Living with chronic illness; be it physical or mental takes a ridiculously gross toll on everything in your life. There’s no “quick fix,” to being empty of even the energy to wash your own face in the morning, let alone clean your home like “normal” people do. (Please imagine my hugely sarcastic, eye rolling finger quotes being made in the air as I say normal. ) Cleaning during depression can be like climbing a mountain naked armed with a pencil and a pack of stickers. Medication is great, but it’s never an end all, be all, cure all. There will be days where your shit will simply not get together, personal hygiene becomes an afterthought, dishes pile in the sink, never or barely rinsed, and you’re pretty sure the clothes on the floor in your room have become sentient. It’s overwhelming to look around you and see your home reflect the state of your mental, emotional and physical shambles—and knowing you should care, and you should do something; but you just can’t drum up enough feeling to do anything than feel miserable and not caring. And then that sends you on a lovely guilt spiral that makes you want to do anything even less. And the cleaning never happens.
So how do you even start cleaning during depression?
I haven’t worked in 15 years. I am grateful to have been so lucky as to get a retail job within the first week of girding my fat, anxious, bi-polar diagnosed loins and handing out resumes the old fashioned way. (Store to store in person.) But, wow. Wow. In the past months of working retail at the Buck Stump* I have learned me a Thing or Two. (*name changed to protect…Well….I dunno who. Me. You. Sanity. The world.)
I have amassed a shockingly large amount of pet peeves that will possibly drive me further toward gibbering in a mu-mu whilst screaming at pigeons in my back yard with one hand full of cheap bourbon and a cat in the other. And you know what I thought? (Gosh Pinkatron, I don’t know what you thought. Tell me! ) I thought, why not blog about it? I mean, this will not be news to anyone else that has worked in retail before. But if you’re 16 years old, or 30, or 60, and trying to get back into the job market…Here’s a handy list of things that you’re going to adore and encounter frequently :
The Ziploc Bag of Change and Despair
There’s no one in line. Ah, I think–I can take a moment and get some things done. Maybe–nope. Suddenly, there’s a cart full of items and a person standing at the register with a bag of change the size of a human head. The customer makes direct eye contact with me while dumping more than 20 items on the conveyor belt, then upends that plastic baggie of time-sucking-vampiric qualities all over the rubber conveyor belt. The best is that they continue to stare at me as if to establish dominance and fully expecting me to count it. All of it. And as I start plucking up each piece of change from the Portal of Nowhere, there are now seven people in line, with one item behind this customer who now has to wait half a century for me to ring everything up, bag it, count the change, double check, give change (irrrronnnnyyyy), receipt as well as wait for said person to pick up their items and put them in their carts. (I don’t have to load the cart. Thank ODIN. ) Roll. Your. Change. PLEASE. I am a broke ass cashier working part time, I understand not having money, I really do…Just…just please…Roll your change!
Cashiers have cooties? I guess?
The amount of people that fling their money down at the furthest point on the entire planet—the end of the conveyor belt—which is older than Legend and Myth and takes forever to bring it and the customer’s items to me? Flabbergasting. Top this off with the fact the conveyor belt is rubber, and everything seems to stick completely flat on it, making me spend at least two minutes scrambling pick up the change and bills to peel them away. People…that wastes your time and mine. I could have had you rung up, bagged, and ready to get to the next person much faster. I promise you: I wash my hands constantly. I wash them before work. I wash them at work. I wash them in the bathroom. I wash them when I’m not in the bathroom. I have an industrial sized container of hand sanitizer I use after handing any bills. I also shower frequently. Everyday, and when going to work, before and after work. I triple promise you that I will not infect you with some sort of retail like disease. Please just put your money in my hand.
“Yeah, uh, I know I have 200 items in my cart and there are 57 people behind me and you’re the only cashier can I get 21 balloons please.”
