Happy Mother’s Day

to my wonderful mother!

Thank you for being my bestest friend ever

and

for always being there for me.

There’s been too many days that I don’t know

what I would’ve done without you.

You are forever being kind, generous

and

thoughtful.

I hope you have the best

Mother’s Day

ever!

I love you with all

my heart!

xox’s

Love, Your Daughter

aka

***Disclaimer*** To those of you who are closest to me and reading this: This is NOT to be taken personally! It’s not directed towards you AT ALL!  To those of you who don’t me from Adam, this is not directed at you either. With that being said, here goes:

Am I the only one who holds grudges and has resentment-no matter how big or small the situation is??  Please tell me I’m not so I won’t feel like a lame-a$$.

I’m just in a weird place right now. I’m mad. And I’m holding a teeny tiny grudge. I’m not having resentment towards anyone in particular. Ok maybe just a tad, but resentment is resentment whether it’s towards a person or just a situation, right?  I know, I know, nobody said life would be fair. And it’s not. If anyone knows that, it’s me! But do you ever have those situations where things could be different but because of someone else’s situation, they’re not?

Which brings me to the next question… Am I supposed to be a martyr and say it’s ok and just suck it up? Or do I stand up for myself and be a bitch?

Martyr.

Bitch.

Not sure which one is more appealing….

From where I’m standing I’ll end up being both. A bitchy martyr. I feel that no matter how much bitching and moaning I’d do, the situation would remain the same. So one part of me says “why gripe in the first place if it’s not going to do any good?” Then the other half of me says “why shouldn’t I stand up for myself and speak my mind?”  The reason I’d like to say something is because I want my feelings to be known so that hopefully it doesn’t happen again in the future.

Can I just crawl up in a drunken stupor and sleep for a month or two??  No? Not allowed?

How ’bout a little rebellion?  ’Cause I’m feeling rebellious…

I’m sure as time goes by, this will all pass and then I’ll be feeling guilty over being resentful. And for holding a teeny tiny grudge. Oh, the guilt thing again… is guilt something women are just born with?? If so, I want a guiltectomy.

What about my feelings? Don’t they count? In my “former” life (*ahem* first marriage *ahem*), my feelings didn’t matter. Now I know that they do and I will stand up for them now. Especially after living in NY and getting a little attitude…

In the end, I know I’ll be forgiving. I’ll end up being the one to say I’m sorry. (Why me all the time??  Must be that stupid, stupid, boatload of empathy I have.)

After I’ve said my apologies, I’ll probably announce how great my appreciation is and profess my undying love.

Resentment sucks.

So get this:

Today, MONDAY MORNING, of all days, I’m waiting for our apartment maintenance guy to get here so that he can “paint” the tub in the hallway bathroom. The former layer of paint had bubbled up and started peeling. And I’m a picker. I can’t help but pick at things, although I do stay away from the nose. That would be MY nose, so if I know you well enough and you’ve got a ‘crusty’ hanging, I may just pick it. Another random thing you probably don’t know about me, is that when I see someone in public who has a blackhead on their face, it takes everything I’ve got not to want to reach over and pop it. But then I think about touching a stranger’s face and I’m over it. But I do have to look away. So I digress..

ANYWAY!!!!

I was told by the office staff that I’ll need to leave the apartment because the fumes will be too strong. Ok, I can do that. But that also means it will be too strong for our dog Baylee. And our (indoor only) cat Esther. ugh.

So what THAT means, is that I will have to load the dog, the cat in her crate, their food, water, and Esther’s litter box into my vehicle (my dad’s 1988 Ford single cab pickup truck) and leave for a couple hours. Where’s a girl and her dog and cat supposed to go?

And does the Queen look like she wants to be disturbed?   I DON’T THINK SO.

I think of Baylee and Esther as my (furry) kids, especially after my boys left to go live with their dad. I just can’t help it. But the thing is, they act like kids too. They fight like cats and dogs! (HA!  just couldn’t help myself!)  Actually, they get along most of the time except when Esther gets bored and tries to swat at Baylee’s face with her declawed paws.

Since the office couldn’t give me a specific time as to when the Tub Guy would show up, I have been packed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. All I have to do is get Esther in her crate-which could take HOURS if you remember this. She’s psychotic psychic and totally hides every single time I need to take her somewhere.

At last Tub Guy shows up, so I start to round up Esther. She’s hiding under our bed, as usual. Long story short, I had to roll the mattress halfway across the room while she kept crouching along under it. Finally I was able to pull her out from underneath. She gave me the hissing treatment. Obviously, this isn’t a good Monday for her either.

Now I’ve got the cat in the crate, the dog on his leash, my bags on my shoulders. I ask Tub Guy-who-mostly-speaks-spanish how long it will take for him to do the tub. He says about half an hour. I ask him about locking up when he’s through, and this is what he says:

EES OK, YOU STAY HERE, NO PROLLEM.

Empathy: Identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.

I don’t normally go around thinking about this kind of stuff, but the other day I started thinking about my empathy towards others when I was listening to the Cosmo Channel on SiriusXM Radio. The DJ’s-Taylor and Victoria-were talking about breaking up their relationships with close friends when that friend had done them wrong, but then after the relationship was over, they still felt badly/guilty over ending it.  That’s when I started realizing I’M NOT SO CRAZY AFTER ALL!!  (Ok, no comments!)

But the more I thought about it, the more I started wondering: to what degree is it normal to be empathetic? Where do you draw the line for being too empathetic towards someone? How bad does someone have to treat you before you don’t feel empathy towards them?

My ex-husband treated me, um, well, horribly!  I WANTED to leave him. I HAD to leave him. I DID leave him. And I took my kids with me. I don’t regret leaving, AT ALL. NOT FOR ONE SINGLE SOLITARY MINUTE. I think he totally got what he deserved for the way he acted. Growing up I was taught to be very considerate, think about other people’s feelings, and do unto others blah, blah, blah. At the time I went against what I was taught. When I left him, I was not considerate. I didn’t care about his feelings. But I was empathetic. I could identify with the emotions and feelings of anger, hurt, betrayal, and bitterness since I had felt them before. They were the same emotions that he probably shared with my boys, who now possibly hold it against me. Especially WS1. I’m not accusing, I’m just sayin’….

I’ve always been a good care taker, but never related it to empathy. I’ve also known that I’m really empathetic, but I never realized just how much until I started surfing the world wide web.  I came across an Empathy Test.  You know I had to take it!  I scored a 71. That sounds like a pretty average, normal score, don’t you think? That’s what I was expecting it to be anyway-NORMAL.  Until I saw MAXIMUM SCORE: 80.  Ooopsie!!  Then I started feeling bad about myself so I decided to take another test that I found. I scored 76% which comes in at “Medium High”. I also found this- “it does seem possible that one could feel too much empathy, to the point where they become overly-affected by another person’s moods”.

I always feel bad when someone, anyone is going through a crappy emotion whether I made them feel that way, they brought it on themselves, or just something that they’re going through. Maybe that’s why I’m usually the first one to say I’m sorry? Maybe that’s why I’m such a pushover?

I’m so doomed.

I’m pathetically empathetic.

I know you took the test! What was your score?