Category: Quotable Quotes and Potpourri

Life Is Waiting

by maryhelenc, posted in Dear Blank, Douchers, MH vs Dating, Mommydom, My New Life As Me, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, WWE Wrasslin'

In the words of the late Owen Hart:

“Enough is enough & it’s time for a change.”

My life has been in this sort of holding pattern & I feel stuck.

Truthfully, my life hasn’t really been my own for a long time. I like to pretend it is, but it hasn’t been. The divorce & custody proceedings have kept me from adequately planning a future. For six months, I’ve kept my personal life on hold because I believed a person who promised me they would always come back for me, no matter what. So, I waited, rejecting any possible suitor because I trusted that he’d come back for me like he said he would. The divorce is final, & people break promises every day (the MH fatal flaw, believing in promises & holding them sacred). Law is definitely not for me & my media prospects are limited, & this leaves me spinning my wheels, wondering what to do.

I’m professionally dissatisfied, personally dissatisfied & just kind of blah. So, I need to start coming up with a plan to make my future more what I’d like it to be, instead of waiting, hoping it’ll all just fall into place. I need to take control of my life & make it work for me, no more excuses.

First thing is a career change, one that requires an education that is only offered far from Windsor. It’d be a better fit for me, something more people focused & less paperwork. Perhaps leaving Windsor is what I need. You can’t wait for something that is never coming if you’re not near it. Maybe putting as much space there will make it easier, because I don’t want to keep waiting for something that just won’t happen. The one thing that worries me most is leaving my good friends to venture somewhere that I don’t know anyone. But I didn’t know anyone when I moved to Windsor & I met amazing people. Maybe it’ll happen again. I’d only be a train ride away & technology will keep us in touch too. However, I’m not sure that I want to leave town to pursue a career that may or may not be right for me. Then I’d be far from my support system and still have no clear direction.

There’s also the girls to consider. They need their Dad & I’m not sure how he’d feel about us leaving. Obviously, we’d need to work that out and I’m not sure how well that would go, seeing as he has no access to transportation, which would impede him from being able to see them on a regular basis, which isn’t something I want to restrict the girls from.

Truthfully, this is only one plan. Plans change all of the time. But I definitely need to figure out where & who I want to be so I can do that. I’m not good @ complacency, I need to start achieving…once I figure out what that is.

Mirrors

by maryhelenc, posted in Celebrity Fluff, Dorkdom, Mommydom, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, Relationships

“One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self…”

Yesterday marked the birthday of one of the greatest minds in the history of everything; Mr. Rogers.

Yes, Mr. Rogers was a freaking genius. He believed in handling things in his life with quiet honesty, talking to children like they were actual people, and helping them understand the world with gentle guidance and patience, something the modern world is missing. Mr. Rogers was a genuinely good man, who loved God, wore sweaters made by his mother and was devoted to his wife until his passing in 2003. He was arguably one of the most beautiful souls on Earth and I’m so glad his family decided to continue his legacy by recreating the world of make believe on Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood, a favourite of my three year old.

Mr. Rogers believed that kids could spot a phoney from a mile away, which is true (nothing is crueller IMO than hurting a child. If a child truly loves you, adores you, and thinks you’re special and you hurt them or walk out on them, then you should reevaluate who you are as a person, because you’re probably horrible), so he opted to be as honest and kind as he could, so that children knew he cared about them. He taught them such things as it’s okay to get mad, as long as we don’t hurt people. It’s okay to be hurt and it’s okay to feel sad. Mr. Rogers helped kids to understand that it’s okay to have feelings.

Mr. Rogers also believed that love was the most important thing ever. He said the greatest lesson we could teach someone is that we love them and that they were capable of being loved and giving love, something we as adults lost somewhere along the way. One thing that he wanted to remind people was “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” Another lesson lost on adults. Sometimes, we love people. Sometimes, they suck. Sometimes, you suck. Sometimes, we all suck. But we expect everyone to understand our flaws while rejecting the other person’s. We expect perfection while demanding acceptance.

Maybe I really am just a naive person with a child-like outlook @ the world, but I like how Mr. Rogers looks @ things. It’s okay to be angry/sad/kooky/batsh*t crazy and you’re still worthy of being loved. You’ll eff up royally and you still deserve to be loved and you can still love people even when they aren’t perfect. In fact, it’s totally okay. All of your emotions are valid and it’s okay to talk about them and kindness works so much better than cruelty. It just all sounds so much better than tearing each other apart, driving people away and doing terrible things to one another. I think I’d like the world a lot better if we adopted Mr. Rogers’s school of thought, maybe we would enjoy being neighbours.