I don’t understand this curse laid upon me. It never fails that whenever a co-worker or manager is on break or has to run off somewhere arising from the ramen aisles comes a line to the register so long as to have the end of it shrouded in mists. And of course the first one in that line has a cart so full that the wheels tremble beneath the weight. And of course the first thing out of their mouths when I begin ringing them up, sweat forming from pure anxiety along my upper lip I hear these words: these dreaded, evil, awful, gut wrenching words…“Yeah, and, can I get a million balloons, too?” For a moment when they ask, I go away. Far, far away inside. Where it is safe and there are no balloons ever to be blown up ever again. I have to leave the register and go with them to blow up the balloons. Do they have any balloons already picked out by then, by the way? No. Don’t be silly. That would be too easy. The customer will stand beneath the display and squint, point while hem-hawing. They’ll talk about this one or that one. They’ll ask me for a balloon that isn’t even on the display. I tell them we don’t have it. Sometimes they point out which balloon they want then half way through blowing it up change their mind. Listen, it takes so long to blow up balloons. Picking them out? 5 mins at the least. Filling them? 30-50 seconds each. More than one balloon? Having to juggle them all with one hand, and also blowing more up. Customers then usually seem terribly surprised when I won’t stand there holding their 10 balloons with one hand and then try and ring up their items while bagging them with the other. I AM NOT THAT TALENTED ALSO: NOT AN OCTOPUS. I HAVE TWO HANDS. TWO!
Paying a $2 total with a $100 bill.
This isn’t a bank. This is the Buck Stump*. First, there are few businesses outside of a bank that keep $100’s in the till anymore. Second, there are few businesses that keep that much money in smaller bills in the register anymore. Third, we do not, ever, carry that much in a till. And customers trying to pay with a $100 bill will often try to do so immediately when we open. AKA: We haven’t sold a single thing and all I have are 5’s, ones and some pennies in my damn till. This drives me batty. And when I tell them, “I’m sorry, I don’t have change for that,” the general reaction is a few seconds of distant staring followed by the slow cloud of a wrinkle betwixt their brows either of confusion or growing outrage. 50% of the time they ask me, “Why not?” or tell me, “But that’s all I have?” as if I can somehow magically poop out a bank branch, endless money as well as a teller for them all right at the register. If I am lucky I’ll have some of the best customers in line behind them (not all of them are horrible, thank goodness) who will chime in with a, “You know there’s a bank right around the corner, right?”
Signs? Labels? What are those?
Aisles are labelled. Everyone of them. Items that aren’t on sale or seasonal are 99.9% of the time always in the same place. Sometimes, we do run out of items. (Pro tip: We do not have any of them in the back.) However, the amount of humans that trudge through the very front door, take one look at me—regardless if I have 5400 people in line or 2, and immediately just ask where 1 item is before even turning their eyeballs toward the aisles. And they’re never: a) new customers who had never been there before or c) people who look genuinely lost or confused. No, these people who continually ask where something is are regulars I see multiple times a week. They don’t want to look, they don’t want to make an effort to remember and they don’t care. It’s store policy that if there’s no one in line I have to, every time, personally lead them to it. And if I can’t find it I have to look with them. The number of times people have glared at me as if I just called their newborn baby a pile of cat turds when I say, “I’m sorry, I can’t find it either. It is either sold out or we haven’t had it restocked yet,” has been too many to count.
Returning an item without a receipt & and the item wasn’t even from our store.
There are some obvious, recognizable general brands sold at the Buck Stump*. The rest of it is very obvious knock off, no name, or not-from-this-country brands. Also, I am not allowed to take any returns or exchanges without a valid receipt. Dated in this century. This isn’t …Mall-part, the giant super store. I am not sure why customers appear so terribly shocked, appalled and bemused when I tell them I cannot exchange and item without a reciept. (Let’s not talk about the number of customers who get very upset when I inform them that our store does not give cash back, or store credit and it says so on the very receipt they hold as well as on a sign at every register) . I’ve also encountered a plethora of people bringing used opened items that aren’t even sold at our store. Seriously? There is no inner glee so joyous however, when a customer insists on speaking to my manager for a return or exchange without a receipt and having the manager say the exact same thing to them that I already told them.
Garbage, discarded items & food.
Actual footage of how 50% of customers treat & shop in my store.
