And Before I Knew It My Boobs Were On The News

It was recently brought to my attention that posting the pictures that I do on here might make me look less than professional and that if my identity were to be revealed, that I might lose support for my nonprofit.

Sigh.

For all of about ten minutes the “unprofessional” comment stewed about in my brain while I tried to determine exactly how I felt about it.

You see, they had a point. I can definitely imagine that if the media were to flash a scantily clad photo of me across the 6:00 news, paired with one of my blog title’s such as “should I bang both of them,” that it might catch people off guard and cause some controversy. I can absolutely see how it might cause someone to reel back a little bit and think “I’m supporting her nonprofit?” I can see how this might not look too great for me.

I thought about it for the entire ten minutes and I decided that I hated it.

I hate the fact that once again I’m being reminded that the entirety of the person that I am could be judged based on how I present my sexuality. That all that I am, all the work that I do, could be washed away completely and the only thing left of me in the public eye might literally be myself and my underwear.

The more that I thought about it, the angrier that I got. Not at the person that brought it to my attention, but that he had a valid point; society might very well judge me based on the pictures that I choose to post of my body. Do you know the message that sends to our women? That our body is our most important feature; that all that we are can be defined by what we do with our body. If that’s true, then that really makes me sad because my body has already been beaten, abused, and treated like trash multiple times over, so I guess my most important aspect is tarnished.

Conversations I Did Not Think I Would Be Having This Week

Do you ever find yourself thinking "I can't believe I just said that?" Mothers, I know you do this. "Stop licking your sisters eyeball. Get your toe out of your brothers cereal." I find myself thinking "I can't believe I just said that" at leave five times a day, so this week I thought it would be fun to let you be a fly on the wall in Eden's life.

Every night when I tuck the girl child into bed I ask her the same three questions; “What was the best part of your day, the worst part of your day, and the funniest thing that happened?” Normally she rattles of a few things that can only be considered poignant in the brain of a five year old, but on Monday night she surprised me by saying “Or how about we talk about the boys that I like.”

"Um….what?" was about all I could stutter out.

“The boys that I like mommy, let’s talk about them.”

“Girl child, what do you mean ‘like,’ like you want to play with them and be their friends?”

“Yea some of them, but some I like a little more, like Cameron. I asked him to marry me.”

Apparently my kid got engaged at daycare. Please see also: We are now homeschooling.

“And what did Cameron say honey?”

“He said yes, when we are 30.”

“Well it sounds like you picked yourself a very smart boy.” Now I’m thinking ok, good we can just move on, but noooo, she interjects herself right into that little pause that happened while I was exhaling a sigh of relief and she filled it right up with…..

“So now that I’m getting married does that mean I get a baby next? You need a boy to have a baby right? Why is that? You said we don’t need a daddy, so how come you need a daddy to get the baby in you? If God wants you to have a daddy to have a baby, is that because the daddy puts the baby in you? How exactly does he do that?"

Hey, who wants ice cream!!!

Can't I Just Bang Both Of Them?

Do you remember in my Boyfriend Application post I said that I thought I was ready to give a real monogamous relationship a try?

Well, it didn’t quite work out like that.

If you remember correctly, for quite a while I was dating quite a few people at one time, but nothing serious. In fact, when someone would approach me with the idea of labeling whatever it was that we were, I’d step out of the relationship completely. I just wasn’t in a place where I wanted to be in a “real” relationship. I was enjoying seeing what was out there, I was enjoying being single-ish, and to be honest, I was having fun.

It was kind of awesome to be like “sure, you can come over and watch a movie, but I don’t have to mess around with you because you’re not my boyfriend,” or “sure, you can come over and mess around, and I don’t need you to stay and watch a movie because you’re not my boyfriend.”

I was actually really surprised at how comfortable I was with casual open relationships. I always thought that I would be the jealous type, but it really didn’t bother me. It was kind of freeing to be able to have different areas of my life filled by different people and it was also really nice to not have to be someone’s entire other half. What I was starting to realize though was that the whole “open relationship” thing was just something that I was using as a coping mechanism to not have to fully trust anyone. Like how can you cheat on me if we are in an open relationship? How can my expectations be let down if I spread them around to a few people?

Yea, I get it. To be honest though, I don't regret doing it. It really has been working for me and I really have been happy with it. It allowed me time to learn how to stand on my own two feet and be my own person for once in my life, while still being able to figure out which qualities I do and don't want in a man.