Here By Me

by maryhelenc, posted in Dorkdom, Mommydom, MusicIsLifeIsMusicIsLife, My New Life As Me, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”

One of my best friends hates going out with Drew and I.

Apparently…we’re…children.

Drew & I are just silly. We sing along with the mall music, skip, order our Yogen Fruz in a Swedish accent and firmly believe in the area code rule, where we get to act as ridiculous as we want as long as we’re in a different area code. I wear a Pikachu hoodie in public (which I get a lot of compliments for, people love Pikachu) so my concern about what people think of me isn’t that high; Drew cares even less. Her logic is “What will people think?” Well, they are total strangers, so…uh…who cares?

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Life isn’t that serious. While yes, there are aspects of life that should be taken seriously, like employment, or parenting (which should also be fun. We as parents need to learn to be silly, make faces and sing songs and let kids enjoy being children by getting down to their level, not the other way around) and relationships, but when we’re old and gray and on our deathbed, we’re not going to remember those moments that we paid the gas bill, or that boring trip to the mall where we bought socks and went home, or the time someone wasn’t there. We’re going to remember fun filled adventures, warm moments, love in our heart and the times someone was there. We waste time worrying what people think about choices that don’t really affect them and impact our own lives instead of doing what’s best for us and our families. We spend too much time worrying about being judged by the company we keep, even though that company may be the best person for us. My friends aren’t necessarily the “best” people in the world. Maybe their ethics aren’t the same as mine or aren’t as educated or maybe are completely insane. But they’re awesome, so meh.

Let’s stop taking life so darn seriously and enjoy it more! It’s okay to be silly, goofy and just plain weird. Not everything is this super serious moment of truth; sometimes it’s just going to the bookstore. So, let’s save the seriousness for the moments that need it and enjoy the rest of them in our own unique way.

Nothing Left To Say

by maryhelenc, posted in Celebrity Fluff, Douchers, My New Life As Me, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, Relationships, Seriously WTF?

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I hear people say this a lot and I don’t think it’s a statement about society now more than it is about us as a people, in which we genuinely expect people to hurt us.

We live with this ideal of “stranger danger” where people we don’t know are going to hurt us or insult us because of the way we wear our hair, or our clothes, etc. (Drew & I were guilty of this, as we brutally lambasted the frontman of the Neon Trees for this right before he performed Everybody Talks). But we all think of strangers as jerks, people who suck and are mean and are just looking to screw us over. That’s why when a friend or a loved one hurts us, we end up crippled, because we honestly expected them not to.

We trust the people we care about, sometimes blindly. We love and adore them and think they can’t hurt us ever. They will never say a snotty thing, never do something we don’t want them to, never act like a douchebag. We put them up on such a pedestal and think they are perfect and angelic and so freaking wonderful. Then, the reality sets in and they are in fact sometimes a huge, raving jerk. Then they do something stupid and we’re crippled because we just don’t understand how this person we saw so much good in could hurt us so freaking much.

We need to abandon the idea that the people we love won’t hurt us, because they will. People hurt each other, intentional or not, but it happens. The one attribute that I am most proud of is that I am completely incapable of intentionally hurting someone I love. I can’t. I don’t know how to do it and the thought of it makes me so upset to the point that I end up puking. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you, it just means I can’t do it on purpose (It’s not all selfless, for some people, my inability to get pissy and throw shade their way has more to do with the idea that they could get pissy right back and hurt me. But for about seven people in this life, it’s simply that I can’t). I’m sure I’ll lose my temper and shove my foot in my mouth, do something stupid, act super whiny or annoy the piss out of you. It’s just that I can’t do it on purpose. I know many people who are perfectly capable of destroying someone they love, tearing them to pieces until there is nothing left of them, some of those people are my closest friends. It doesn’t mean that one of us is “better” than the other, it just means that I don’t have that mean streak. Some people have a different brand of morality than others and that’s okay.

I think we need to stop holding the people we love to unrealistic expectations. You can love someone and sometimes hurt them. Just because they can’t retaliate doesn’t make them weak or you an asshole, it simple means you’re wired differently. You need to accept that & work on curbing that dark side of you. Just because someone is nice doesn’t mean that they can’t be a raving bitch some days. Just because you are capable of hurting someone who trusts you doesn’t mean that you will always hurt them, it just means you have to be more mindful of how you treat them. Maybe people need to stop promising each other that they won’t hurt them, but that you’ll try hard not to, and if you do, you’ll be really sorry and talk it out together.

Mission Bells

by maryhelenc, posted in Celebrity Fluff, MH vs Dating, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, Relationships, Seriously WTF?, Social Media, Television

I know I’ve mentioned it a million times but I seriously HATE The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise. So much.