Empty pop cans in the makeup section. An open and half eaten frozen pot pie in the freezer. A package of raisins in the raisin aisle, open and strewn all over the floor. Orange juice that has had one sip taken out of it and placed back in the fridge. None of these items either purchased at the store, or came from the store but eaten there and not paid for. On one hand I feel like telling these mysterious people if you are actually starving and desperate for food I will buy you those raisins, that juice, that soda. On the other, knowing how humanity works, these are simply people who do not give a single fuck at all and do whatever they want. Yes, we do have cameras. Yes, we do see you eating that package of cookies right on the shelf but after. And people know that it is store policy that if an employee doesn’t catch you and keep eyes on you 100% of the time while you are practically stealing there’s nothing we can do. We’re not going to call the police over a can of no-name coke, but I don’t understand how anyone can think this is acceptable unless absolutely desperate for food or drink.
What have (we) I learned about Retail?
Is it always this bad? Are customers always awful in retail? Will you / I always encounter people behaving like this? No. (Praise His Noodly Appendage.) Retail tends to mirror life in all aspects, you’ll end up having good days and bad. The reality is, is that most of your customers are going to be good people. In fact, my ranting above only highlights the worst examples I have run across since starting my job. Whenever I encounter customers who I consider frustrating or annoying or difficult, I repeat to myself that I don’t know these customers personally. I don’t really know what is going on in their lives that day that make them decide to do what they do, and, at the end of my shift? I can literally leave my retail baggage, as it were, right there at the store. I’ve learned at the ripe old age of 40 (Which isn’t really that old but man, have I days where I feel 80,) that separating work and play or work and home is a vital part of simply surviving. Being able to come home to my cats, my husband, fling my bra and pants off in a fit of joy then sitting down and playing my favorite games or MMORPG’s gives me the energy I need to be able to cope with the next day. And if I need a little extra, some D.I.Y self-care in addition to spoilage lets me wipe the rest of the work mental grime away. Also, it really helps I can let off steam here!
In conclusion, don’t be a dick to the people behind the register or counter. We’re real life humans too.
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn Is just to love and be loved in return.
2018. I don’t know what to say about you. I have seen a lot of damages you have done, from political to personal. I have changed. I have not changed. I want to change.
This was the year in which I tried to peter pan my way into adult hood. I got a job. I learned more about humanity than I wanted or needed. I learned.
I realized that one of the social media platforms that I enjoyed the most, Google plus, was going away. I was far more prolific on there than I ever was on this WordPress. I shared so much of my journey living with bi-polar II, adjusting to having my mother-in-law live with us, learning to play Dungeons & Dragons at 40 (a thing I have always wanted to do since I heard rumors of it in my tiny Canadian life back in the 90’s) , and learning that love is the answer. To pretty much everything. And, understanding that not everyone wanted or needed that love.
I spent the year bullet journaling up until November 2018, where I created a page for that month but never filled a single thing in. I posted many instagram shots of monthly bullet journal spreads up until October, where in I drifted from it due to the hectic paces of a retail job and also the fact that I have a horrible habit of starting things and never finishing them.
I have grown. And I have shrunk.
And I have learned that laughing until your stomach hurts and loving until your heart breaks is all that matters. I have learned that I really do suck at writing on my own blog–as I started this in 2018, and this paragraph that you are now reading? I am continuing in June, 2019. And so many things have happened still, since the writing of this article. I am still working in retail, and oh the stories I am thinking of telling! I am still married to the most wonderful man in the world, and, I am still trying to bullet journal.
I have so many ideas about this year, too. Share my art (what little I make), share my journey into makeup by perhaps making videos about my learning at 40 years old and being dead-ass broke. Just…sharing more, and honestly about being broken and whole at the same time.
I can’t believe however, 2019 is half way over and I haven’t made good on my personal promise to start posting here again. Why is it so easy to procrastinate or forget?
I don’t know. I think not knowing is generally what life is about. You never know, you just keep (swimming) learning and going on.
So here’s a toast to 2018, and this half-year of 2019, which has been one weird as fuck trip. I hope I can share more with all of you.