A few months ago though, when I decided that I had been “single” long enough to really know who I was and what I was looking for in a boyfriend, I decided to be a little bit more open to finding someone to have an actual relationship with. What I was not expecting, was to find two someone’s.

Oh F**k I Peed On The Floor

Both of my kids birthday’s are going to be coming up in the next few weeks and it got me thinking about being pregnant with both of them. I have to tell you, pregnancy is a really weird thing. It’s weird to me that it didn’t feel more natural, but it just didn’t. I wasn’t one of those mom’s who was like “Oooo, look at me, I am experiencing the miracle of life, what a wondrous and marvelous woman I am!”

No, for me it was more like “Oh my gosh, what the fuck is going on, please can we get this over with.” Now I know that my take on pregnancy offends a lot of people, but seriously, I can’t help the way I felt. It does not change the love that I have for my children, it does not mean that I didn’t spend all nine months sleeping on the pregnancy required left side for better blood flow to the baby, it does not mean that I went against the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations and binged out on lunch meat, it simply means that the act of actually growing a baby did not feel natural to me and I really did not find it all that enjoyable.

When I first suspected that I was pregnant with my daughter, I found myself literally trying to shove my husband out of the bathroom so that I could pee on the little pregnancy test stick in privacy. He was so controlling that he felt it was something that he needed to be a part of, something he demanded to be a part of. I actually ran out of the upstairs bathroom and beat him to the downstairs bathroom where I locked him out and peed on the stick while he was banging and swearing on the bathroom door, and attempting to break the door handle off. When it turned positive almost immediately I just stood there leaning over the sink with my head down before slidding down the bathroom wall, where I sat in a crumpled heap on the floor, feeling as though someone had just punched me in the chest.

Never the less, this was my baby and I loved her instantaneously. Everything else though, I could have done without. The first time I felt her kick I nearly jumped out of a moving car. For those of you who have never been pregnant, I don’t even know how to describe it. Yes, I am a woman, I make babies, but suddenly having one inside of you, it can be a little freaky. Then she started kicking and oh my gosh, woman or not I was not sure I was made for that. Just about the time I was finally getting over the strange fact that there was a person, INSIDE OF ME, that was kicking, did the kicks start to get harder. Ok, now not only was it weird, it actually hurt. Until you have had your lung kicked from the inside, you really haven’t lived. As most women who have given birth to a child can tell you, by the end of the pregnancy you can tell exactly how the baby is positioned. You can tell whether it’s a foot or an arm in your ribs. You can watch it move its head from side to side on the outside of your belly. Seriously, natural or not it freaked the hell out of me.

Back When I Was A Cutter.....

Look at me, I’m finally getting around to answering more of the questions you guys posed when I said you could ask me anything you wanted in the comments section of the post “Here's Your Chance!” 

I’m going to tackle two questions with one answer today, because I’m savvy like that. I’m also nerdy and a little bit odd, but today we are going to focus on my resourcefulness.

“How do you deal with the anxiety’s that come from your past traumas?”

(Imagine me taking a deep breath here, as I just did, before tackling this one)

Honestly, for a long time I didn’t deal with them. All the pain, the traumas, the anxieties, I just let them build up until I was a completely non-functional, disastrous, mess of a human being. There really is only so much heartache a person can handle before your brain just starts to shut down its emotions in an attempt to protect your overall well being. One day I realized that I felt….nothing.

I literally felt nothing. The pain, the heartache, the sadness, the horror, it was all still there and yet it felt like nothing. I wasn’t happy and I wasn’t sad, I simply felt like I had ceased to exist.

Every once in a while a painful emotion would break through and I wouldn’t know how to handle it. I had done such a great job of stuffing everything down into the basement of my soul and slamming the door shut, that when an emotion would seep out of the cracks in the floor and come rising to the surface, I felt out of control.

In high school I watched as my friends struggled the same way that I did, so many lost souls just looking for comfort. I watched them turn to drugs and sex to numb the pain, while I turned to cutting.

Meet Thirteen Year Old Eden

A couple of weeks ago I was going through the small bin that I keep in the back of my crawlspace filled with mementos from my childhood. I was sort of mulling over the few things that I had kept, the few memories that I hold dear from that period in my life. A novelty flashlight from the circus, a ceramic cat that my grandpa gave me before he died, some ribbons and awards from various activities, and a large binder filled with the beginnings of my writing career.