First of all, I hate how my Twitter TL is all “This is so romantic” or “Poor ____, it won’t last” or “That’s the only type of proposal I want. Neil Lane ring too, because that’s real love.” Please all go die in a fire. Secondly, I hate that it’s considered super romantic to compete with 29 other people for some person who is systematically toying with a whole bunch of emotions. Then you can’t see each other in the really real world after the show, because your “love” must be exploited for ratings. Barf.

None of it is real. None of it. The exotic locations, the phoney dates, all of it is for show. Yes, it has produced two successful marriages, the exception isn’t always the rule (My friend got married on her fifth date, but that doesn’t mean it works for everyone). These people don’t know how to roll with the punches, with the crap that sucks, with the fights and the clogged drains and the communication mishaps, etc. While it all seems romantic, these stupid shows give the idea that love is warm and fuzzy and dare I say, easy.

Even Nicholas Sparks added conflict. While people remember that Noah and Allie from the Notebook conquered every obstacle, including years of separation to find their happy ending, people forget that they fought every day. It wasn’t easy; they fought all of the time! They struggled and worked to endure and they did. But that gets lost along the way amongst the swans and the romance. IMO, the greatest quote from that book and film is this one:

“Well, that’s what we do. We fight. You tell me when I’m being a arrogant son of a bitch; and I tell you when your being a pain in the ass, which you are, 99% of the time. I’m not afraid to hurt your feelings. You’ve got like a two-second rebound rate; then you’re back to doing the next pain in the ass thing. It’s not going to be easy, No. It’s going to be hard. But I’m willing to work at this; because I want you. All of you. Forever. You and Me. Everyday”

Real love, true love is the person who knows you’re a douchebag and still wants you. The person who understands that you probably suck, you’re not as great as you think you are (or as horrible as you think you are) and accepts everything you do, even those things that suck ass. They love you when you’re the least likeable, when you do the things that your friends hate, they hold onto you when you push them away and even when everything sucks and nothing looks hopeful and you can’t even stand that person’s face, you still want to try, one last time to see if it all works out. Yes, that seems a little dramatic, but it’s true. All of the greatest couples that I know have had their shares of miscommunications, problems and struggles. Maybe money was tight. Maybe they didn’t know how to talk to each other. Maybe they broke up and acted like total dicks and in a moment of clarity realized he/she was the right person and started over. We don’t have an instruction manual to help us deal with other humans and we generally mess it all up. But the person who’s right for you is willing to work through all of the stuff that sucks to get to the parts that are amazing and that’s not something you can get from a TV show. You get to do cool stuff and go to pretty places, but how are you going to handle the tough times, when you’re not on the same page and you need to slow down/speed up, or the dishwasher is broken, or you got in that big stupid fight about stupid stuff? That’s the thing that truly defines love.

Truthfully, if someone could love me for me, through my general kookiness, give me a million chances, understand that I’m too nice to get angry and I’ll probably cry 18 times a month, the locations, the ring, the “love story” would mean nothing to me. Give me a garbage tie and tell me you won’t give up even when I’m a douchebag. We need to stop looking @ TV love like it’s any kind of real love and look for the actual epic love; the person who truly gets you, even when you are your worst self, because they make you strive to be your best self.

You Make It Real

by maryhelenc, posted in Douchers, Mommydom, My New Life As Me, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, Relationships, Seriously WTF?

“Is it possible that all the horrible things you’ve done have been forgotten by everyone-except yourself?”

Have you ever done something so super horrible that you can’t forgive yourself?

Sure you have. We all have.

Guilt is a funny sort of thing. I have all kinds of guilt. I feel guilty when I’m working because I’m not spending enough time with the kids. I feel guilty for just wanting 20 minutes in the bathtub by myself. I feel guilty for things that aren’t necessarily my control. It sucks, but that’s how life sort of works. We’re always going to feel some kind if guilt.

However, we can’t feel guilt if we don’t care. I love my girls beyond reason so that’s why I feel guilt when I can’t give them what they want. You cannot feel guilty for an action towards someone you do not care about, so when you feel guilty about something, you need to look @ why.

Most of us don’t let the guilt go. We hold onto it, envelop ourselves in it & pretend we’re cool, when we’re actually struggling. We’ll pretend we’re doing the right thing when in reality, all we’re doing is hurting everyone much deeper because we want to punish ourselves for what we feel we have done.

