Not Yesterday

Well it’s happened.  My emotions have boiled over.  I’ve finally reached the crying portion of quarantine.  I legit can’t stop and I know I’m behind in this trend and a lot of you have been crying everyday since March but someone grab a life hammer and save me from this snowglobe of tears.  I typically do not have a hard time finding the silver lining but this week finally broke me.  Between earthquakes, friends dealing with traumatic loss, friends getting attacked by dogs and a pendulum of Lifetime Network worthy emotions, I surrender.  There are three months left in 2020 – I need an escape tunnel, a $1,000 (or more) gift card to BevMo and wheelbarrow of chicken cheesesteaks.  And let’s just cancel Halloween shall we?  March through September has been creepy enough.  My life IS a haunted house.  Put the pumpkins away.  And in Florida news this week, a woman attacked her father in rage over his “excessive flatulence”.  Oh Florida.  The source of 87% of my joy this quarantine.  And if you want me to make you feel better with a really dark confession, I cried while watching Twilight.  TWILIGHT!  Just another crazy woman on Detroit Street.  Don’t mind me.

My pool is finally open again and can I get a hallelujah?!  It’s one of the main reasons I took this apartment.  Water brings me happiness…unlike my neighbor.  The soap opera continues.  Had a huge run in with her and, spoiler alert, I now have her phone number to let her know when her day raves and wooden clog relay races get too loud.  I came home to several neighbors already mad at her and then she looked to me for backup, she’s like, “I’m never loud am I?”  I THOUGHT YOU’D NEVER ASK!!  It was my moment of truth.  This was it.  All this build up and here we are – giddy doesn’t begin to describe it.  So I looked her dead in the eyes and said, “you’re pretty loud.”  And she had the audacity to be surprised which actually blows my mind into a thousand tiny pieces scattered by the wind and blown into the depths of the seven seas.  So then she gets all close to me, no mask mind you, drunk blabbering, “I used to have an abusive ex boyfriend…” and I’m like, “I know.”  And yet she carries on, “he’s a fugitive and I had to testify against him. (tears welling in her eyes) I just have really bad taste in men.”  It’s like, yeah…I KNOW, ARA!!  WE ALL KNOW!  Fix it will ya?!

Which brings me to breakups.  They suck no matter what side you’re on.  I’ve been unfortunate enough to be on both sides of the fence and neither one is fun.  If you have a heart, it all hurts.  It’s not easy saying goodbye to someone, no matter what’s become of the relationship.  It’s not easy hurting someone you care about.  It’s not easy when you’re blindsided by someone you thought would always be yours.  It’s not easy to let go of someone before they’re ready.  It’s not easy to watch someone walk away while your arms are still wide open.  It’s not easy knowing that being honest is going to leave devastation in its wake.  It’s not easy hearing someone tell you .  That’s the thing.  It’s not easy.  None of it is.  It helps if you’re honest, especially with yourself.  Sometimes what once made sense doesn’t anymore and other times we think we’ve got it all figured out only to have the proverbial rug pulled from beneath us as we fall back down to square one.  But that’s what’s great about life – it’s everything and nothing I imagined it would be.

I genuinely thought I was going to marry my first boyfriend.  In 5th grade, I thought my search for the one was over.  I was ready to spend the rest of my life with the kid whose hand I was too nervous to hold in the movie theater and gave me a yin-yang necklace for Christmas.  Using the words from the movie George of Jungle ‘This is the part where we throw our heads back and laugh.’  But that’s what’s so beautiful about young love.  You really truly believe that it will last forever.  And then I missed swim practice one morning and he asked out someone else like the beaded bracelet I made him meant nothing.  And that was my first heartbreak.  At the time it crushed me, but time went on and now I can’t help but laugh hysterically at how ridiculous it all was.  But that’s how it goes and I promise you, you will find the laughter in it all one day too.  I turned my most recent break up into a script and I dare you not to laugh.  It makes me laugh so hard I cry.  Breakups are hysterical if you look at them from the right angle…not immediately but eventually.  And if you’re not there yet, you’ll get there.  If you’re alive, you’re alright.  As The Chicks say, ‘Just be glad it’s not yesterday’.

I’ve been listening to Roxette all morning while writing and drinking an oreo shake.  Yes, it’s 9 in the morning.  There are no rules anymore.  I care not.  Do what makes you feels right in the moment.  You know when you’re at your friend’s house working out and realize the shorts you’re wearing you’d like to wear to the beach, so you take off said shorts and work out in your roos because that seems like the most rational decision at the time?  No?  Just me?  Cut to 10 minutes later when I look over to see my “friend” taking pictures like the conniving gremlin of a human she is and sending it to people.  If you’re ever wondering what kind of incriminating things might be out in the universe about you, know I probably have more.  There is a thick book of blackmail material on me in the universe and it all usually comes out around mid July every year.  It’s proof I do what I can to make sure this life is a good time.

So in an effort to help you find the fun in this week I have some final thoughts:  Shia, Shia, Shia.  Between finally getting to Peanut Butter Falcon and his performance during the Fast Times reading…I.AM.HERE.FOR.IT.  Give me more.  Huge applause for Schitt’s Creek making comedy history!!  EW DAVID!  I have been a fan of this show since the beginning – get on board!  It’s the laughter you need this week, I promise.  I drove past a Taco Bell on a Tuesday afternoon and the drive-thru line was the kind of length I wouldn’t wait in if it came with a Harvard degree and mediocre personal chef.   Okay, MAYBE for the personal chef.  But I did think to myself, ‘at least I’m not a sober Taco Bell eater.’  So cheers to drunk Taco Bell, breakups, working out in underwear, friends who make you laugh, the humans we love, old cassette tapes and that it’s not yesterday.  Kodros out Xx