Protip kid: nobody fucking knows what they’re doing either so they either wing it or hire someone to wing it for them
It is almost a new year and as tradition in this household dictates, it is a time of trying to pick up shit you haven’t done in seventy five thousand years in an attempt to better yourself. Maybe. A little better. Pick up some things. I guess? Anyway, what I mean is, Hello WordPress.
As you may have guessed, there was a hiccup a few months ago. We installed a new theme (that wasn’t Divi) and that theme pretty much turned all of our posts over the entirety of this blog’s internet life as unpublished/drafts….as well as posting 292931232 garbage? sample? posts of Lor Ipsapoop and pictures of women flashing butts in bathing suits.
I have nothing against women or men or gender fluid people in bathing suits, nor their butts. But that isn’t exactly what 2phatgeeks is all about. It’s not always about butts. Sometimes.
So after spending months trying to figure out WTF to do to fix it, given the super internet genius I am very much not, coupled with the announcement late 2018 that Google has decided to shove the middle finger at G+ users right in their eyes, I said fuck it. I’ll use a new theme. And I remembered my first theme love, Elegant Themes and how much I loved them .I thought I’d go by to see how they were doing. Too long; didn’t read: they were doing just fine and I love them and so I got Divi theme plus Divi builder, made this hot mess that is the new 2phatgeeks site and…
Promptly forgot how to write anything interesting. As you can see (and read) currently. I made a lot of drafts. One of them ironically about how to do stuff when you aren’t motivated to do stuff that never got finished. So there’s a great representation I guess of what reading this blog in 2019 will be like.
I’d like to go back to doing long winded articles about the games I end up playing this year, but I also did this thing that adults do–usually a lot sooner in their adult life than 40–and got a part time retail job. Which has been sucking my will to write like any good will sucking vampire would do. So I’m not sure where I will go with 2phatgeeks in 2019. Should I stick to what kinda worked? Which was just showcasing how much of a hyper active 3 year old trapped in a middle aged woman’s body I am? As well as my husband’s responses in dealing with this? Should I write about more truthful things? I don’t know.
Maybe that’s the secret with good blogs that no one is sharing too. Protip kid: nobody fucking knows what they’re doing either so they either wing it or hire someone to wing it for them, I imagine someone saying in a cheesey 1920’s info reel voice.
Either way. Hello there, it’s me again. What are we supposed adults going to be hoping for in 2019? And how have all of you been?
Picture it–(Sicily, 1947)–just kidding, it was probably around 1980-1981. I was roughly three or four years old. I lived in a tiny place in the frozen tundras of Alberta, a province in the great forested wilds of a country named Canada. The town was called Tin Town.
Picture it–(Sicily, 1947)–just kidding, it was probably around 1980-1981. I was roughly three or four years old. I lived in a tiny place in the frozen tundras of Alberta, a province in the great forested wilds of a country named Canada. The town was called Tin Town. Continue reading →
Basically, we’re just testing a new layout and theme, trying to get it worked out and figure it out. This post as well as the example posts will eventually disappear when we choose which layouts and things work. Rabble rabble rabble!
This battle was not a grand thing. There were no towering men and women in shimmering suits of armor; silver, gold or painted rainbows on a field of honor. There were no trumpets or galloping, no glory or majestic verses sung of my bravery as I fought because the battle sometimes happened between me and the bed. You don’t get stirring ballads when you struggle to put clothes on every morning. When you think: I don’t want to wake up, I want to go back to sleep and dream. I want to pull the blankets over my head and lay in the dark. I would battle to open my eyes and stare at my ceiling, listening to the sound of cats chasing each other through the house or the birds jabbering away at one another. Five minutes, ten minutes, sometimes an hour or three would pass as I drifted between a skittery sleep that skimmed the surface of deeper rest.
After the war to wake up then get out of bed came the fight to take care of myself. Putting one foot in front of the other felt like walking on the bottom of the ocean being crushed by the waves. My feet were in lead boots keeping me below the waves, too far where no sunlight reached.
Then came the skirmish on my apartment, the messes of every day life. A kitchen that needed sweeping. Clothes to be put away. Dishes to be done. Carpets to be vacuumed, bird cages cleaned, garden to weed, wash to be done, shower–day in day out the little things which everyone does was a knock-down-dragged-out-bloodless battle to perform. Inside my head I had to bark at myself. I had to yell and cajole and bribe. I would roll out of bed every day as tired as the next, whether I slept fifteen hours or eight. Tired when I woke up, tired when I went to sleep. Tired of being tired.
