Dream Journal 6/21/16 | Dream #2: Bad Boys

Kyle and I were awoken in the middle of the night by loud hollering and talking outside out bedroom window. I peered through the blinds and saw 3 teenage boys, around 15-16 years old, standing around a car parked on the grass beneath our window. Suddenly, they all turned and stared at me, as I watched them through the blinds. One of the kids flipped me the middle finger, while the others laughed. I walked away from the window and grabbed my phone, ready to call the police. I went to the window to show them that I was going to call the police if they didn’t leave, and one of the kids started taking pictures of me through the window.

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Daily Prompt 2/13/2016 | Never Again

The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 2/13/2016 | Never Again

“Have you ever gone to a new place or tried a new experience and thought to yourself, “I’m never doing that again!” Tell us about it.”

I’ve made a lot of stupid choices in my life, but I will never again move to a different country, state, or city, just to please someone else, while simultaneously sacrificing everything in my life that I’ve worked so hard for. I’ve done that too many times, and I will never do it again, unless it is mutually beneficial. Does that make me selfish? No. No, it doesn’t.

When I was 16, I fell in love with a guy I met online. His name was Matt, he lived in Missouri, and he was an amazing guy. When we were seniors, we applied to several of the same schools, and ended up moving to Newfoundland, Canada together, after never meeting beforehand (although, I did fly to Missouri to spend a week with him at his family’s home before we left for Canada together). I had nothing going for me in my life, or so I thought, and chose to give up everything that I did have to be with him.

Matt had dual citizenship, and was able to get several scholarships, and paid virtually nothing for school. I qualified for one scholarship, and nothing else. I had a hard time getting any loans, and ended up going through a sketchy bank to get money. The bank ended up closing, and my money was actually taken back from the school, and I had to take out a loan through my mom to pay for the rest of my first semester. Seven years later, I still owe the school money, which I fear I’ll never be financially stable enough to pay back completely. After our first year in college ended, I was unable to stay in Canada with Matt, and was forced to return to the US, and found myself panicking to find a place to live. I felt as though returning home was not an option, and chose to live with another friend from online, and his roommate, just to get money to go back to school.

Well… that never happened. Matt and I broke up, and my friend and I started dating shortly after. I’ve written about my ex before, and how I moved from town to town, further away from any sort of life and friends that I had made for myself, to better his job, or to appease his family. I was completely isolated from everyone that I knew, and was stuck in a toxic, unwelcoming, environment. After four years, he broke up with me, after accusing me of cheating on him with our roommate. Basically, I woke up at 2am to go pee, and when I got back to the room, he was sitting up, demanding to know where I went, and who I was with. I was confused, and tried to calm him down, but he was upset. I blamed it on him being delirious from sleep (he had a history of sleep-walking), but then he got out of bed, and grilled me for nearly an hour about it. Our roommate wasn’t even home, as he worked 3rd shifts. A few days later, two days after Valentine’s Day, he broke up with me, out of the blue. I won’t go into the messy details of our screwed up relationship after that, but eventually, I was tired of being used, and moved into the basement of the apartment we shared. I started dating Kyle, and was kicked out shortly after, despite having my name on the lease, and we haven’t spoken since.

Once again, I knew no one, despite having lived in that town for nearly two years. I was able to move into a slum apartment the next day, and moved from apartment t apartment for a while, until Kyle and I moved 45 minutes away to start our lives over. We still desperately want to get out of this area, but who knows when that will happen. Our next move will be on OUR terms. Mutually.

Never let anyone control you, or manipulate you, for their own gain. Don’t let them make you feel like you don’t matter. You do matter. You are important, too. You always have a choice. Always.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

Random Prompt | The Dumbest Lie I’ve Ever Told

“What is the dumbest lie that you have ever told? Why did you feel the need to lie?”

When I was in the 5th grade, I developed a crush on a guy in my class named John. John and his younger brother, Brian, were both popular, good looking guys, but weren’t all that nice, and didn’t really like me at all. In the 6th grade, I learned that John and his brother both played hockey, and had been playing since they were little. In an attempt to impress him, and get him to like me, I told all my friends to start spreading around a rumor that I played on a street hockey team. They agreed, and started casually slipping it into conversations.

The problem? We hadn’t agreed on any of the details. At all. Someone said I was a goalie, someone else said I was a cheerleader for a street hockey team, someone else said I played professionally… it was a complete mess. Word eventually got to John and his friends, who immediately knew it was complete crap. He didn’t find my desperation cute, or funny, and proceeded to tease and humiliate me, asking me hockey-related questions while we were in the cafeteria, or out at recess, that he knew I would never know. It was awful.

Despite the humiliation, in the coming weeks, for some idiotic reason, I kept going with the lie, making up excuse after excuse for my lack of knowledge. I even blew off a school dance and told people I had a big street hockey championship game. Eventually, I gave up. No one was impressed by my stories, or even believing a single word I said. To save face, I told everyone that I had actually quit the team, but maintained that it had been real the whole time. I later joined the field hockey team, and ended up being a freaking rock star on the field, but it didn’t make up for my ridiculous lie.

