Divorce is…

He left me with a broken lawn mower. 

There is nothing that screams louder of the word divorce than the hum of a reel mower blade chipping away at 5 inches of overgrowth in the front yard.  The girl behind the mower reeks of sweat and desperation.  Not the desperation for the love of the man lost, although he did once mow that very grass that has become so overgrown.  No, the desperation of saving face.  I was desperate to show my strength in the rather embarassing situation that I had been tossed into by my ex’s fleeting eyes and bedroom ties.  So while the woman he left me for got more than her yard mowed, I am convincing myself that pushing this reel mower is the workout that some women pay hundreds of dollars for every month.  Somehow I should convince the women to invest their money into my system….

The cut is spotty, to put it gently.  Then again, so was my theory that I am somehow better for doing this on my own.  Somehow this landscaping experience was also tediously mending my soul to show me that I had strength.  Screw him and his girlfriend because I can mow my own lawn.  I can trim the hedges and pay the bills and raise my son…without you.  You broke my heart, but for the low price of $89.99, I’ve got it cleaned up on the outside.  At least a solid 750 calories burned (I hope) and the satisfaction of a job questionably well done are rewards that greet me at the garage.

I truly wish it was just as easy to trim up the wreckage left on the inside.  A broken family is not as easy to fix up.  A father is not as easily replaced as a broken lawn mower.  Although it’s easy to maintain appearances on the outside, the inner portion is the part you face in the mirror every morning.  Making a permanent decision on temporary feelings often leaves behind chaos and battle wounds.

Divorce is a single soul struggling to push a reel mower up a hill while you sit on the porch with your lover drinking lemonade. 

Divorce is the irony of you criticizing me for eventually not wearing my wedding ring while you admit to wearing yours while cheating with her.

Divorce is a paragraph buried in the book written at the hands of a person who once held your heart in those same hands.

If love is a battlefield, then divorce is the minefield in which you and your lover laid.

You left me with a broken lawn mower.
You left me with a broken heart.
You left me.

Blink and it’s over

Well, I made it thru Valentine’s day!  And March is all but come and gone.  I’ve been working on this piece for the last few days and I find zero inspiration.  Perhaps there is too much going on to take a breath and fill a page with a useless ramble of words.  Perhaps there is little going on to find things to say.  I’m going on a hunt….who knows what I will find!

Hold please…….

A bedroom full of metaphors

I absolutely HATE Valentine’s Day! 
Single, married, divorced or questionable…I hate the concept of having a dedicated day that celebrates how much money you can spend on flowers, cards and skyscraper-sized bears to show someone how much you love them.

Just a few days back, I discovered that my feelings are mutually shared by another!  We spent a solid hour laughing as we laid on the bed coming up with equally stupid metaphors to inscribe on a Valentine’s card:

My dearest darling Valentine, will you be the peanut butter to my jelly?
Lover, will you be the Monica to my Clinton?  And can you keep a secret?
To my truest love, you are the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow

Since we make quite the pair, we have decided it is best if we celebrate together every day surrounding the holiday and boycott doing anything on the actual V-Day.  Looks like this month just got interesting….

Day 1: One packet of ketchup received with a card advising “You are the ketchup to my fries”

I like this game already!

Some Girl

The Contemplative Chapstick

Apparently, in my mind, I own a stick of deep-thinking, life-transforming, mind-altering chapstick.

Walmart: $3.99

I say this because it occurred to me, when I am deep in thought, I overapply said stick of chapstick to my lips until I have created what can only be described as my “wax-coated layer”.

The cookie-coated layer was sold out, sorry….

Conclusion: I am seriously disturbed. 
***Considered pausing for a moment of silence out of respect for my lost mind but I didn’t know her that well to begin with***

So okay, perhaps seriously disturbed is not quite the politically correct label I am looking to assign myself.  And perhaps it is.  Afterall, denial is a stage of acceptance, if you choose to believe in all that.

All I know is when I am contemplating a difficult subject, I have an inherent concern for the moistness of my lips.

This annoying little vice of mine is not the only self discovery I have made in the last 72 hours however!  I also sing my sentences when I enjoy something I’ve seen/heard/touched/tasted/bunch of other senses.

Have you heard the phrase “So nice, I said it twice“?  Well, apparently, I don’t subscribe to that theory, unbeknownst to me until this past weekend.

