30 Days of Me

Why this? Because ...This is an exercise that a lot of bloggers are participating in at the moment. It's title says it all.

30 days of me. (Insert your name).

So there are some guidelines, and they are these.

Day 01 – Introduce

Day 02 – Your first love

Day 03 – Your parents

Day 04 – What you ate today

Day 05 – Your definition of love

Day 06 – Your day

Day 07 – Your best friend

Day 08 – A moment

Day 09 – Your beliefs

Day 10 – What you wore today

Day 11 – Your siblings

Day 12 – What’s in your bag

Day 13 – This week

Day 14 – What you wore today

Day 15 – Your dreams

Day 16 – Your first kiss

Day 17 – Your favorite memory

Day 18 – Your favorite birthday

Day 19 – Something you regret

Day 20 – This month

Day 21 – Another moment

Day 22 – Something that upsets you

Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better

Day 24 – Something that makes you cry

Day 25 – A first

Day 26 – Your fears

Day 27 – Your favorite place

Day 28 – Something that you miss

Day 29 – Your aspirations

Day 30 – One last moment

I think it will be fun, so I decided to give it a whirl. Today is my 1st entry.

Introduction: My name is Sue.

I started out as the 4th child of 5. I have two older sisters, an older brother and then a little sister, who is 3 years younger than I. I still call her my 'baby' sister, although she is old enough now to be considered anything but a baby.

I am 53, soon to be 54. I was married twice. I married my first true love when I was 17. We were married for 15 years and then time, and distance due to circumstances out of our control, came between us.

Sometimes I really wish that it was possible to go back in time and call a "Do Over" on our relationship. 

After we decided we couldn't repair what was left of our marriage, I went to Arizona and what was supposed to be a three week visit turned into three years. We divorced long distance.

I met Dan, my second husband, the night I arrived in Arizona. Talk about rebound relationships being bad for you...

My second husband was an alcoholic - and I thought I could cure him or help him cure himself. Then I found out that I couldn't, so I tried to adjust and live with it. If there is a hell... I was in it.

We're no longer together. I asked him to call his mother and to ask her to send him enough money for tickets on a train, a plane, a bus, a red wagon, a bicycle, or UPS. Needless to say, she did, and that was the end of us. The three and a half years that we were together seem surreal now... I was in absolute misery. I was away from my kids, I was living with an alcoholic who was also a diabetic on insulin, and who took no responsibility for his health other than taking his shot each morning before he went to work. After work was a free for all with the bars and the beer and there was frequently no money for rent, or groceries, or the phone, so I was cut off from people that I loved and needed to talk to. I worked, and my little paycheck was barely enough for rent, and gas to get to work. I can see how easy it is to try and take responsibility for the deterioration of the relationship when you're married to the alcoholic. I thought that if I went with him to the bars perhaps I could convince him not to drink so much. That didn't work. He seemed to drink more. Then I thought that if I didn't go to the bar with him that he would not want to stay and would not drink so much. That didn't work either. When my daughter graduated from high school I sold my car to buy plane tickets so we could come out to be there for her graduation. No one knows how desperately I wanted to put him on that plane and send him back to Arizona without me. However, I couldn't do that, and so after a week, I went back to my hell - my self imposed imprisonment I called it, and tried to live a normal life. I got no emotional support from Dan. I had not had physical relations with him in over two years because of the diabetes and the alcoholism. I could deal with that. We'd never really been able, anyway. After the first year, I grew tired of trying. He apparently grew relieved that I didn't want him to try anymore. So...There was no kind of bonding between us, physically, emotionally, or mentally. I was all about Dan. After I realized where our life together was headed, I wanted nothing but to be back in South Carolina with my family. I adored Dan's family, and they understood what I was going through. I worked as a night stocker at the Wal-Mart and tried hard to save enough money to get home on. I would have to buy a plane or train ticket, ship my belongings back to S.C. and figure it out from there... and the more I worked and tried to save, the more he drank and forced me to spend what I had put aside to keep a roof over our heads. Eventually I sat him down, sober, one evening, and told him that I was prepared to hitchhike back to South Carolina if I had to. I needed to be near my kids, I needed to be near my hometown, I needed to be home where my roots were, and after I spilled all this into his lap, he finally took me serious. I would be leaving Arizona, with or without Dan. He quit his job at Proctor and Gamble, took his 401-K and we rented a U-Haul, and drove that and his car, an old Ford Granada,  out to South Carolina.

That was another level in Dante's Hell (Dan's Hell?) He worked hard not to find a job, his diabetes which had never interfered with his ability to work and drink out in Arizona suddenly became a major obstacle in looking for work, applying for work, sleeping, eating, staying awake, and in essence, impaired his daily functions so that he was forced to sleep all day while I worked, which led to sleepless nights in front of the television, rocking and smoking, and then back to bed for the day. He quit drinking, but he also quit doing anything for himself. After almost a year of that, it was all I could stand, and I couldn't bear to be in the same room with him. I despised him, literally. I made my bed, as they say, and I laid in it as long as I could stand, but when your thoughts turn to ways to remove people from your life, it's time to get out of that bed and start making it over.