And when I made myself do the things people do day in and day out, it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t perfect enough. Something in my head would crouch down low and whisper like old scratchy mix-tapes that had been used over and over again until static hissing could be heard behind everything–never good enough, The Thing would say. It would back itself into a corner high above every achievement I would ever do: a painting, a clean house, a piece of sculpted clay, a bite from a bird, a mess that needed cleaning, a piece of writing–awful–The Thing hissed. It’s horrible, just like you. It would begin. And I’d do my best not to pay attention to it but there’s no running from your own head, there’s no safety on the battlefield when it’s inside your body with a part of you that never goes away.
You’re disgusting looking, fat and ugly, The Thing would cackle at me when I tried on new clothes or dress up a little and put some make up one.
This is garbage, it would announce when I was finished with drawing a picture. No matter what anyone says or tells you, you’ll never be good enough whenever someone complimented me. You can’t it would say when I tried to convince myself I could. You won’t when I fought to tell people I would. And when I didn’t, it would laugh gleefully and point out that I didn’t–just like it said I would. You are completely worthless, it would tell me day in and day out. Until I lost any arrows to fire back at it to silence it. All of your mistakes all of your life–every one of them we can remember–let us play them in your head every night on loop, dissect them, point out your flaws and your imperfections until you cannot sleep and you cannot stand yourself–The Thing would do, every night when I tried to go to bed. And it did. And I would watch the things I did in the past with growing shame until I tore myself up inside.
I lived with this thing for so many years that it became part of me.
Cut an onion incorrectly: you’re an idiot it would hiss.
Accidentally drop and break something: See how worthless you are? You can’t keep anything.
I tormented myself over things that should never have tormented me. I lost sleep over the things we all do, the mistakes me make as children and adults. I agonized over my weight and sabotaged every single thing in my life that I had to be happy about. I started listening and believing to that Thing in my head until it did begin to ruin everything I did.
I stopped drawing.
I stopped making things out of clay.
I stopped writing.
I stopped playing the games I loved to play.
I stopped reading the books I loved to read.
I stopped doing things around the house until it piled up and took hours to do them instead of a few minutes.
I stopped caring about myself and, I stopped caring about it.
I argued and said things to Shawn over things that were so ridiculously stupid I am ashamed I argued over them.
And then my mother died.
I lost something so important to me that I could not put into words what had happened. A part of my life that had always been there (and a part that you know some day will go–but you never want to admit it, because she’s your mother. And she’s forever. Always.) was no longer. I was thousands of miles away and I hadn’t the chance to say good bye.
The Thing in my head reared up from its corner and spilled as ink across my mind. It took over everything inside of me. The words and the things that it said to me bombarded me day in and day out. I did nothing. I wanted nothing. I grieved but I hated myself. I let my mind rip myself apart as it never had before. I could do nothing to stop it. Over the decades I used to be able to fight back: This will pass, I would tell The Thing when it hissed. Tomorrow all will be better. You’ll see. I am a good person. I really am. I have nothing to be sad or angry about. Everything’s okay and I will be fine, I always am. But this time I couldn’t reach for those words. I couldn’t convince myself that things would be all right anymore. I couldn’t find it in myself to believe and I couldn’t stop crying. I felt as if I were always on the bottom of the ocean and that I hadn’t seen the surface in years.
Then one day, The Thing in my head in a voice as clear as ringing metal: You would be better off dead.
The cacophony inside my head fell to silence and even I felt myself stop moving and go still. What The Thing had said had frightened me so much that all the little voices that toss about in my head–leaves in a pile stirred by the wind–dropped out of the air. I felt afraid. The Thing had said something that it had never said before and I knew with a clarity and a sharpness that it wasn’t just grief for my mother. It wasn’t just the loss of someone I had loved. That the years of The Thing living in my head, ruining everything I had taken joy from was not how it was supposed to be.