As I mentioned in the post “I hope the news doesn’t find out my shed burned down,” when I was nine I wrote a play that won a national award, but when it was over, it was over. Being nine years old, writing wasn't really something that was on my radar.

Somewhere around age 13 I started writing in what was the beginning of my "writing career." Things were just so crazy in my house that I remember feeling like my head was going to explode from a mixture of confusion, pain, and rage. I remember one night I was sitting at my desk, hunched over, head resting on my folded arms, and I was sobbing. I was filled with so much hurt, so much pain, so much rage! At some point my arm bumped into a little novelty desk set that I had and a notebook fell out.  Before I knew it I was filling page after page with my thoughts. Hours later, when the notebook was filled, I collapsed on my bed, fingers cramping with exhaustion, and I began to read what I had written.

Something about turning those pages and seeing in print everything that I had not been able to sort out on the inside, seemed to give the situation some clarity. Feeling’s that normally felt just beyond my grasp of understanding, suddenly made sense. They seemed….real. Not just some all encompassing fog that crept around behind me, enveloping my soul and clouding my sight, but something more tangible. Seeing them on paper made them real. It made them manageable. If I could understand them, then I could begin to deal with them.

Still, it wasn’t easy though. The feelings, I was just begging to grasp the concept that was them. The idea that I was allowed to feel. The idea that just maybe, maybe it was alright to have feelings, feelings that I didn’t understand, but feelings that were there no less.

I started writing poetry because it was an acceptably abstract way to write without needing concrete thought, without needing to explain and decipher the exact meaning behind my words. Poetry just flows. It comes from the place that sits between my soul and reality.

So the other day, as I was going through my box of childhood memories, I came across one of my first poetry journals. This blog has become my safe place, the place that I now come to bare my soul, but what is in these journals are the writings of a 13 year old Eden bearing her soul.

Without further ado, I’d like you all to meet thirteen year old Eden.

I Realized That I Am The Ugliest Person At The Gym

Last week I had one day in particular that was a little bit crazier than my normal crazy days. It started off as a fairly routine day. I had a meeting scheduled with a domestic abuse shelter, then I was supposed to head over to Mr. Attorney Man’s office for a quick conversation, and then I needed to get a few other things done before I picked up the kids from daycare.

I started out the day feeling pretty chipper, as I usually do, but then I pulled out of my driveway and noticed something; piles of moving boxes sitting at the curb.

WHAT THE FUCK.

I called my friend and was all “OMGOSH guess what I just saw!? The two nutcases have been hoarding boxes in their garage for weeks and now they are all at the curb!! THEY HAD BETTER STILL BE FREAKING MOVING.” I was so disturbed by this sight that I actually backed back into my driveway and then ran around to the front yard hoping that I was still going to be able to see my most favorite sight in the world. Nope, the for sale sign was gone.

DAMMIT.

I got back into my car and continued driving to the shelter, albeit a bit grouchier than I was before, when my phone started chiming with text message alerts.

It was my mother.

When it rains it pours, am I right?

She was finally getting back to me in regards to the “can we meet and talk” text that I had sent her several weeks ago. Her text read “we have nothing to talk about,” which is funny, because she has been texting, calling, and emailing me for months on end, near begging me to hear her out, and now suddenly, we have nothing to talk about?

What It Means When Your Parents Find Out They Aren't Legally Married

Do you guys want to hear the funniest story ever? Of course you do! After I told the story about the time I got a chance to give my ex a taste of his own medicine, I thought maybe you guys might like to hear about the time I got to give my mother a big old spoonful of hers. Sound interesting?

I thought so.

Now my brothers and I, as different as we may be, were all cut from the same cloth of "very twisted humor." Anytime you get the three of us in a room together it's a never ending slap stick comedy show.

Brother

For example, my father owns an accounting firm and every year when tax time rolls around, they throw a huge tax party for our entire extended family. We would all sit around, eat, joke, and one by one make our way into my father's home office to get our taxes done. A couple of years ago, I think probably the last one that I attended, roughly forty of us are sitting around a Tetris style creation of tables that made one large table, and we are about to eat. My mother announces that we are going to say a prayer and everyone quiets down. Everyone that is, except for one of my brother's who is loudly talking on his phone. He is looking at his shoes and carrying on and on with his conversation until I kick him under the table. He looks up, realizes that everyone is looking at him, looks slightly embarrassed, and in an attempt to save face, says "Oh...I gotta go. I just realized that I am talking very loudly on the phone and everyone is looking at me. Just put some cream on it and try not to scratch it."