So what’s the moral of the story? Never make something up to try and impress, or get attention, from people. If people don’t like you for who you are, and how you live your life, then they aren’t worth your time and energy. Be who you are, not who you think other people want you to be. Lies always come back to bite you in the ass.

Always.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

Sinking Ships

** EDIT: Last month, the individual I wrote about reached out to me via Facebook to apologize for her actions and words. Apparently, she was simply following the lead of two individuals, who I once considered friends, who were talking about me, my son, and my parenting publicly, behind my back. We have since reconciled our differences, and have moved on. Thank you, to everyone who came to my defense in the days following this incident. And to those of you who maliciously and ignorantly attacked me and spread lies about me on social media, you should be ashamed of yourselves. **
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I honestly can not even begin to wrap my head around the ridiculous drama that I witnessed on Twitter today, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who had to witness such ignorance and maliciousness in their timelines, but here is what happened in my little corner of the internet.

Today was… interesting, for lack of a more creative word. It started out normal, for the most part. Li and I finished watching Hercules (we started yesterday but never got to finish), then moved on to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. We’ve been on a bit of a Disney kick recently. We had Cheerios and applesauce for breakfast, and leftover rotini for lunch. But suddenly, I became aware of some not-so-nice tweets that I was seeing splattered across my Twitter timeline from several sources. I didn’t know what, or who, had caused this random shitstorm of judgment, or who they were all talking about, but decided not to get involved. Until I saw someone responding to a tweet that vaguely sounded like it could have been written about me… you know, if the person who originally posted it had been horribly misinformed. Or psychotic. Or something.

That’s when I posted a few sub-tweets of my own, calling out the bitchiness going on on Twitter, and urging people to be nicer. Yeah, didn’t help. Instead, it got me put on a few peoples’ blocked lists. Good job, Jan! If they hate you, that means you’re doing something right! Right?

So, this morning, I noticed that Li’s last can of formula only had enough for maybe the rest of today, and randomly tweeted about it, because that’s what I do. I tweet things. Now, this was not really a problem, since Kyle would be home from work tonight and we could get some more then (since as most of you know, we only have one car, and I don’t drive). We also have plenty of baby cereal and baby food to keep any little tummy rumblings away. Once again, not a big deal at all. At least, I thought so. Apparently I was mistaken about my own situation though. Who knew?

So there I was, skimming through my timeline, reading tweets from people who I once considered my “friends”, that were horribly judgmental and passive aggressive things about people who are in not-so-fortunate situations. I guessed who a few of them were talking about, although I didn’t agree with that they were saying. Some were even posting hypocritical things about how people complaining on social media is annoying… even though I had seen them do it themselves countless times. But, hey, what would I know? Maybe that’s just how it works. Not all of it was necessarily directed towards me/someone in an eerily similar situation to me, just towards a few random people that they felt compelled to judge for various reasons. Some were even comparing their own lives to that of those they know nothing about, and judging them for how they deal with the situations they’ve been dealt with. And let me tell you, I can not stand people who compare their past problems, with those that someone else is facing today. Saying things like, “I dealt with ___, so you shouldn’t be whining about ___.” or, “Get a job if you don’t have money!” Neither of which is helpful, or supportive to anyone. Just mean.

But back to my situation. It was brought to my attention that a random woman on Twitter (who I did not follow, and who did not follow me), had tweeted to me, and someone responded, which I saw. Apparently I had her blocked from something in the past, which I don’t remember anything about. Looking at what happened today, this is not surprising in the slightest. I looked at her profile to see what she had said, and was honestly appalled. Or shocked? I don’t really know what I felt. This random woman publicly talked about my parenting, and said that she felt “terrible” for my son, after assuming that several things that I tweeted were about her. Well, they weren’t. As I said before, and as I said to her, I didn’t know her. I didn’t follow her. The tweets I posted were directed to the handful of “friends”, who have now been removed from my life, who I witnessed posting all the vile and judgment within them. But, for some reason, this girl who does not follow me, was watching my tweets, and thought my tweets revolved around her, and responded negatively to them. She called me a bad mother, and took SCREENSHOTS of my tweets, posting them on her own Twitter. That gave me a good laugh. And creeped me out. Apparently she also had a problem with people who ask for help with money on social media to help with their unfortunate situations, and did not like how someone was trying to raise money so that we could get a vehicle. Who knows who she was talking about, I just couldn’t tell because of the abundance of sub-tweeting, and lack of actually mentioning people in the tweets. I don’t see how it was any of her business anyway, but ya know, whatever.

Did I already mention that she didn’t even follow me but was keeping track of my tweets?

Creepy. Seriously.