I knew that I could no longer do it alone. I knew that I needed to stop waging a silent war and tell someone. I needed help. So I told my husband–I told him everything I had never told him over the years. I talked and I talked and I made myself say things that The Thing in my head fought with me tooth and nail not to say. I talked, and then I spoke to a doctor and spoke with friends. Anyone who would listen.
I waited 39 years to get over my fear of math and dice to finally attempt my very first Dungeons & Dragons game with internet friends I have known for ages. I have conquered part of my fears, but not all of them, as Roll20.net makes die rolls 100000% easier to beginners! Our DM decided since we were all practically new, we’d start out with level 10 characters because she decided to run City of the Spider Queen. She adjusted it for 5e as much as she could and also tossed in a lot of home brew elements too.
I have been having an absolute ball playing Anthracite Ironbelly, my cleric, with my husband, Shawn, who plays Boddlur’s the Germanic-sounding bard, our DM Lil, and our Rogue Zalima with the Paladin, Corvin. I sure hope this highlight of our game play amuses you too!
If you dig it, you can usually check us live streaming our D&D games every Saturday (when health and life participates) on my twitch channel found here: Pinkatron2000. You can also follow me on twitter here: Pinkatron2000, for live stream announcements and schedule updates. <3
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”]
[et_pb_row admin_label=”row”]
[et_pb_column type=”4_4″]
[et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]
Today is the infamous day, in the year of oh lawd, 2017, when my husband, Shawn and I celebrate 8 years of official marriage. Actual we gotta piece of paper ‘n everything! marriage, as opposed to use getting together back in 2003 and from then on our simply referring to one another as husband and wife married. Our love is fourteen years old today and if it were a teenager in today’s world…Jesus, I would feel pretty torn up being a teen this year, also with the added befuddlement of hormones, brain development, and figuring out your place in this society…Anyway, I got a little side tracked, as you do, when you have the attention span of a gnat. Oh. You don’t? Oh..But let’s move on.
In celebration of 8 official years of marriage, I would like to share with you the eight reasons why I love Shawn.
8 reasons why I love my husband, a celebration of full frontal geekery:
You know how sometimes we all have ‘off’ days? Where our emotions or brain or hormones simply show up and trash the inside of your head then duck out and leave you with the mess? The first 6 years of being together, this is what Shawn had to deal with….everyday. Why is that important? It’s important because during those years I was absolutely, 100% unmedicated as well as still not diagnosed with severe depression and Bipolar II. For those of you not familiar with BP II, it’s just a much slower, surfer dude BP. You still get the manic episodes, but maybe once a month–maybe every two months. My manic episodes involved doing every fucking thing all at once as well as having hare-brained schemes for shit that made no sense but at the time I was very into it because my brain is a little broken. The depressive episodes meant not doing anything . A polar (see what I did thar?) opposite of the manic. And these could last months and months with little breaks in between. During the weeks I was PMSing I was a mess. Not even a hot mess. Just a mess. And so I had, basically, an off day for six years of our relationship. And it was pretty awful. As some of you who suffer from the same things, or have a loved one who has to go off their meds for whatever reason–or has an episode and goes off their meds–I can hear you making understanding nods. And see, this man didn’t drop my broke-brained-mountain self. Instead? He stayed. Through all of that and the medicated part.2. We have our own married language. We finish each other’s –sandwiches–sentences. Sometimes, I think we may actually be semi-telepathic or something. There can be days where I will quietly crave a food, or think about a certain song stuck in my head and I won’t say anything about it but BAM. Shawn will look at me funny one day and go, “Y’know, I’ve been thinking a lot about : indian food/pizza/chinese food/going to ___ and getting ___” and I will yodel like a dork: “I HAVE BEEN THINKING THAT ALL WEEK! OMG!” We speak in old MEME tongues often. Our cat will sit a certain way and we’ll look at it and at the same time blurt: “He should buy a boat,” or, “these aren’t my glasses?” and, “but that’s none of my business.” Sometimes we don’t even say a full MEME or hilarious Thing We’ve Seen Or Read. Sometimes I just say a single word. Just one! And he