I subscribe to the Land of Oz.  Assuming, of course, Oz is filled with drunken men dancing on the yellow brick road at ten in the morning shouting out pearls of wisdom such as “Always listen to your momma and daddy” and “You gotta get you one of dem carts wit da wheels”.  Yep, that’s my somewhere over the rainbow.  I live in my own little musical, to which I am the star and leader of the all the treble (awful, awful pun, but I made myself smile)!

*And yes, I quietly sang that sentence to myself*

Here’s the point→ .

Some days, I get little reminders that I’m fortunate to have something to sing about.  Whether it’s the sarcastic comment I’ve made about JBieb’s age to voice ratio or my son’s MLK letter he wrote in class yesterday:

“My dream is that no one is afrad (afraid) of the dark bekse (because) I’m afrad (afraid) and I do not want you to fele (feel) like that.  I want you to be hape (happy) frevr (forever)”

Some days, I get big reminders that I’m fortunate to even be capable of singing.  Above all, I’m lucky to have the love of my child, the faithfulness of my friends, the safety from those who lay down their lives to protect it, the steady beating in my heart and the capability of my God.

And of course, I’m blessed to have the right to my bitter rants…
And you are blessed with the right to agree or not to agree…

But at least we are both blessed, right?

Some Girl

Boys and Bleach

The last two hours have been dragging like that back child support check that never ever comes…

I’m attempting to whiten my teeth while droning on via text with my honest friend for the last post.  I lack motivation to work hard on the conversation and honestly, the whitening process as well.  All I can think about is the taste of this nasty gel…
If these freaking teeth aren’t a glorious display in the next ten minutes, I’m gonna be pissed.

But what I so enjoy is the irony of my conversation with the babbling dud of a dude while he attempts to bleach the relationship with sweet words and denial of past conversation performance.

Dud: “Whatcha doin?”
Me: “Bleaching my teeth”
Dud: “How can you fix a perfect smile”
Me: “Apparently with 18 dollars”
Dud: “You know you are perfect just the way you are”
Me: “Perfect for the moment…until well, you know”
Dud: “I don’t think you heard me right last time we spoke”
Me: “Probably not smart to insult my hearing now.”
Dud: “I’m just saying that my words didn’t come out right”
Me: “Wouldn’t be the first time something didn’t come out right”
Dud: “Are you being sarcastic right now?”
Me: “No, I’m being Alisha…are you confusing your women again?”
Dud: “Not nice.”
Me: “Didn’t claim to be”
Dud: “Can I fix it?”
Me: “Please don’t go all Bob the Builder on me.  I’m bleaching my teeth and I don’t want to puke”
Dud: “Love ya babe”
Me: “While there is no one around to hear you say it”

I’m not stupid, but good Lord, I’m apparently more patient than I once thought….

Dear God,
It’s me.  Seriously. Can I pray for the gaining of a muzzle on someone else’s behalf?  End times, bad economy, can’t fix stupid, I’m open for a list of excuses as to the reason he can’t shut his mouth.  Can I modify that request?  I changed my mind, which You knew was going to happen anyway.  Instead of said muzzle, how about a swift kick to the lower region of his body…dealer’s choice since You are calling the shots.
Love, Me.

If it works, who cares if my teeth are shade 3 instead of 2, right? 

Ten minutes have passed…no text…here’s hoping for divine intervention…

Or a good guy…

Or the likely third option, God will turn this bottle of water into wine…
Or chocolate…
Or a sedative…
Again, dealer’s choice.

Some Girl

Until something better comes along…

You are worth it*

*Until something better comes along

I couldn’t believe my ears.  Someone actually said it.  I mean really, spoke those words, in that order, directly to me.  Took out the disclaimer and strung it all together then fired it at my face.

Order of Emotions:
Shock
Extreme anger
Grasping for Understanding (i.e. did I hear what I think I just heard)
Panic
Heartbreak

But here I am only a few hours later, vigorously stroking the keys, watching my son’s chest rise with every breath, hearing the conversation on the television drone in a harmony with my thoughts…

Spongebob: “Are you ready to get crazy Patrick?”
Patrick: “I’m already hearing voices!”

And it hit me *cliché ton of bricks smashing face*
How can I possibly be angry?