My daughters don’t punish or shame me because I sometimes have to work. We just make the next day better. But humans have this mad desire to make things equal, when no relationship is ever equal. Parent-child isn’t equal, sibling is not equal, and even lover-partner is never truly equal. One will always care more than the other. One will always be more capable of hurting the other. One will always feel like the other is “better”. But the thing is that we should use that feeling to drive us to be better people, the person they see in us, so we don’t have to feel guilty anymore.

Hiding from guilt doesn’t make it disappear. Pretending it isn’t there only means you’ll feel it later. The only way to truly be free of guilt is to face it, atone for it & do your best to make it right. I can’t always make it up to the girls when I have to work, but I can do my best to make the next day better, because what they need is time with me & they’re happy. Chances are, the solution is simple & the guilt will be gone, because you’ve finally done what will make everyone happy, & you’ll be happy because you don’t have to live with that feeling of regret & remorse anymore.

Flapper Girl

by maryhelenc, posted in Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, Relationships, Seriously WTF?, support Windsor!

Today is International Women’s Day.

As a mother of daughters, I like to remember how blessed I am to live in a nation that allows gender equality. So many women are denied basic human rights & democratic rights. Please take a moment to look into these issues & help when you can.

Every year, I like to address an issue that affects women. This year is no different. We as women need to start taking care of each other. Stop the combative nature. Stop hurting each other. Stop bullying each other.

We tear each other apart. We belittle other moms, we belittle our friends relationships, we give advice that shames, because we don’t support each other. We pick apart every action another woman takes & it needs to stop. We blame the victims of assaults instead of supporting them & we need to stop.

Women need to stop hating & shaming other women. Resist the urge to be catty & build each other up. If we as women show the younger generation that we can support each other & not bully, shame & hurt each other, maybe the younger generation will do the same.

So, let’s stop calling each other fat, ugly, desperate, a loser. Stop pointing out flaws & build each other up. I think Madeline Albright said it best:

“There is a special place in Hell for women who do not help other women.”

The 2013 30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 28

by maryhelenc, posted in ASH Blog Projects, Dear Blank, Douchers, MH vs Dating, Mommydom, My New Life As Me, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, Relationships, Seriously WTF?, When Things Suck Hard

Day 28: What is your love language?

***Dear readers, I apologize if this is more personal than the general crap that I produce that I pretend people enjoy. I promise to bring my vapidly endearing brand of self-depreciating wit back tomorrow.***

My love language?

I don’t.

My former husband calls me a lot of things; frigid, cold, and a bunch of insults I won’t publish here. I guess in a way, he is right.

I love my daughters, I love my friends. But I don’t love men. Well, not in the conventional sense. I base my relationships on logic. I choose mates based on what makes sense for me, my daughters, does it work on paper, with one exception. My love life mainly consists of first dates that I leave early or never call. The last guy who made it to date two told me that he thought he wanted to get to know me better; I told him I wanted to go home. They didn’t meet my ridiculously long list of criteria that makes the ideal mate. I loved my husband as a companion, as a friend. He offered security in a time when I had none and I became dependent on him for the air I breathed. I took most of his rage because I thought I deserved it because I couldn’t give him the validation he wanted because it just wasn’t there. So, I would be nicer, try to be that perfect wife, but I couldn’t do it. When the marriage was over, I didn’t cry. I missed our friendship, but I didn’t miss being his wife. Matrimony was never high on my list of priorities anyway. It never has been I got married because it’s what you did; you date, you get married. I’ve only wanted that once, for about a month, and then I got really scared that I was going to ruin it and wanted to stay in one place for awhile. I’m scared of the big steps and like to stay where I am. I’ll get excited about the idea of moving forward for a little while, but then I’ll wanna stay in the happy moment, right there and just “be”, because I struggle with the idea of someone getting too close to me, wanting to get inside of my head. It scares me. Even my closest friends don’t know much about me. I claim I’m an open book, but I’m not. I am about my current life, and some of my younger years, but that’s it. I put up walls to keep people out, because I have a heightened fear of abandonment and I’m afraid if people got to know the side of me that is much darker and sadder than the socially awkward, happy go lucky dork, they won’t love me anymore. Anytime someone gets close to me, I get scared that they won’t want me anymore and end up sabotaging the whole thing. I don’t mean to…I just get…scared that if I’m not super woman and just a normal human girl, then I’m not going to be “good enough.” So I go overboard trying to be the best possible MHC so they won’t want to understand why I’ll get so scared over the tiniest thing or sometimes want to stop and be reassured that you won’t go anywhere.