You know, everyone deals with their shit differently. Some of us are more vocal about our struggles than others on social media, but we all bitch and moan about something at some point. But just because I share certain parts of my life on social media, that does not mean you know 100% of the details, and get to judge accordingly. Most of the time, when I tweet, it is about something great happening, or something terrible. You don’t always know all the middle part that lead to either. But despite knowing none of the details, she took a screenshot of two of my tweets, one complaining about the dirty dishes, the other talking about being almost out of formula. And based off of those two things, she got it into her head that I neglect my son, and do not take care of him. Aside from being really creepy, this was also irksome. I’m not exaggerating either, guys, those were her words. She said I NEGLECT my kid.

There were also other postings (by this individual and a few others) about people who don’t sacrifice enough, or anything, in order to take care of their children. Because they somehow got a hold of these peoples’ financial information, I assume, and know exactly how much they spend on their kids. Now, I don’t know if any of those tweets were directed at me, but for the record, I’ve had the same off-brand phone for over 2 years, which has been out of minutes for almost 2 months. I play no games that require membership fees, don’t have cable, haven’t bought any clothing items for myself in over 6 months, haven’t gotten a haircut in even longer, and eat frozen meals and other horrible things that don’t cost a lot of money, just so that I can make sure that my son gets clothes, diapers, toys, and good food. And he does.

BUT NEGLECT NEGLECT NEGLECT, YOU GUYS.

Despite my trying to correct her and let her know that she was very much mistaken, she had nothing new to add to the conversation, and just kept publicly repeating that I need to take care of my child, and that she felt terrible for him because I’m such a bad mom. Blah blah blah, broken record. And when she felt backed into a corner, because she must have realized by now that her overwhelming ignorance was making her look ridiculous, she got defensive and acted like a victim, pretending to know about my situation, and trying to say that she had been there and that I should get help, etc. I don’t know what her problem was, or why she felt the need to single me out, but it was getting annoying.

I couldn’t even get mad at the situation, because… honestly? What? WHAT? How did she even get to that point of calling me a bad parent based off of ONE tweet that had absolutely nothing to do with my parenting? It was just so ridiculous! Anyone who has known me for longer than 5 minutes knows that I love my son with all my heart. I post pictures of him constantly, where he is always smiling and playing. I’m a stay-at-home mom and spend every second with my baby. We eat all of our meals together, play together, sleep together (sometimes), watch movies together, go for walks to play at the park every other day, and he even sits on my lap and watches YouTube with me.

This was taken just this morning and uploaded to Twitter, but apparently she missed that one. Li and I have been watching Hannah Hart’s “My Drunk Kitchen” episodes on YouTube lately, and this morning we sat at my computer and watched together while snacking on Cheerios, and it was funny! He kept waving his marker at Hannah and Connor and laughing. He also really seems to like PewDiePie (more than I do actually, haha), as well as Dan and Phil. My kid has good taste!  This is so weird to me, guys, because I’ve never had to defend my parenting to anyone because, once again, what?!

I have an intelligent, happy, well-fed baby boy. He is above average in height and weight, and is further along in his development than most babies his age. How do I know this? Because ever since the start of my pregnancy, and ever since he was born, I have done nothing but read and research on how to take care of my little guy properly. But most of you already know that, since I talk about all of his wonderful milestones and discoveries all the time! I’m a good mom, and I know that. The only person I have to prove that to is my son, and judging by the permanent smile attached to his face, he knows it as well.

Maybe you should stop judging people for things you know NOTHING about, things you yourself took out of context and manipulated. If I post a tweet saying, “Huh, Liam is almost out of formula.” That PROBABLY doesn’t mean that I can not afford to feed my child, or that he is starving. It also does not mean that I am a bad mother who can’t take care of my child, or needs help. It actually probably just means his fucking can of formula is almost empty, and I need to go buy some more. That’s it. You do not get to call me a bad mother, because you clearly know nothing about me. If I post that I am “broke”, it doesn’t mean that we are living in the dark, starving, and freezing to death. It means that I wish we had extra spending money to spend on things for us, since (surprise!), all of our money goes towards taking care of our child.

So you can go ahead and judge away about things you clearly know nothing about, or you can worry about fixing your shitty attitude about people, and figure out why you feel the need to judge others so harshly, and to manipulate the situation to make yourself seem like the bleeding heart victim. Like turning around, after causing all the drama, and try to play it off like you were just trying to get me help or something? Yeah. I don’t need help. I never said I needed help. We’re doing great! But thanks for your… concern?

Today, I learned that loving your child unconditionally means nothing, because if you post a tweet about almost being out of formula, you are a neglectful, terrible parent. Who knew? I also learned that I need to keep better company, because I’ve apparently been surrounding myself with assholes. You shouldn’t consider someone a friend based solely on the fact that you have one or two things in common, because they may turn out to be a crappy human being. But, I fixed that, and can continue on with my life with all of the numerous people who showed me support and shared kind words with me during this unnecessary, somewhat hilarious, harassment.

Moral of the story: Never let someone else’s ignorance get you down. You never know, they might just be trying to help. But, more likely than not, they’re probably just a manipulative, rude person.

Out with the toxicity, in with the positivity!

I can not believe I even had to write this all out, since 99.99% of you know how much I love my son, but thanks for reading anyway and for laughing at this whole situation with me!

Much love,

Jan