We're no longer together. Before I did something drastic and something that I would regret for the rest of my life, I asked him to call his mother and to ask her to send him enough money for tickets on a train, plane, a bus, little red wagon, automobile or a bicycle, or UPS. Needless to say, she did, and that was the end of us. The three and a half years that we were together seem surreal now... I was in absolute misery.

I work and support myself. I have worked at my job, off and on, for 15 years. There was a time that I became very ill with colitis and had to quit work on disability for about 4 years. I recuperated and went back to work at the same place. I consider the 4 years that I was out of work as a sort of vacation. It truly felt as if I had stepped out of my job for two weeks and then went right back to it.

Now I live with my 4 furry kids, Renegade (Ren), Little Bit (Ren's son), Josie (Ren's daughter) and Bayleigh who quickly determined that she was born to be the boss and who quickly convinced us of that as well. Bayleigh is a tiny-toy poodle with a bad heart who instantly claimed mine.

I quit smoking in December of 2005 after 35+ years of a long, expensive pack a day habit.

I took up jewelry making then. (And that turned out to be another expensive, but absolutely fun, habit). I make it and sell it and can add a few extra dollars to the bank account now and then.

I also learned that I can sketch people! Yay! I've made a couple hundred dollars sketching people, babies, and dogs.

I have plenty to keep me busy. If I dare to feel sorry for myself now and then, and I do, I take stock of what I have and what I can do, and I get over myself pretty damn fast... I don't buy into the psychologists and psychiatrists or mood altering drugs because if you have time to feel sorry for yourself for too long, then you aren't doing enough to keep your head and hands busy. If you are constantly worried about what you don't have then you'll never appreciate what you do have. If you have to lay awake at night trying to figure out how you're going to make that new car payment, then maybe you shouldn't be buying a new car. If you have a champagne taste on a beer budget, it's time to switch that around. Eventually you'll get what you need. Maybe you won't always get what you want, but if you have what you need, you're better off than most.

That's my philosophy. I get that from my Daddy.

Do-overs would be great. But they're not possible so it's best to move on. My ex, Joe, asked me recently, if I was happy. I answered that I was. I'm as happy as I can be given my circumstances. Could I be happier? Possibly. If I had more money, if I had a bigger house, if I had a newer car, if I didn't have to worry about mowing the lawn or taking off the trash, I could be happier. But because I have what I need, and I have enough to share if my family or dear friends need an extra dollar occasionally, I can't complain.

Why am I telling you all of this in my introduction? Because you should know, if you don't already, that I'm what you might call jaded to self pity. I have been called a 'tough bitch' at times in the last 15 years. It's absolutely true. I may be listening to someone recount a sad tale of having no money to buy something that they've seen and decided they just have to have. I am quick to tell them to suck it up, tough it out, do without, or shut up whining and figure out how to get the money. Work, work harder, work two jobs if you have to, or just shut up and do without or go in another direction all together.

I don't have a problem saying that to anyone.

I came back to S.C. with a car and my clothes and a husband. Over time I lost all of that, and started over with nothing but willpower. Now I own my home - a used double wide that needs maintenance, and repair all the time - but it's mine. It isn't the Taj Mahal, but it's better than some have, or will ever have. I am thankful and fiercely protective of it. I have a 1996 Dodge Neon that isn't the nicest car in the neighborhood, but it gets me from A to B and back to C.

I have a soft heart, and I'll give you as much as I can afford to give away - but don't look to me to feel sorry for you if you're in a bad marriage and you can't ' get out' of it because you're scared to make it on your own. That's BS and I will tell you that to your face. I have no patience with people who don't try to be self sufficient. I am. I have fought and struggled and done without, I have accepted less, and I have been given more than I ever deserved sometimes. I have given to charity and I have had charity bestowed upon me. I have too much pride sometimes, and I have no pride at others. I do what has to be done, and I don't do anything that I don't want to do.

Don't let me know that you abuse kids, old people,  or animals. I, quite possibly, will kill you. At the very least, I will make sure that the abuse stops. Someone will be notified.

Both of my parents are dead. My dad died in 1984 of lung cancer from asbestos. My mother died in 1986 of congestive heart failure... I will swear, on anyone's Bible, that she died of a broken heart. If your parents were good to you, and if you are lucky enough to have them living still, don't take them for granted... Love them, talk to them daily if you can, and if you can't, make a way to do so.  My oldest sister lived two miles from us and she called my mom EVERY day - except for the days we were on vacation because cell phones had not been invented yet... She called just to talk and they had conversations that were an hour long almost every time. When we moved to within 1/2 mile of each other, she still either called every day, or came over. There was never a day in my mothers life that she had to wonder if she was loved or thought about. I was not so diligent. I had to call her long distance so we talked once a week usually. Still, she never doubted that I loved her or Daddy.

So that's me. It's who I am and what made me this way. I took some tough roads and I learned how to navigate through life because of it.

Take me as I am or look elsewhere for what you needed from me because as Popeye said " I yam what I yam".

That's enough. Right?