort of codependent monster.   I'm not meant to have friends lovers or brothers and I'd get into that but there's way too many people who can't wait for me to say something about my twin so they can stir the pot.

I give up. 

Gold

I'm slowly losing faith in this daycare I got hired at but have yet to start.  It's the first daycare I've ever gotten a job offer where you don't get hired and start the next day while you're waiting for your clearances to go through.  And with my clearances always take longer than most because I'm a male and haven't lived in a million different houses. 

Who knows. Maybe this time it will be quicker. But if I don't start by the end of the next week I'm going to have to start look for a new job which would be a shame because I REALLY want to work at this preschool. 

My community service is going well. I'm working with a great group of people and have been able to dress a few mannequins and change some of the store around. It restores my faith in people a little bit.

I'm always quite thrilled because my capcap came in the mail today. 

If you know me I refuse to drink water out of anything other than a nalgene bottle.  Well I recently purchased the brand new 48oz wide mouth bottle nalgene came out with.  It really makes a huge difference.  If I drink two full bottles out of this bottle I've more than reached my daily intake. But because it's a wide mouth even with the splash guard I still get the occasional crotch spill which makes it look as though I wet myself. Well the capcap screws on to the top of the wide mouth bottle and make it have a smaller opening. I love it. Completely genius. And I'm still swooning over my zerowater pitcher.  

All this time

Why hello 3 am. I and haven't missed you.  But thankfully law order svu is on and I remembered to fill my zerowater pitcher before I went to bed. 

Had an interesting day yesterday.  It took me forever to get to captain's treasures and for the first time ever I fish tailed and hit a yield sign. It wasn't that alarming.  What was alarming was that I counted 12

cars that passed me and didn't even hesistate to help me. I ended up getting unstuck. 

My drive  slightly more entertaining. I drove slowly and cautiously and every moron

who had an suv or a truck passed me like i was mentally challenged.

then.I'm maybe ten minutes from my house and there is an 18 wheeler almost on it's side and a cop crazily trying to perform magic to get it to stop and stopped all the other 18 wheelers that, judging from their facial expressions had been there for a while. And just when i was mimutes away i got stuck at the train tracks as the never ending train passed by at a snail's pase. 

It was fun at captains treasures. The day was slow. Well here's hoping i can go back to sleep.

It keeps getting better

I started my day by getting in some of my community service hours in and I have to say I'm really enjoying it.  I'm around mostly older women who think I'm "fabulous" and even though I'm not earning any dollar amount for my work it feels good to be giving back and to have the opportunity to give back. 

In my life I've taken a lot.  I'm not just talking about material things or shoplifting. I've taken a lot of people for granted including myself and I've made some really bad choices that probably wouldn't have been as bad if they didn't affect the people I care about most.

and I guess I never really had the opportunity to make it right or understood how to but this community service has given me that opportunity. 

If you've read my past few blog posts you'll note the underlying theme of family frustration and in venting and ranting I've been able to think and reflect a lot.  It's one thing when your thoughts are in your head.  It's a whole different story when they are in print right in front of your face.  

Why should my twin like me? I've forced him to work harder by getting fired (or in this latest issue of John ducks up monthly, got arrested) or losing my job.  And if I haven't given myself the chance to be a better person, to give myself some community service as it were, all he has seen is the bad parts of me.  That's all I've let a lot of family see of me.  I can't blame them for that.  That's my fault. I felt like they thought I was just a fuck up and on a subconscious and conscious level I just figured that's what I was suppose to be.  I never listened when I'd royally screw up time and time again, taking anything they (my family) said as further condemnation instead of sage advice.  I was defensive with them like I was with the people in the outside world because I had learned long ago that people are 9 times out of 10 going to be cruel and unkind and was apply the same rules to the very people who were there each and every time I fucked up.  

And my extended family- instead of being rational and telling them I felt I let it build up inside of me instead of giving them a chance to explain so I could understand.  That wasn't their fault that was mine and now I've caused seemingly irreparable damage with my youngest niece who I'd throw myself in fro t of a bus or a bullet for for the sake of what? Screaming and yelling like a toddler until I got to hear what I wanted to hear? I wouldn't want to be around me either.