Truthfully, I’ve only truly loved one man. I was attracted to him from our second meeting, so much so, that I had to keep a certain distance (as I was you know, married). He was the exception, he didn’t meet my criteria, was the opposite of everything I had ever looked for. I loved every good, bad and even cruel thing about him. Even when he tore my heart out, I loved him & blamed myself, because he wouldn’t have done it had I not deserved it. I thought he loved me, truly loved me, even though I’m a scatterbrained, sort of crazy nitwit who cries a lot. He even saw that part of me I don’t show people and he still seemed to love me. Because I thought he loved me, I would have given him anything and bent over backwards for him, maybe too much, because he was just so good in my eyes, & I wanted to make him happy. I guess I wanted so badly to make him happy so he would never have to fear getting hurt. If I got hurt, I didn’t care, as long as he knew I couldn’t hurt him ever. I believed every word he said, especially his promise to always come back for me, because even if we got the start wrong, we’d get the ending right. When he was gone (& I realized he wasn’t going to keep that promise), I felt like someone had hacked off a limb, it was like a part of me was gone & I broke down. Me, the girl who didn’t cry when her marriage fell apart, who didn’t cry at the absolute worst moment of her life, just stood there back straight, refusing to give anyone the satisfaction of showing pain, cried like a lost child who didn’t know where to turn. Sometimes I think I’ll always be lost. Never is such a short word but such a long time to live without someone. Ironically, always is a longer word & even longer time, when the one you’ll love always is also your never.

I write about the idea of love, because it fascinates me. The idea of one person who doesn’t share your DNA that you want to spend your life with, are miserable without them and better with them? It sounds so easy but it’s actually so hard. I watch people in love and wonder why it’s not easier. If you love someone, you would do anything to be with them. But no, we let our own baggage, insecurities, hangups, get in the way. We won’t swallow our pride when we fight and admit we were wrong. We don’t tell people when we’re scared.Sometimes we don’t even like that person, but we can’t live without them? People always tell me that you work to make love work, but I’ve never seen anyone do it, myself included. We just walk away when it gets a little hard, then we pretend it’s not eating away at us, but it is. I look at my foster parents, who are still in love after so many years and wonder how we can do that in a disposible world. I could, for the right person, but both people would have to want to and generally that’s not the case, even amongst most of my friends who are married. One is trying while the other isn’t.

“We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don’t even matter, while all that time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets! It’s time to put an end to this. It’s time for us to let ourselves be loved.”

The 2013 30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 24 & 25

by maryhelenc, posted in ASH Blog Projects, ASH General, Celebrity Fluff, Dorkdom, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri

Day 24: Describe your family dynamic as a child vs. now.

I have already sort of done that on Day 3 so I’ll just link it up back there. My childhood was…strange, so I’d rather not get into it.

Day 25: If you could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be and why?

Edgar Allen Poe.

Not just because he’s my favourite author, but because he’s an interesting guy. He was a drunk who suffered from bouts of meloncholia, married his cousin and wrote a bunch of murder mysteries that were beyond amazing. We could talk about writing and get really drunk while bitching about our respective lives. It would be a hoot. As long as he didn’t knock me out cold and bury me behind a wall, I’ll be really happy.

Radioactive

by maryhelenc, posted in Dorkdom, Quotable Quotes and Potpourri, Relationships, Seriously WTF?

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Word.

I’ve mentioned this quote in two other posts (HERE & HERE) & I love it so much, I’m going to reference it back again today:

“Most of the problems in life are caused by: 1. Acting without thinking & 2. Continuing to think without acting.”

I’m a horrible over-thinker & listen maybe too well…sort of. I couldn’t tell you what I learned in Transcription class this week, but I could tell you every word my friends & loved ones have ever said to me. Then I look @ the words that contradict the words said before & get confused.

But I also act impulsively & do dumb things. We all do & those are the things that end up hurting people that we care about. Then we overreact instead of trying to understand the other person’s POV, we simply react, lash out, cut them completely out of your life, get mad, etc.

So, then what?

You linger in the shadows of their life, lurking in doorways, revisiting what happened. Wishing you could repair that friendship, relationship, whatever. Anything of course, but do something about it.

You’ll listen to the familiar songs, reminiscent of that time, you’ll look at the old photos & laugh @ the memories. You’ll visit the places you used to go, haunt them like a ghost & cling to that last link to that person, but you won’t take that step to say “Hey, I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

It’s funny how humans are genetically designed to recoil from pain, but then will hold onto to the most painful things. We will wrap our guilt around us like a blanket, torture ourselves with it, but make no attempt to be happy. We’d rather hide in the dark. Maybe we all need to step out of the shadows & stop watching & start enjoying. Stop lurking on the fringes, stop dancing around, using every alternative method to hold on & actually do something. Life’s not meant to be spent hiding, asking what if & waiting to make that move, because in the end, it’s just another what if!

“What if I waited too long & I lost everything?”