gets me. YOUUUU COMPLEEEETEEE MEEEE!3. Apparently my blanket hogging, snoring, space consuming ass is, actually, missed when it doesn’t get into bed on time when he does. He tells me that he can sleep, yes (and boy I still wanna punch him in the face with love at how quickly this man can go from wide-awake to literally snoring in 3 minutes or less!) but that if I am not in the bed, it’s a fitful sleep. That he wakes up and notices I’m not there a lot. During the first year of finding new meds to treat me brain pan, he used to physically get up out of bed and come find me. He’d peek around corners, hair stuck up as if recently gently electrocuted, eyes half glued shut and mumble: “Y’alright? Y’okay? Y’doin’ okay?” just to make sure. Interrupting your own precious sleep simply to check up on someone? That’s love, yo.4. I fail. A lot. I failed in getting a job. I failed in school. I failed at the invisible Housewife standard that some people hold where I’m apparently able to whip my house up into sparkling clean tingting sound-effects shine whilst drinking wine out of my crystal glasses that NEVER EVER BREAK and eating chocolates from paris. (Maybe that’s just my imagination.) At any rate, I don’t work. Lucky for me, he got the chance to work from home so I’m not left alone. (Because one time, I decided to step on the glass stove to paint–and the stove broke, but my foot didn’t??? some how??? but there was glass everywhere. Like…Glass dust.) Despite the fact that this part of our relationship is wildly out of balance he…just do. Like Shia Labeouf’s tired meme, he JUST DOES IT. He goes to work. He gets dat money. He spends it all on keeping a house (that I don’t clean very well) over my head and food (lots obvs) in mah belleh and food for kitties and birds and does it all because he can and he wants to. I guess, if you look at it my way, I didn’t fail when it comes to husbanding!
5. We equally hate socializing and yesterday when we early celebrated our anniversary by seeing Wonder Woman and eating Indian food, we went home and things got really exciting if ya know what I mean. Wink Wink. Nudge Nudge. …..we napped. That’s right. We romantically napped together in a food coma. Awww yisss.
6. We are both Star Wars nerds. He is more inclined to the tech side. I love the stories. We both know shit just got real however whenever one of us says: “I love you more than Star Wars.” Awww hells yeah, it’s romanticle time!
7. Neither of us can be trusted to go into any pet store to purchase supplies for our cats in case of Adoption Days. We literally cannot say no. To kittens. To one eyed tom cats with half an ear
and multiple scars and broken tails to old grumpy hissy spitty cats that like to hide. We are not allowed near any cat adoption days anymore and we certainly are not allowed to know their name or give them a name or else good bye heart, good bye forever. Shawn used to be able to go and get cat food, kitty litter, etc–but ever since the day he almost broke because of a fluffy white siamese kitten that would not stop staring at him–he has decided that we will henceforth purchase cat food and kitty litter and toys via Amazon. And as much as that means I won’t get to fondle kittens….I think it’s a very good idea. And what that means is, we’re both cat people. And I love that he loves cats. And gets me. I am the rare married crazy cat lady.
8. He loves me. I am not a good human. Or at least, I wasn’t. I was not an easy person to love. My mental health made barriers, made issues that weren’t there, made arguments that should have never happened, happen and made me, as I’ve described before–a little blob of hurt, confused spite–that lashed out for seemingly no reason. It took a lot to love me then. But he did. He loved me even when he should have given up. He loved me even when I floundered. He loved me when I was at my absolute worst, morning breath and all, and he loved me when I got better, too. He loved me when I stayed in bed all day and could barely get the energy to wash myself and he loved me when I went through the house like a whirlwind with a scrub brush. He loved me when I stood in the middle of a pet store and cried because we couldn’t afford to save a third cat, when we already had 2 (the apartment we were living in at the time, had a 2 large pet restriction.) And he still loves me. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this. Actually, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. But hey, if there’s hope for me then there’s hope for everyone.
There are a million more reasons why I am celebrating our marriage today and everyday. But this page won’t hold a million. So I showcased 8. Here’s to us, honey. We did it! We survived! Let’s keep that up!
[/et_pb_text]
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_row]
[/et_pb_section]