In a strange way I'm happy this mess happened. I've learned a lot and I don't think if this had happened I would have. I would've continued down the both destructive and self destructive path I've been traveling since almost birth.

but in the words of the great Cher you can't the our back time.  I just have to keep pushing forward, making an effort and giving people something good to see for a change.

separate yourself

I adore this quote. This is exactly what I'm doing for many reasons I'd for another reason that the total lack of understanding where my family is concerned. 

My family believes I shouldn't write about my life since it's intertwined with their's. I disagree. Especially when certain family members believe they can treat others however they want because the individual treated them poorly when they were a child. 

I don't feel I have a family or at least by society's definition. 

I have a mother who completely and total supports me, even when I'm neck deep in shit and totally wrong. The rest? People waiting on the sidelines with a magnifying glass for me to make the slightest mistake so they can revel in my mistake. That does not a family make. 

And I'm not saying everyone in my family is like this but at this current juncture in my life most of my family has either chosen to completely turn their back to me and tolerate my presence for my mother's sake or are just pretending to enjoy my company for the same reason. 

Then you have two specific family members who have my mother on speed dial every time I write something in my blog or on Facebook that they don't like or feel that can get me in some sort of middle school trouble. 

My twin for example. And believe me, I use twin solely in the genetic terms. He can't wait for me to fuck up again so he can use it to his advantage to reaffirm his "squeaky" clean reputation which isn't that squeaky if you do a very light digging. He can't wait for the next moment he can judge me or prove that I'm worthless. But what's truly worthless in my opinion is his existence in my life. 

My mother asked me what am I going to do this Christmas? I said I have books and enough acting lessons to make anyone think I'm happy. I'll just keep quiet, keep my nose down and try to go ignored. At this point I don't want retribution or pity or understanding. I just want to be left alone. I'm happy with the new direction I'm moving in and my definition of success.  I don't need their approval on any level. 

It's as if the world has lost their minds and think because you happen to be blood related you owe those relatives something.

I'm making strides. No one wants to see or support them. Or believe them.  So what use do we have for each other? 

I'm breaking the cycle.  I know I can be a good person and I don't owe it to any of them.  My success hasn't been celebrated by anyone but my mother and I've come to the conclusion I might as well not even mention my twin since he's hardly my brother in any sense of the word and no one would guess we're related. There no since in acknowledging someone 

I don't accept

Having a twin, at least in my experience is like a really awful surprise party. The kind where none of you actual friends show up, they're serving food you can't even imagine ingesting and everyone got you the same present but no one has the gift receipt. In other words, it sucks completely and totally, in my experience. 

If you didn't know I am an identical twin.  You wouldn't know it by looking at or speaking to either one of us. Not only, now is it as if we're not related but from different planets. 

Perhaps I'd feel differently if we were anything alike but that would be like asking Ariel and Shrek to share a tent for a week.  I'm sure you can figure out who Ariel is in the scenario. 

People are always shocked when I remember to tell them I'm a twin and one if the first things ask me is are we alike? I always reply no, nothing alike in fact. Not even in how we're built.  Then I inevitably get tortured with some story about some pair of twins that they know that are inseparable and what a shame it is.

Well I can't help the fact we are completely and totally opposites. I did try to like him and to get him to like me for a long time but his approval would cost complete and total self abandonment which isn't worth it, especially if you're converting it to dollar amounts.

Besides, why is it such a shame. You'd be telling me that's completely normal if we weren't twins. And the more people you have in your personal life to witness or even be second party to your life the more likely you are to be betrayed.  Especially by someone who is allegedly "part" of you who puts himself on a pedestal so high god has to look down on him.  

He sends me a text this morning or last night, not sure which but he, albeit politely ranted and raved about how much it bothered him.that I wrote what I wrote for anyone to see and how he has "loyal" friends who look out for him (probably wasn't his friends at all but that's neither here nor there anymore).  Well when I politely texted back it's my place to vent and if he'd kindly stop treating me like an underling in person I'd have nothing to write about.  Well he didn't get the response he wanted so his texts quickly became a slightly higher form of cave man grunts with insults every dozen grunts or so.

