Friendship

I long for healthy female relationships. My current best friend doesn't know that I've started a blog and don't know if I want to tell her. What does this mean?

I know what it means. It means that what I feel and think inside would most likely hurt her feelings and that is something that I hate doing....hurting someones feelings.

So now, I feel I need to evaluate that connection and look at what it really is. I've been friends with this person for about 12 years....that's a long time at my age. I call her my best friend because out of my 2 friends that have, that I've kept in touch with through the years, I keep in contact with her the most. When I got pregnant with The Baby, I went through a phase where I cut out a LOT of people that were in my life at that point. I evaluated each person, what they brought to the table, their behaviour and whether or not I wanted my child exposed to them. That left me with my 2 friends (excluding family friends, who are in essence family).

Here's some background. The Man and I used to party...A LOT. Therefore so did the company we kept. When I say party, I mean PARTY. It was every weekend and sometimes during the week and not just drinking, EVERYTHING. 3 1/2 years ago we quit all of the hard stuff (drugs). Along with that transition, we lost a few "friends". Some tried to stick around and would every so ofter temp us with naughtiness, but we prevailed and have been clean regardless. The less we partied, the less people came around. We were at that point drinking occasionally, so those people would still come around to partake. I soon realized that I no longer enjoyed the company of my friends and most of the time they got on my nerves and I didn't want their behaviour around me. Then I got pregnant. All drinking ceased and any type of annoying behaviours was not allowed to even come close to me. For the first time in my life I had zero patience and zero tolerance for stupidity. I realized that my friendships were really not friendships, they were, well don't know what to call them, but they were not friendships. One person would go talk to another person and say that I said this and I said that and create all kinds of drama between my family, their friends and me. That person is no longer in my life because I just don't want that type of energy in my space. I was 30 at that point and something had clicked. All the drama and bs was not longer tolerable and I wanted nothing to do with it. After that connection was let go, it was much easier to let go more and more of them from there. It was time to think about my unborn child and the life I wanted for her.

So here I am, 1 year later. I want friendships...real friendships. I want to share my goals and dreams with the people that are close to me and not have to worry about them laughing at me or thinking I'm weird or offending them in any way. I know I shouldn't worry about what other people think and I'm working on that. For now I just want support and I don't feel like I get that from my close friends that I've kept in touch with. I have been reaching out to old friends that I lost touch with through the years and testing the waters to see if they are in a similar space as me. It seems like there are a few out there, but after all I've been through, I find it hard to really let myself go and trust. Maybe because I've been too lose with my trust over the years and trusted everyone, including people I shouldn't have. So now I'm at the other extreme where I'm afraid to trust and afraid to get hurt.

I long for acceptance, but hate that I do. I want to be confident in myself, my beliefs, my interests and not care if other people feel the same way. Well maybe not care is the wrong way to word that. I want to not worry about what other people think. I would really like to be able to say this is me, take it or leave it and be okay if they decide to leave it.

For so long, I've tried to act like other people to fit in with them. Now I want to act like me and feel like I fit into myself and my surroundings.

For example: I went to my best friend's kid's birthday party with The Baby. It was okay, I knew people there, but just didn't feel comfortable if I wasn't next to my friends side the whole time.
I need to stop worrying about how it's going to effect everyone else and start worrying about how it's going to effect me. Once I can find confidence in myself, then maybe I can start being concerned with the way it effects everyone else. Right now I think I need to focus on making myself healthy in every possible way. Then maybe when that time comes, the healthy people and relationships will fall into place naturally. Or so I hope....

Dance Party

The Baby and I had a dance party last night. She LOVED dancing with mommy.......for about 1 song. The rest of the time it was me dancing in front of her while she tried desperately to turn the volume up and play with the knobs on the receiver. She would occasionally shake her little booty to the beat when she felt the need to, which I think is the most adorable thing ever of course! Mean while, the dog was running around dropping his toy at my feet thinking that it was play time since I was jumping around. The best part about our fabulous dance party is that we were all in our PJ's! I think that if you're going to have a dance party that is the only outfit to wear. Our play list for the evening included 2 Cd's...Michael Jackson History and Tower of Power Greatest Hits. By the time Tower of Power was loaded, The Baby was rubbing her eyes and getting tired, so we only dance to a couple of songs and left the CD on for background music during her bath.

I felt so incredibly good after dancing with my loves that I think I will make it a weekly thing, if not more. I want The Baby to see that I can enjoy myself and unwind in ways other than watching TV or eating. We have a very limited time together after dinner and before bed and I want to make the most of it. I used to have her hang out with me in the kitchen while I cleaned up our mess from dinner, but lately I've decided to leave the clean up for after she goes to bed.

Being a full-time working, commuting mom means that I don't have much time with the loves of my life and I want to do my best to optimize the time we do have together. Now that The Baby is getting older and has a new sitter throughout the day I've realized that I need to really focus on playing with her and working on teaching her things. I'm pretty sure her new sitter doesn't take the time to teach things like colors and shapes and almost certain he doesn't read to her. She is a little sponge these days and repeating more and more things (or at least trying to) and I want to make sure she's getting the right influence. I don't want her to grow up thinking that mommies only cook, clean and talk. I want her to think mommies are fun and like to spend quality time with babies. We read at least 3 books every night before bed and now I've decided that we will play with her toys for the time in between dinner and bed. Even if it's only for 15 minutes.

Lately The Baby has been crying when I say good bye to her in the morning or when she can tell I'm getting ready to leave. This just breaks my heart!! Part of me worries that it's the new sitter, but the other part of me knows that this is because she is getting older and realizes that mommy is going to leave. Either way it brings up my mommy guilt and I haven't quite figured out how to deal with that yet. I remind myself that me leaving for work is a good thing and puts a roof over her head, but it sure is hard to leave that adorable little face in the morning, especially when it is tear stained and has the I want my mommy look on it. I don't know if it ever gets easier, but I sure it does.

That being said, it's Thursday and I have a 3 day weekend ahead of me! I'm very excited for the extra time with The Baby and hope that I might even get to spend some quality time with The Man. I won't get my hopes up, but it sure will be nice if it happens. :)

My First Post

After reading a lot of blogs lately I decided it was time to create my own. After a lot of prodding from a friend of mine, me thinking what would I talk about, when would I have time and who wants to read what I have to say, I caved. First of all I'm in a transition phase of my life right now and I need to start thinking outside of the box and doing things that are not "normal" for me. I've decided that I want so surround myself with different type of people and expose myself to new and different things. I've wondered how do I go about doing something like this and I figure this is as good as an avenue as any. I've finally figured out what I want to do when I grow up and am going to actually start on my adventure now. This is the first step to many to come. I'm tired of worrying about what other people will think and whether or not it's the right thing to do. It's what feels best to me and I'm going for it. It may take a decade, but that's okay. As long as I have a goal and a desire to better myself, that's all that counts. I'm finally at a place in my life where I feel like I'm on the right path...for me. We'll see where it takes me. I'm sure it won't be a straight path, but the straight path's are never as fun and I've never been the type of person who takes a straight path anywhere. So here it goes, ready or not, here I am!