Suburban Goddess

As I was sitting in the courtroom waiting for the judge to arrive, I started to think that the judicial system is intentionally set up to make a defendant uncomfortable. I’m crammed into a room with about 100 people, but there’s only seating for fifty. The constable keeps barking at people crowding near the door to move away.

“Standing outside the door won’t do you any good. Come in and move away from the door. I said, MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOOR. It’s a fire hazard.” But overcrowding the courtroom isn’t?

After a while, you begin to sneak peeks at your fellow lawbreakers and wonder what they did. That one over there, he ran a stop sign. And the old lady with the Coke-bottle glasses ran a red light. The Hispanic lady in the corner was driving without a license. A couple of teenagers, well, who know what they did. A nerdy businessman was anxiously typing on his Blackberry, mumbling about “deferred adjudification.” I silently wondered what they thought when they stole glances at me.

“Crazy speeding housewife, ” I answer to the man looking at me. He looked away quickly. Crazy, indeed.

My previous experience in the judicial system was a nightmare; Louisiana traffic court is HORRIBLE. So far, Texas wasn’t looking much better. The clerk had a sour expression on her pudgy face, and the constable continued to bark orders at people like we stupid. I silently wondered if he’d ever gone 53 in a 35. What made him so much better than us? Why did he have to be so MEAN? So when the judge finally arrived 20 minutes late, I expected the worst. I was pleasantly surprised.

The judge walked in with a smile and an apology. She was an older woman, thin, with dark brown hair. She reminded me of Lily Tomlin as she peered through her glasses at the docket. As she ran down the names, I was transported back to elementary school.

“Adams?”

“Here.”

“Anark?”

“Present”

“Anatole?”

“Here, your Honor.”

As the list progressed, I had my first regret ever about changing my last name. If I had stayed in the “B’s,” I’d be outta here a whole lot faster. But no, I’m a MACLAUGHLIN now, so I’d just have to wait my turn.

When the judge finished the docket, she actually addressed everyone in the room with clear, concise instructions on how to plea, including how to ask for “deferred disposition.” Now, in Louisiana, “Deferred Disposition” is known as a number that, for the life of me, I can never remember. LA’s archaic Napoleonic Code is damn near impossible to decipher without an attorney. Luckily for me, my cousin was an attorney, so I was able to spit out the right number before the gavel hit the desk, and POOF!… my speeding ticket disappeared in 90 days. But here in Texas, they actually HELP you, and tell you what to say, and exactly when to say it. And the judge didn’t make you stand in front of the courtroom and read your charges like a murderer; she invited us up to the bench one-by-one to talk about the charges and how we would proceed. With a signature and a stamp, a quick swipe of the credit card & a receipt, the whole ordeal was over. It was quick, friendly, and painless.

“Keep you foot out of the gas next time, Ms. MacLaughlin,” the judge said with a wink.

I smiled and answered with a sincere, “Yes, ma’am, your Honor.”

At least for ninety days.

I’m feeling unnaturally hostile at the moment. Or maybe it’s not unnatural; I seem to feel hostile quite often. But for some reason, today, I’m feeling the urge to just randomly throw something at certain people. Not all people, just certain ones. Those people who complain all the time, and talk all the time, and talk about other people all the time. Primarily the people that DESERVE a shoe print on their head. How fulfulling it would be to remove my shoe and chuck it at their head, Rocket-style.

97-mile-an-hour Mule! WHAP!

Ahhh…. the thought of the expression on their face makes me smile. And suddenly, I feel better. (Smile)

I’ve been hiding out the past few days. A few personal events have made it difficult to be as honest as I want to be here, and if I can’t say what I want, then I tend to not say anything at all. Special thanks to all ther kind words from bloggers out there: I hear you & appreciate your support.

So in an effort to cleanse my karma, I decided to send out some apologies to people I have wronged. Maybe that’ll help change this run of bad luck I’ve had.

1. Tammy Kelley - I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to my first wedding. And I’m sorry I didn’t stick up for you when the rest of the girls were picking on you. If it makes you feel better, it ended in a spectacular failure, kind of like watching a midget on fire. )Ou would have enjoyed the entertainment if you’d stuck around.

2.Ashton Williams - I’m sorry I told people you were gay when we broke up. I think the only reason anyone would have believed it was because you had fabulous fashion sense. I still have a sweater I stole from you. Sorry, but you can’t have it back.

3. Sherry Bell - I’m sorry I tried to steal your boyfriend in high school. I said some pretty horrible things about you. You must have been shocked, because you thought I was your friend. I’d like to blame it on the insane amounts of AquaNet I inhaled, but the truth is, I was just being a bitch. Anyway, I know what that feels like now, being knifed by a friend, and I’ve always felt bad for the way I treated you. I hope your doing well, and I hope you still have a horse.

4.My Blog Stalker - I’m sorry you have such a sad existence that you have to lurk around here. If you don’t want me to post your IP address to every spam site I can find, then either say something or go away. I’m too old for games.

5. Stephanie Thornton - I’m sorry I made fun of you when you got pregnant in high school. You were just looking for love in all the wrong places, and after you had the kid you had to grow up real fast. I was still being an immature high school bitch, using your misery for my own entertainment. If it makes you feel better, you can laugh at my woes now. Maybe someday we’ll cross paths again and sit down and talk about kids, life, and those times when I used to stuff popcorn in everyone’s ears in a desparate cry for attention.

