Let me just say that I can stand in a board room or jet across the country, but I turn into a complete wuss once I step through Michaels.  All those women with glue stick burns on their fingers, willing to cut a bitch over the last vial of Martha Stewart glitter?  THEY TERRIFY ME.  Same thing with fabric stores.  Also, the strangest thing happens that once I hit the first aisle, I completely forget what I was there for.  Confidence takes a crash & burn so I stand there in the aisles, completely overwhelmed by the choices in felt.

In short:
Before Michaels:  BIG SPARKLY INSPIRATIONAL UNICORNS OF HAPPINESS!

After Michaels:  I WILL NEVER ACHIEVE ANYTHING GOOD IN MY LIFE.

yeah.

I’m standing in line with Harry in the push cart & a matronly lady turns to me.

“Is your mother’s name Karen?” she asks.

“No,” I say politely.

“You look like my friend Karen, so I figured you must be her daughter,” she explains.  I shrug.  Raleigh is a pretty decent-sized city.

“With two children, I figured you had to be her,” she persists.

Is this lady drunk?  I only have one child in the seat & I’m pretty sure the firstborn’s that were traded for Christmas Cricuts weren’t eligible for the 40% off coupon.  Like I said, I’m on a budget so if it’s not on sale, it’s not in my cart.

“You know,” she says.  ”With your boy & the one on the way.”

oh.

shit.

Awkward silence abounds.

Does this lady not know Rules of Feminism #253: Don’t ask a woman if she’s pregnant unless the fetus is 75% down the birth canal with a hand waving?

(You know how I like to jump the gun.)

I spend my free time perusing the houses available in the neighborhoods we love, calculating mortgages & downpayments, wishing that our house would sell RIGHT THIS INSTANT BECAUSE DOUG! COME LOOK AT THIS HOUSE!  & then I hop on Pinterest & decorate the entire thing in my head.

Of course, my head doesn’t have a budget in mind which is a very lovely thing when I’m pinning Anthropologie & Amy Butler fabrics.

I’m in this awful stage right now of having so many ideas & dreams for decorating, but not wanting to “waste” them on the house we are selling.  Especially since the goal is to keep our current house as sparkling clean & sparse as possible. 

Sell, house.  Sell!

Yeah, they’re still happening two years later.

So I’m sitting there at my desk, happily tapping away at expenses & BAM! there’s a flutter in my uterus area.  It’s enough to make me take pause & freak the eff out that OH MY GOD, I’M GOING TO BE ON “I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT.” 

But then I remember that I’m already doing that female thing (send nachos & wine!) & we are staunch supporters of the Trojan man & there is simply NO WAY there is a bambino kicking away in my uterus.

But still.

Totally trippy.

It hits me when I lay down at night & my hips ache so badly & I wonder why I’m so tired.  I’m busy.

& I feel like I’m losing out on life.

Dramatic much?  But I spend 9 hours a day behind a computer, trying to make sense of my project manager & the boss man’s travel schedule.  I spend 2-3 hours per day in my car, trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  I get home & throw on dinner, try to soak up time with Harrison, but the moment he is in pajamas I am back the the grind of taking out trash, picking up toys, & making the house presentable just in case they schedule a showing.  Just in case.

My one outlet, writing & sharing my thoughts & capturing them on film (albeit roughly), feels bone dry & I can’t help but fear if my lack of inspiration comes from lack of living.  My friend Nish often describes her blog as the spill-over of life & I’ve always felt the same – my blog holds all of the emotions & thought processes that I cannot keep to myself.  But these days, I feel like I’m on autopilot.

We race out the door every morning; my hair is flying & 75% of the time I have forgotten makeup, so I have yet to capture my attempt at growing my style.

The sun is down when I get home, so every night is a game of chase through the living room or vrooming cars around my ankles while I cook.

We did not take a winter long weekend to the mountains this year due to finances.

I see my friends grow & inspire & be viral & I shake my head at the emptiness of my own journal notes.  I’m being left behind.

I have no idea what’s happening with Zooey Dash-a-whatever or the other Kar-dash-a-whatever’s because I don’t have cable.  I have now been demoted to Former Pop Culture Princess.

I order clothes & Christmas presents & hell, even groceries online.

Some mothers ache for more interaction & more rigid schedule, but I long for days of a lazier pace & more sunshine with my tiny guy.

I just don’t know how to find it quite yet.

I think because I’m hyper-sensitive to hormones, even the smallest dose of birth control kept my monthly bitch-fest at bay.  But then a change in insurance happened & I finished my last pack before my new insurance started, so here I am, all synthetic-hormone free & FULL OF THE BITCH.  You know, just in time for Christmas.

Then the eye doctor effed me over.  (y’all know how I feel about the eye doctor & if you don’t?  I hate him.)

So that stupid distorted cornea thing that started this summer with the splitting headaches & grey vision is still around.  The doctor recommended glasses to fix the issue, so the moment my insurance kicked in, I ordered a new pair.  Just a plain ol’ set, nothing too hipster or too modern.  I dig the classic Vera Wang.  (by the way, what is up with only carrying designer frames?  I don’t & won’t own anything else Vera Wang.  I don’t get it.)

Then I waited for them to arrive with my grey eye & massive amounts of impatience.  When they called Wednesday, I was all, “SEE YOU!” at 4:30 & hauled ass to the other side of town.  I slid into a parking space at 5pm on the nose & banged on the door at 5:01pm.  The gal at the desk looked up….& then looked back down.

The. Ever. Living. Eff.

I whipped out my phone & dial the number, thinking if she picked up I could explain that I had already paid for my glasses & all I needed was for her to just hand them to me.  The phone rang & rang & rang while she sat there.