You Asked, I Answered, What It Feels Like To Be Raped

Two posts ago I answered the most asked question, "what happened to your sister" when I opened the floor to you guys in the post "Super Fast Post" and gave you the opportunity to ask me anything you wanted. Today we are going to tackle the most debated question;

"What does it feel like to be raped?"

This question caused some controversy in the comments section. I appreciate those of you who were concerned of how the question might affect me, I know you guys are always looking out for my best interest and it is heartwarming when I can plainly see that. I did say that you could ask me anything though, so in all fairness I'm going to try and answer the question.

Please be aware that the emotions that I will be referencing are from the perspective of during and immediately following the rapes. Obviously I have come a long way since then and my viewpoints have changed drastically as is evidenced by this blog.

For those of you dealing with your own issues of trauma, I want to put out a big TRIGGER WARNING right here.

TRIGGER WARNING

What does it feel like to be raped? It feels horrific.

Happy Same Old Crap Day Single Mother's of America

So, mother's day is coming up, which for single parents or people who are childless not by choice, can be very much like Valentine's Day for single people. I was sitting around with a group of single mom's a few weeks ago and the topic of Mother's Day came up. I listened as they talked about everything that bothered them as single mother's and what they wished that the rest of the world knew and understood. I decided to write an article about it from the point view of an overworked, overtired, stressed out, single mother.

I wanted to let other single mother's know that it's ok. It's ok to admit that you are overworked and overstressed. I think that a lot of us single mother's (and mother's in general) try and keep up the facade that "we are ok! We've got it! I can do this" because society expects us to be ok parenting the children that we have birthed. I wanted to stand up and say "yes, I birthed them, and you know what? It's a lot of work and even though I love my kids, I'm not always happy about the fact that I'm doing it alone."

I wanted to show the women that are feeling the way that I sometimes do, that they are not alone in their feelings.

I looked at it, reread it a few times, soaked in the tone, and then I sent it off to XOJane. The tone of my piece is irritated and you know what, I'm ok with that. As single mother's we all go through period's of just wanting to yell "SHUT THE HELL UP" to people who are complaining about being overworked. Anyone, single mother or not, who claims that they haven't wanted to bitch slap a few complainers every now and then is totally lying.

We all do it.

While In My Underwear, I Punched A Girl In The Face

I've really only ever punched one person. It was in the locker room in high school. I was in my underwear. I got suspended for it.

Yup, that happened.

We had gone running that day in gym class and when we got back to the locker room the teacher ordered all of us to get in line and wash our faces. I was a freshman, a waif of a thing at 14 years old, and patiently waiting in line when a 19 year old senior in front of me turned around, nodded her head at me, and said to her friends "don't let that girl in, she's too ugly."

Me, despite being only a waif of a girl, opened my big mouth and shot back "well if you weren't so fat there would be room for both of us."

Wrong choice.

She didn't say a word, She just turned back around, washed her face, and walked away.

Or so I thought.

I was washing my face when all of a sudden I felt my head get slammed into the wall next to the sink. I flung around and without even thinking landed one solid punch square in the middle of her face.

Then her and her friends jumped on me and completely kicked my ass.

We were both suspended but under pressure from the dean her friends all ratted her out. I was let back in, my participation being deemed "self defense," and my record expunged. Because of the school's strict "no fighting" policy though, she remained suspended. The suspension just happened to be during finals week and she missed all her finals, which caused her to fail a good majority of her classes. She had to come back next year as a super senior (2nd yr senior) and I positively avoided her like the plague.

After that fun little incident, I decided violence probably wasn't for me.

I tried a few times to defend myself against my husband, but I learned real fast that me fighting him wasn't really an option. I'd barely get an arm raised before I'd be tackled to the ground or completely restrained with his suprisingly well muscled arm. After the first few futile attempts I made, I never raised my hand in violence towards him again.

That is until one fateful trip to Florida.

Represent

I never delete the text messages from my phone. I'm not sure why, I just don't. The other day I was waiting to go into a meeting and I was sort of just scrolling through my old text messages and I started thinking about how weird I am.

Seriously, who talks like this with their friends?

My friend told me my son needed a brother and then apparently offered up her husband. I hope you all can tell I was joking.

Sometimes you are reminded of some of your more scandalous days

Sometimes you have absolutely no idea what you were talking about

Sometimes you have no idea what other people were talking about