6. Darren I-can’t-remeber-your-last-name - I’m sorry I ruined your prom night, but you shouldn’t have asked me to push your broken-down truck out of the mud in my WHITE SATIN SHOES! Why were yoiu driving down the dark, muddy road anyway? I was only FIFTEEN!

So that’s it. Hopefully I’ve righted some wrongs. I’m off to the family ranch for a weekend of rest & margaritas, so I should be back to normal soon.

I guess that’s not necessarily true. Anybody with deadlines will like this one:

“Here you go.”

“When do you need it?”

“I actually needed it yesterday.”

“Then you should have asked for it last week.”

“Well, I’m asking for it today.”

“Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll get it tomorrow!”

I was reading CNN on my lunch break, and came across a story about “Me Time.” Here’s a small excerpt:

In their recent book, What Women Really Want, pollsters Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway discovered that women across all strata of society feel overwhelmed with the insatiable demands on them. When they asked what women wanted more of in their lives, the two most popular answers were “peace” and “time.” They were talking about a sense of serenity and control over their lives. The women polled also said they would like more sleep, and that they battle the “guilt that creeps in whenever they take a break.”

ACK! I AM NOT ALONE!

Motherhood is the biggest challenge I have ever faced so far in my life. Working motherhood is twice as stressful. Those of you working mothers who have more than one child, well, either you are a wicked sadist or there is a special place in heaven designated just for you. That section separated by a velvet rope where women sleep soundly while a Chippandale rubs her feet in a clean home and a child who replies, “Yes, Mother,” to your every request.

Guilt is not a new experience for me in life. I was raised Catholic; I KNOW guilt. But the guilt that you encounter as a mother comes from a different place. It affects you deeper than you thought possible. It makes you doubt yourself, and eventually, the world around you. As I try to work through this guilt, I’ve been traveling down the road to a dark place, a place that sent me so deep into a state of negativity that I began to wonder if I will ever find my way back. It came to a head this weekend, when I realized that if I don’t change, I will not only lose everything that I love, but I will pass that legacy onto the very child I want to protect from it. But the irony is, to make myself happier, I have to remove myself from the very people that currently bring me joy. Not for long, but just for an hour or two.

It’s been so long since I’ve given myself “Me Time” that I have to step back and look around for a moment. What does a person such as myself DO during “Me Time”? I hate to fall into the cliché and go to the spa. Somebody touching my feet (other than a Chippendale) really kind of creeps me out. I suppose I could take up reading again, but when I start a book, I hate to put it down until it’s finished.

I guess the idea of “Me Time” is so important now because without it, I won’t BE ME anymore. I’d just be Kristie the Mom, Kristie the Graphic Artist, Kristie the Wife…. if your actions define who you are, I just want to be more than the roles I fill.

As I pass not-so-quietly through my first mid-life crisis, I’m learning more about myself than I thought possible.

I am a control freak with perfectionist issues, and I have to learn to let go of certain details. Life is not perfect all of the time. You’re lucky if life is perfect just SOME of the time.

I am not as good as a wife as I’d like to believe. Yes, I keep the house clean & the laundry done. I’ve stopped throwing away the socks, and I make sure the top button of his shirts is always buttoned. But have I said anything nice lately? No. I’m ungrateful. He’s selfish, but when he does something nice, I’m ungrateful.

I have lost touch with my reality. I have lost touch with the very things that make me ME. I’m not sassy, I’m not brash, I’m not an extrovert and I’m not the attention whore I used to be. I have faded into suburban housewifedom, life behind a vacuum, a stack of credit card bills, and a half hour commute. I’ve spent too much time worrying about other people and forgotten to take care of myself.

I’m a horrible judge of character, and that has made me guarded & suspicious. I don’t trust many people, and I let even fewer into my inner circle. Very few people know the real me, and as my life continues to get more hectic, I like it that way. Less people means less time I have to spend away from the one thing that is important to me; my family.

Family has made me territorial. Anything that wanders near my nest is viewed as a threat. That’s not healthy, and I need to change that. It’s OKAY that people don’t need me all the time. When they do, that’s called co-dependance, and THAT’S NOT HEALTHY. So I need to accept that fact & move on.

I came to all of these realizations WITHOUT therapy, which I think is pretty groundbreaking on my behalf. I’m entering a new time in my life, a time where I am going to actively pursue becoming the person I set out to become years ago.

It is time for a change.

Have you ever felt that you are standing on the precipice of something big, your dream standing within your reach, annd the only thing that’s standing in the way is…. yourself?

Dooced.

Thank you to the men & women who are fighting in my name around the world. Whatever the reason, be it right or wrong, you’re risking your life for my freedom. Thank you to the people who are protecting us, the REAL people who are protecting us, not the politicians who are saying they are. And I’m not just talking about Dubya, ALL you politicians who take money & perks from lobbyists, who voted to raise your own pay, who sell yourself to the highest bidder to “speak” at conventions, this thank you is not for you. If you truly had the good of this country in your heart, you would take that money and donate it to the single mom who went into the Army so that her child had a chance at a future. You would give it to the immigrant that picked up an AK47 in your name so that you can continue to exploit your constituents for your own person gain, and who continues to fight for you despite the fact that you’re trying to have his relatives deported. If you loved your country, you would LISTEN to the people who voted for you, ALL the people, not just the ones with a big checkbook. If you loved your country, you would greet these soldiers with open arms and offer them help in any way that they need it…

Because if it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t have a job.

Dooced Again