******Disclaimer: No liquor was consumed in the making of this post*******

Yeah, that’s right, how could I be angry when this person did exactly what I asked…
Say what you mean and mean what you say

Hearing the words coming from the mouth of a person that you love is gut wrenching, but somehow, those words strung together, compiling in my ears and settling somewhere in the forefront of my mind, are refreshing.
Sucking the life from my heart while watering the driest corner of my soul in such a blissful unison.

No one says it without the little star in the corner….

EVER.

People do plenty of things to show you the whole sentence.  We’ve all felt it in life.  Chosen last or not at all by friends or family.  Given nothing when everything is laid on the table.  No time for you when you have devoted hours/days/years to their sorrows/joys/fears.  We’ve all been cheated by someone.

But for those words to escape the lips in a conversation…

It doesn’t take away the hurt
I can’t even scrape up the explanation for how much it hurts.

But you finished the sentence that no one ever finishes.
You are worth it until something better comes along.

There is only one problem with finishing that sentence and maybe that’s why no one ever says it openly without a hushed tone and a friend looking around the corner to make sure that you aren’t in earshot to hear the whole phrase….

You risk the possibility that something better will come along first for the person you just said it to and where does that leave you?

Just remember the playing field you established because while I have to respect the honesty of the words, I don’t have to stick around to watch the show

Some Girl

Size Matters

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

Ehhh…okay, I see where Mark Twain was going with this, but might I add, SIZE is still a key factor in the quote. 
Size of dog, size of fight, bottom line, SIZE MATTERS.

Whoever decided size didn’t matter?  And how did we come to the conclusion that this moron was qualified to decide whether or not it really freaking mattered?  Sure, he was most likely talking about…well, you know, but why blanket it as a statement to apply to apologies, gestures, time spent with someone, commitment…get the picture?

Maybe somewhere down the line, someone got confused and told everyone it didn’t matter, but we all know it does.  You can attempt to deny it for as long as you want, but eventually you will break…they all break…

I think it’s adorable that we want to sugarcoat the amount of work it takes to make something better.   Effort, who needs it!  Commitment, why bother?!

Really….

REALLY….

YOU REALLY DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY IT DIDN’T WORK OUT?

Effort, yeah, it’s required.
Commitment, yeah, it’s expected.
Nothing gets better without a gesture to move it in that direction. 

And yes, size of gesture matters. 

Here’s the thing, I really don’t care about the motion in his ocean, but I could do with a lot more emotion in that ocean of his.  Words are ramblings of the mouth spit at the face of someone else, but if you want a relationship, you have to get up and meet me half way. 

A Bitter Rant

“I don’t know”
It’s the cadence that marches forward towards the end of a relationship.
It’s the phrase that reminds you that you aren’t worth figuring out or better yet, that their time is more valuable than you are.
It’s the phrase that reminds you that he cannot waste a cell or two on the emotional outcry it takes to admit that there is an issue that he may be the strong contributing factor to.

But most of all, it’s giving up.  It’s the beginning of the end.

Say what you mean and mean what you say…it’s not “I don’t know”, it’s “I don’t CARE to figure it out”…

And how do you fix that?  How do you fix someone who just cannot understand that the size of EFFORT matters?

Effort is such an amazing concept. 

My parents always said that they wouldn’t be ticked off if I failed a class if they knew that I failed after giving the best effort I had.  They just always followed up with a reminder that failure is not the best that I had.  Disclaimers were most likely invented by parents, despite popular links to medications and weddings involving Kardashians, but I digress….

Where is that logic now? 

Where is the sweet reminder that failure is okay if the size of the EFFORT is so great that you can’t help but walk away from something knowing that you have done absolutely everything possible to fix what is broken and it just didn’t work?

It doesn’t exist….
No two ways about it….
But the size of the effort made makes a huge difference on answering the question of whether or not it would have worked out.  If I have given my share of effort and his burden of effort was not returned, the end is justified in presenting itself. 

There is a sweet sigh of relief that allows you to burn the bridge of a former relationship knowing that you didn’t loosen the bolts one day at a time in hopes that you wouldn’t have to light the match. 

No, you can torch that sucker and roast some marshmallows on the aftermath!

I don’t want to complete you and I shouldn’t need to.

Are you broken? 
Is there a refund policy if I invest? 
How much do I have to add before you are whole? 

Why can’t I just be the complimentary bonus to your lifes’ completeness?

Some Girl