I maintain that family is not a right its earned and you can't treat someone less than they deserve and expect not to atone for it in some way.  

"hello! am I bothering you? I just wanted to let you know you're officially terminated"

Today as I was finishing up the subbing I've been doing at a previous preschool i worked at I get a phone call from one of the superiors from the arc.  I figured he was calling because I had emailed him to let him know I couldn't pick up belongings as planned because I was busy but truly just because I didn't want to deal with it. Having to walk through the office with a scarlet letter stapled to my forehead "there's the lower who got arrested who is on unpaid administrative leave". I had a good day with the kids and was feeling pretty good and didn't want to spoil it. Well that wasn't he was calling about. He was calling to let me know I was "officially terminated" because I reached out to the guy I was working with to reassure him that due to circumstances beyond everyone's control i couldn't work with him anymore but that he was still my friend and I still cared for him. That he could call me anytime to hang out or talk. 

Well the bitch who answered his phone and tried to interfere with me speaking with him called this superior and made up a whole bunch of lies about how I was contacting her regularly to get information on the guy I was working with. 

I shouldn't be surprised by her actions. From the first day I met her i knew she was one of those people who thrives on drama. Most of the time I spent shadowing with her consisted of inhaling her secondhand smoke in the agencies' van while she was Facebook messaging people who were causing one problem or another and speaking to me as if I knew them. That her openness about her illicit drug use and constantly spreading rumors about any staff member that wasn't within ear shot. But me, being blessed enough to have a small part of my grandmother in me was naive enough to keep trying to seek out the good...even when she'd have to take her partial out to eat because meth had rotted out half her teeth.  

I basically laughed at him.  You really can't terminate someone who isn't getting paid. Clearly me losing this job was a gift. And she'll get hers. Like when her kids grow up and remember how mommy ignored them so she could sleep with her meth addicted boyfriend or that she completely ignored her autistic child's needs. 

Um...ok

So most of you know I have a problem with being early. I can't help it. I'm always early. I loathe the feeling of being late and I like to be prepared just in case some unforeseen circumstances disrupts everything. 

Well here I am sitting in the parking lot of the daycare where I'm going to have my second interview and the director just left...

that and I don't know if the guy I was suppose to go on a date with after my second interview is still planning on going out with me. It's been two days and I've heard nothing. 

God save me if my second interview gets rescheduled or canceled since in addition to having a talent of getting fired I also have a knack for having job offers being taking back. 

One of my goals I'm adding to my list is just expect the unexpected and then you'll never have to worry. After 27 years of roaming this little pebble we call each I've never met anyone more plan oriented or on time besides my mother. 

If I don't get this job today fast food here I come! Nothing will motivate me more to do my best than slapping a patty on a bun, asking my obese customer if they'd like fries with that or slapping taco meat into someone's shell and asking them crunchy or soft.

blehhh.   Things still aren't good at home either. They're slightly less volatile but my mother and I tried to have a discussion and it just turned into another argument.   Well cheers. Wish me luck!

Some people

I'm hoping and praying tomorrow I will get that preschool job tomorrow. After that I'm pretty much out of options or places to turn besides that in home daycare I've been subbing at which is only 3 hours a day. 

Things are awkward at my home to say the least. I can't even really remember what I said to my mother last night in my drunken stupor but we're barely acknowledging each other.  

Here's focusing my positive energy towards tomorrow. And i think I'm still going on a date with that guy after my second interview but I haven't heard from him and if I don't get the job I probably won't even want to go.

Can you be a better version of yourself?

I drank way too much last night.  I wouldn't say I'm hung over but I don't feel well and I feel worse about the blow up my mother and I had.  Alcohol has a wonderful way of bringing all your insecurities and worries to the surface and exploding them at the closest person. 

We both said things we didn't mean but it was like once the emotional vomit started spewing u couldn't stop. I needed my mother to say i give up on you because, truly I don't why she hasn't. 