I get it.  They closed at 5pm.  BUT IT WAS ONE MINUTE.  I’ve been a patient for over twenty years there.  & plus also?  I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for a bad set of contacts they sold me.

The rage was so strong.

Between that moment & 8pm when I crawled into bed with a heating pad, I threatened doom.  Then I calmed down & became a sane person again, so at 8am on Thursday, I told work I’d be a wee bit late & swung over to the optomotrist.  Only to find them closed until 9am even though THEY OPEN AT 8 AM.

IS THE UNIVERSE LAUGHING AT ME?!?!

Long story short, I nearly ran over five people getting there, but I did manage to pick up my new set of eyes last night.

(see also:  90% of this was my fault do to lack of planning, BUT DON’T TELL MY UTERUS THAT.)

]]> http://theheirtoblair.com/2011/12/23/the-universe-is-effing-with-my-eyeballs/feed/ 7 http://theheirtoblair.com/2011/12/13/can-we-talk/ http://theheirtoblair.com/2011/12/13/can-we-talk/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:30:14 +0000 heirtoblair http://theheirtoblair.com/?p=8382 Just…pull up a comfy chair & a cup of coffee, okay?

I’m in that place of whirling chaos & craving a quiet day where the clock seems to move at a slower pace.  Where I can sew an advent calendar with warm coffee in my mug, or watch a movie with my boys, or maybe bake cookies from scratch.  Where I’m not sitting in traffic almost three hours per day, wondering how I will fit all my work in, trying to remember if I bought the right cream-of-soup for dinner.  I try to remember to be in the moment, to find specific parts of my day where I let my mind clear & I am deliberate in my thoughts – I chose the shower, which is odd to most people, but it’s where I feel the tension fall & I can block out calendars & deadlines & Excel spreadsheets.  On weekends, I find myself sitting at the table tapping out emails to my boss while Harrison sits to my left, elbows-deep in PlayDough.

It’s a weird work-life balance that always feels close to tipping clean over.

I try to train my thoughts, when I am thisclose to snapping at my long commute, but then I work to discipline myself to be thankful for the job to be leaving every night & the warm home to return to.  I am luckier than most.

When I’m stressed over a spreadsheet with over 200 entries & codes to enter, I remember that my boss gave me a shot only one month in & named me Project Associate to a huge partnership.  The flattery in it is both exciting & intimidating.  I want so badly to please them all.

I laugh at all the confessions in my post about aching hips & smelly feet & “ombre” hair & how motherhood makes us all feel kinda lumpy both inside & out.

I wonder what I will write next & worry my words will fall stale & my words my heart will become irrelevant.  I try to focus on the keyboard in front of me, but I worry that I will never know the secret knock to the cool kids club.  (is there a secret knock?)

I try to figure out a way to squeeze in the gym or a run or a stretch, but I’m not sure how to create an extra in my day without sacrificing something that can’t be sacrificed at this point.  Maybe some day, but not right now.

Most of the time, I feel like this:

 Only very, very oddly happy.

I’m still in that weird “please like me!” stage where I hope to beat him in every day.

I rounded the corner, dodged a column, & WHAM! faceplanted.  I’m still shocked that I did not
a) break my ankle
b) blow out my knee
c) break my wrist
d) all of the above.

But the first thought through my mind was, “HOLY SHIT, I just ate marble in front of at least ten of my new colleagues.”  & I was thrown back thirteen years when I fell UP the steps of the high school building in front of the popular seniors.  So I did what any normal sane drama queen would do.  I moaned & rolled onto my back, clutching my ankle.  One lady offered her concern, but I sheepishly got up & limped to the elevator, where everyone avoided eye contact for the next four stories.

This is where I should wax poetic about how my pride is bruised but honestly?  My ankle hurts worse.

I’m usually against burning books, but if someone could sneak into Harry’s room & torch this one, I’d be much obliged.

I’d probably even make you cookies.

See, I can’t hide it or give it away without an insane amount of guilt.  So I’m going to need someone else to blame Chicka’s doom upon.

I challenge myself on days when I sit in front of photo editing software & try to find my own style.

I adore the days where I pull out the camera & make silly faces & crack jokes & imagine my mother’s face when she reads a post laced with profanity.

I love that some days, I put pen to paper & let my heart sink deep & the words flow without editing.

My entire life, I have wrestled a wild, exuberant side with a quiet artistic shyness that I never seem to balance well.  Like the days when I have the world under my thumb but walk into the break room & cower because I cannot say “hello” to the girls laughing over their lunch.  At almost thirty, I am beginning to accept this about myself.  Accept that my moods & writing change & that it’s best when I just go with it.  That’s when it comes from the heart – the days of laughter & hilarity, the days of closing my eyes & letting words feel like poetry.

& I let this blog catch it all.

I know.  I think too much.

& there was this one bathroom sort of “designated” for the more advanced graduation of potty training, if you know what I mean.

If you don’t, I’m talking about poop.

If a client was in the stall next to me, it was all gravy because once you hit eighty, I think your main goal in life is to a) have another meal & b) eventually poop it out.  I’m not being cheeky, it’s just that the older generation takes their fiber very seriously & if you think I’m being rude, just ask them.  But if a coworker was there?  I would silently try to lift my feet so my tell-tale red flats weren’t visible from the sink & pray the person wouldn’t stop to primp.  Which they would.  & I’m all silently jeering them for tucking in their shirt & putting on a new layer of chapstick when DON’T YOU KNOW THAT CHILDREN ARE STARVING ACROSS THE OCEAN & I AM USING THE RESTROOM?

So I am happy to report that at my new office, the bathrooms are spacious & lovely & each stall is really like it’s own little “room,” where shoes are not visible.

& more importantly than poop, it means that nobody can laugh while watching my cracked-out chicken wiggle dance back into my shapewear.