Take One for the Team; a reflection on parenting

So I'm sitting here at this water park; I'm watching the bags while Mike, Nate, Calhoun, & Rachel (Calhoun's gf) go ride the rides and have a good time. But me, I don't do water like that, so I sit with my book and my swole belly. And this reminds of growing up; we would take trips to Six Flags and my mom would sit out and wait while we rode most rides. I guess she didn't do roller coasters the way I don't do water rides. I thought she was so boring and it was one of those things I swore I'd never do. I mean why come if you aren't going to do anything? But I get it now; it's a parenting thing. You don't want to deprive your child(ren) of experiences even if you don't share their enthusiasm so you take it for the team. You don't want them to look back and wonder where you were either; they can look over their shoulder and feel secure that you were always there. Maybe I should call her and say thank you. But I prob won't because she prob won't remember that it ever happened and it'll be awkward...probably...

When I grow up...**aka; dreams deferred**

So, I am sitting here; pregnant, married, unemployed (by choice), facing the end of my 20's, and for the most part happy with it all. Except.......I currently have no real/decided career path. Which wouldn't bother me So Much if society didn't tell me that that's such a problem. As a child I wanted to be stuff; a lawyer, a psychologist, and the owner of a tattoo shop. And those plans didn't really change until right around senior year of high school. It was then that I started getting the feeling of those plans being overwhelming and unattainable. Take a few years off after high school, help raise a child that wasn't mine, eventually enter college, on a technical/community level, not university. First came paralegal studies (but who wants to do all the work for less the pay/glory). Then came librarian (and all the insecurity of that field in the future). Then it was American Sign Language (which was very fun to learn...up to a point...). And now, it's [tentatively] a college professor of Religious Studies. In other words, the one consistent thing throughout my life that I've always wanted to be is.....A Mother!! I know...not a career per-se but honorable & notable none-the-less, right?? I mean, I think I am good at it...I seem to run a happy (if not very conventional) household. So...Well...why do I feel like whether I Want to or not, it's Not enough and I'm Supposed to do More?? Is that My voice or Society's??

When your imagination turns on itself....

I have a very vivid imagination, probably from a childhood of being isolated and having to entertain myself and years of a lot of reading. Most of the time this is a blessing; I am creative, can think outside the box, tell a good story, find humor where most people miss it, and I am open-minded. Of course, most gifts are curses too and this is no exception. I have always [half] joked that I was going to go complete bat-shit insane one day but I guess there's some scientific truth to it. I recently read an article saying that studies were finding links between creativity and insanity, starting with the fact that most of the greatest artists in history were also notoriously unstable. Not to say that I fancy myself as one of the world's greatest anythings, not now or later, but I get the whole instability link. While I try to be more open to sharing the gift side, I only give peeks into the darker side. I don't know if that helps everyone else or just hurts me in the end because sometimes I literally feel like I'm physically and mentally cracking. Sometimes when I close my eyes I see a macabre montage of grainy black & white images flashing. And no, I'm not lucky enough to see normal macabre, like skulls, etc...no, I just see non-descript forms and blurbs like a Rorschach Test that got caught in a house fire. Everything just cracking and melting and warping and bleeding black everywhere and I can't even catch the images long enough to focus and attempt to make sense of them. I usually end up just opening my eyes because if I don't I'll start to feel like a scream is clawing up my throat. And the day I just start screaming at least if you read this you'll know why, but I'd suggest you just roll me into my padded room because by then I'm sure Tanya won't be here anymore. Good times...

AliceD attempts poetry...

This is just AliceD rambling; could be the beginnings of a poem, or it'll just dissolve into the creative cosmos...but if you read it and want to add on, please feel free to do so in the comments; maybe we can go half on a poem-baby! Lol!

Subject me to a clarity of your pathology...your virtue & vice...let me IN
I know you think I can't handle it; you even deny it to yourself...
But I know...I know about the dark corners, places where we writhe on a bed of thorns and the red rushes to the surface, tantalizing & macabre...
It doesn't scare me, the ropes and the chains that rub rough and raw, the wax that glides hot, the twists and pulls, to give in and take it

The Return

im back!! i will repost my old stuff and hopefully add new stuff too and im now featuring posts from AliceDilligaf! Tianxia is all the love & light i have to offer and AliceD is the darker spaces that are just unavoidable...welcome to the slow decent into Dementia!!