Preparing is more than just Preparation

I had a massage a while back where the therapist asked how much driving I do. I didn’t exactly know how to answer the question. My brain was going through a lil’ list of measurements I could give. Time, miles, maybe how many bags I have for different occasions packed and cycled through daily/weekly. Nonetheless I have a tight schedule, which consists of bags cycled throughout the day that I need to keep up on that I’m constantly repacking for the next day. My brain is always working on time-efficient ways of doing things. Where can I shave time, to make more time here. It’s like my brain's favorite game. Still trying to justify tattooed eyeliner as a time saving investment.

So today, I wouldn’t exactly say I am dragging ass, but I am starting to realize in the assessing of my future goals and the lifestyle in which Chick and myself will have to endure, for what we have projected as 2 years. That I will have to make some major adjustments.

There are quite a few characteristics about myself that have been hardwired into who I am. Today I am realizing that I have come to a point in my life where I am going to have to make some decisions to break up with some long lived aspects of myself because they no longer serve a purpose. Also, I am 100% certain these traits of mine will cause a mental melt down on the road in a couple years if I don’t handle my business now.

The changing clothes multiple times a day for certain things, work, gym, meeting, home, etc. The taking a full shower without skipping steps, not pooing in public restrooms, wearing an underwire bra, washing hair twice a day with different shampoo and conditioner types, the use of multiple products, and things that I don’t “need” and the list goes on. It just can’t happen this way anymore. I got too much shit to do, and I don’t give AF anymore. I am 40 now, bras, ugh fuck it, sagging, sure sporting a heavy rack like mine, gravity is not kind, and the dreaded being self conscious about it, fuck, I am so over it. When every damn woman on Earth, okay… besides the itty titty bittys, (fuck them bitches, am I right? with love) suffer from the effects of gravity. Why do we worry about being perky and for whom? The men that suffer from extra ball sag? Dad bods are the new hot, are Mom bods not?

Nah. My youngest is almost an adult, I am joyfully out of the breeding game. My boys are and always will be totally worth it, but I’m good. Time to stretch my wings, and fly for a few years til the next generation of this bloodline comes. Plus this future Grandma will make sure to have tons of stories and adventures to tell over campfires, s’mores, and hot dogs. Wrapped in the pain, sorrow, sacrifices, joy, love, gratitude and miracles of all the lives of their ancestors' wisdom passed down. Providing life’s tools for the next to come through the knowledge gained and passed. These are the moments to pause for cause. Acknowledgment, and a bow of head in honor for all lost and given.

Back to the point. So, I had a bit of undiagnosed OCD growing up, everything in a particular place, order, movies in alphabetical order, books were by genre and size, all sorts of routines, even pooping, had to always be before a shower, if I had to poo later in the day because I ate something that messed with my poo schedule, (this is a real thing some poo at the same time every day), I would have to completely undress and set my clothes outside of the bathroom. It would cause immense stress if something was out of place, I could always tell if someone had touched something in my room. I’d go into hysterical fits if something was out of place. I did my own laundry, that was even done a certain way, my way. Everything had it’s spot, clothes in order a certain way.

I was never clinically diagnosed, this was simply because psychologists, the doctors when I had bruises, etc were essentially off limits per my mother’s wishes. Not that my health was totally neglected but psychologists were definitely off limits because they can get in your head. This was my mother’s thinking. Not that it’s not true to an extent, but when she was a teenage girl, she had been sleeping with one of her shrinks back in the day. I mean, she loved that man til the day she died. I believe that was part of her keeping me away from them (shrinks) in order to protect me from predators, I do believe or at least hope she knew deep down despite her feelings for this man that what he did by crossing that line was in fact wrong. Morally and professionally. She was a minor and he was in his 30’s. Regardless she protected him and his name til she passed away. Another thing, I think she was afraid of what the shrinks would find out about my mother's abusive nature. Or much worse she would lose the control she had over me, which she had at the time. I was eventually court ordered to go to counseling when the abuse in the home was outed by me opening my mouth to a friend, who then told their parent, so on and so forth.

I was never forth coming about the so called OCD issues in therapy. It was the least of my worries, and I’d start figuring it out later in life anyway. I believe most of my behaviors were about having control in some place in my life. My room was my safe place, and my sanctuary. Until it wasn’t, but it was the place I had most control, where I could be myself, lose myself in books, hide from the life I lived, hurt in silence. I was raised not to cry. The more I cried during a beating, it only got worse. You take it, and you get back up, if not you’ll be grabbed by a wad of your hair and stood back up to take more. Sounds barbaric, and yes it was, but today looking back I am grateful. It prepared me for life ahead of me, and in the moment, that last moment that she went to grab me by the hair, my head was already lifting, and I was already standing, and I fought back and won. It was MY right of passage, my finding of my two feet, me standing my ground, and her never laying another hand on me again and as a mother lioness bowing out knowing she did her part to raise a daughter that would stand up for herself and her job was done. No, I am not making excuses, my loves, this is the animal kingdom.

Now, with all this said and y’all wondering where the hell I was going with all this. In preparation for the trip in less then two years now, (only by 11 days), I am going to have to let go of some habits, bags/luggage, material things, routines, and aspects of myself. I have already been working towards this, and I am still finding I have a ways to go. LOL 😂 the whole moral of the story is in order to move forward you have to let go.