I'm just so stressed about this job situation, getting turned down by yet another daycare and now all my hope hinges on my second interview for the school I really want to work at tomorrow. I can't even get a fast food joint to hire me. 

And I'm still chronically thinking about when I was sick and if it will come back. That exploded out too.  

So now my mother and I are at an impasse again. She wants nothing to do with me and I just don't want to hear that returning to my passion is a dead end and that the arc was where I should be working...As if that's a viable option.  They let me go, not the other way around. Sure I'm "welcome to come back in 6 months" but I hated it and ended up finding a way to make that job opportunity to collapse. 

Breaking the chain and not letting the noise of others in is a lot harder than I thought it would be. 

everyone is entitled to

So one of the two preschools I applied to has declined to have me as an employee. They didn't even have the decency to call me and let me know. The emailed me a generic, prefabricated , template rejection that had only my first name on it. 

 

I don't what made me not qualified or in line with what they're looking for and I tried to get that answer from the woman who interviewed me but she was conveniently unavailable. 

From the look of their employees when I was given the tour it didn't appear like there was any bar set for qualifications as almost every teacher in every room was locked on to her phone. 

Oh well. I've truly never heard anything good about the daycare itself and I knew in the back of my mind that it probably wasn't a good sign i was being interviewed by the new assistant director who had been there a few weeks and the daycare's director had just quit. 

I truly hope I get the job at the daycare I interviewed at yesterday. After that if that doesn't work out I'm out of options. 

I love how they say they'll keep your application on file for a year and call you if their staffing needs change. You rejected me once...why would I even consider working for you at a later date. 

I highly doubt this other person has 10 plus years of experience or any intention to stay. 

Onward and upward. 

Turn up the radio

I  came home from my interview today to find one of the big snails had escaped the aquarium. I thought for sure he was dead. I had no idea how long he was out of the water for or if he could survive the fall but I plopped him back in the aquarium and...nothing. I came back and few hours later and the idiot had survived. 

It got me to thinking, and yes I'm going to utilize my massive aquatic snail as catalyst for an introspective reflection. Would you expect anything less? He had escaped and failed. Fallen on his back with no way of righting himself and void of the essentials he depended on and if I hadn't gotten back when I did who knows if he would have made it? 

I escaped. One of several attempts but this time I made it. I escaped a job path chosen for me that brought me back to my true passion: teaching. 

I've been talking to this guy I've been interested in since middle school and by interested in I mean had a crush on like a middle school girl that never went away who magically appeared on my okcupid feed. And he said to me "that's great. You're following your dream. And keep following it until you have another dream"

In taking the job with the arc I justified it by saying I failed at teaching but I hadn't. I had just given up on it to please my family. Sometimes it can take a decade of getting thrown off the horse and getting back on and it happening a million more times before you achieve your dream. And after being on the other side of your dream, having more than enough time to look at it for what it really was I realize what a mistake it was to ever think working for the arc would ever work. For it to work it would've required the same elements I had been missing from teaching. Other people who cared, people who didn't just proclaim cotton candy cloud ideals but actually put them into place and people who weren't just looking for a project. 

From the whole shoplifting nightmare I learned a lot but the most important lesson I learned was that even though people in my life had given me more "chances" than anyone deserves I have never given myself the chance to be more than what people expected of me or told me to be  I just accepted what other people told me I was and what I could and couldn't do. 

Is being a preschool teacher my only dream? No. It's more of the ring of a dream catcher. It's the nucleus of many other dreams. A spiderweb if you will. It's attached to a lot of other dreams. Like making a difference, given children the chance to make a different choice on how they treat others and to in turn change how society operates. To show children there is no normal. That the idea of normal is a misnomer when it comes to people. That being different is the only way we can be normal. To show kids a boy doesn't have to play with trucks and grow up to build houses and lift heavy things. To show girls they don't have to bare 9 children and sit down and look pretty. 

At least if nothing else I learned, finally, how to give myself a chance, to cancel out everyone else's opinion of me and all the facets attached and a chance to really try. And keep trying until I succeed.