Road Trips With My Father

Last year I wrote a post for my father's birthday and this year I am doing the same thing of course. Partly because that man is hard to buy for and partly because I want to tell you all about a few of my favorite memories of my father. He turns 72 today, Happy Birthday, Daddy you are the best and I love you! When I was little I had to go every so often to the scoliosis clinic in Memphis for checkups to make sure my scoliosis wasn't getting worse (or better who really knows). We would get up before the sun came up at around 4:30 a.m. and get in the car and go to Memphis. Sometimes my mother and sister went, but most times it was me and daddy on a road trip. To this day, the sound of the tires on the interstate and the sound of a passing semi makes me smile and think of my daddy. We would get the appointment over with and then always, always stopped at Stuckey's for something to eat on the way home. There was one time that the car broke down and we got a ride from a truck driver to the truck stop where we hung out and waited for someone to come and get us. I met Carl Perkins that day. I remember those times as some of the best times because it was me and daddy, on the road listening to Johnny Cash or Don Williams on the 8-track player. I would look over at my daddy, so young at the time, and think he was the strongest, smartest, most handsome man in the world. I still look at him that way. My daddy knew how to fix anything and I still think he is the most handsome man I know. I think the most proud he has ever been of me, is when I gave him a grandchild. I have never seen him smile so big before or since. He scooped her up and took her up and down the hallways of the hospital, where he didn't know a single person, and showed her off to everyone he passed. That was the greatest feeling in the world right there, knowing I did something that made my daddy proud.

Haunted by Christmas Past

Yesterday was Christmas day, 2013. I am 45 years old so that means I have lived through 45 Christmas celebrations. I don't remember the first few obviously, but the first Christmas that I really remember is when I was about five or six years old and we had an aluminum tree. I was in the Christmas pageant at church and I remember rehearsing my lines over and over in the car and at home before going and then getting up in front of everyone and freezing up. I couldn't utter a single syllable. The next Christmas that I can recall I was in third grade I believe, we lived at 1103a East Wood Street in Paris, Tennessee. I remember that my sister and I were supposed to be asleep and we had left Santa an apple, of all things. We were whispering and listening when we heard a noise in the attic. There were footsteps, and then a crash, and lots of curse words I won't repeat here and then we heard the gifts being put under the tree and crunching as he ate the apple. It was a familiar voice. That is when we discovered that Santa and our father were the same guy. I don't remember any other Christmas until we lived on Manley street. Then it was all about telling our parents what we wanted and hoping we got it. Our family wasn't rich, but I don't remember ever being disappointed at Christmas as far as gifts that we wanted. However there was one thing that always happened to me every single year if I got a Barbie doll. I don't know why, but every Barbie doll I ever got broke immediately after I got it out of the box. Either the arm, leg, head or one time the whole thing broke in half. I called it the Barbie curse. I also refused to play at all with my sister unless she played with the broken doll. One year when the doll head fell off I just smooshed it down onto the neck until it stayed put and then she had no neck and I made my sister play with "no neck Barbie ". I was a horrible sister. Anyway I was remembering all of this and thinking how blessed we were then and how blessed we are now. Even with the curse on my Barbie dolls Christmas was always special and magical to me. I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as I did and many more to come. I'll be funny next blog just reminiscing this time around.

Other People's Lives

I have never really had what you would call a "Good" day. I don't tell you this to make you feel sorry for me, I don't know what I am missing so it's all good. I tell you this so you will understand why I think the way I do about other people's lives. I have always been sick, or in pain. ALWAYS. I don't really ever feel like doing anything much besides getting on the computer or reading. A nurse told me that one step for a normal person is like ten steps for me. Think about that for a minute. Think of all the steps you took today, now multiply that by ten. I have a dear friend who is an actress and living in New York. She had a movie come out last month and she is always posting pictures of her life, parties, working on movies, going to dinner with friends. I watch movies about the fast paced lives some people lead and I cannot wrap my head around it. I cannot imagine being able to run errands and go to dinner on the same day much less do any of the things other people do. I look at them and think, "Is that real? What does that feel like?" I am 45 years old and just realizing that there is a whole world of people out there, living lives and doing things I cannot even imagine and here I sit on my couch. I guess I am rambling but it just struck me this morning that my world is truly so small, but there is a world out there where people are living and having all kinds of exciting lives. I told my actress friend this morning that I wish I could be her for one day because one day would wear me out, but if I were healthy and normal and her for one day, I might not want to change back! I know there is a reason for everything and all of that jazz, God made me this way for a reason, but I sure wish he had given me just a little more energy and good health.

Kumquat, I will Miss You!!

I have several best friends. I actually wrote a blog about them a while back, but I also have a couple of friends whose relationship is....different to say the least. One such friend was Eugene Whitten. Eugene and I met in around 1993 and we were instant friends. He was loud and obnoxious and sooooo very hilarious. I was living in Rutherford, Tennessee and going to AA meetings in Milan, Tn and one day there he was, in all his craziness. He was a big man (around 380 to 400 lbs at his largest when I knew him)and we were like two peas in a pod. He came to visit me a couple of weeks after we met and stayed a few days in the tiny town of Rutherford and we had the BEST time!! My favorite memory is of Gene (wearing my big flowered bright housecoat), my daughter and myself running around in the grocery store shopping and for some reason we started yelling out the fruits that were available. Just walking along and belting out "Cantaloupe, peaches, watermelon, kumquat and pickled beets!!" I am still not sure how that last one got in there. Pickled beets. Pickled beets. Pickled Beets became his nickname for me. I always thought I should have been something cute like kiwi or star fruit, but he picked Pickled Beets. He became my kumquat though sometimes he signed his cards or notes to me as Kiwi. As it does life moved on. I found love and moved to Paducah and we lost touch for a while then came facebook and he found me on there and added me and I sent him my number and address and of course the cards rolled in. He would send me birthday, Christmas, or just everyday "I am thinking of you" cards. He would call me every week or two to check on me and we would talk for hours giggling and just being silly. Recently, he had to have surgery so he wouldn't be in touch for a few months and I was just thinking about him a few days ago and wondering how he was doing. My sister called me yesterday and told me he passed away. We are not even sure when or how, but my Kumquat is gone. My funny, loud, silly friend who often called me Smack Madam (if I needed a bath) and I would call him Jemima Puddleduck for the children's book, this special friend who made me cackle at the things he said is gone. I wish I could even begin to explain how I feel right now because though it doesn't seem real. I missed him before, but now it seems there is a Kumquat sized hole in my heart. I will miss you so much, Kumquat. I loved you dearly, Gene. Rest in peace.

Best Friends, Kelli Jo and Phantom Pain

Everyone has friends. Some people have a lot of friends (Like me, I'm poplar y'all and yes I spelled that wrong on purpose). Growing up I didn't have a lot of friends, I was grounded a LOT due to my smart mouth, but that is beside the point. When I was in first grade I had my very first "Best friend in the whole wide world". Her name was Eddie Russell and I loved that girl so much. Of course we grew up, made other friends and grew apart. I had another best friend in junior high school, but I was stingy and didn't want her to have other friends so when she got another friend that she hung around with, I quit being her friend. Then I met Kelli Jo. We had so much in common, and she was part of the "popular" crowd which the former friend and I had looked at and longed to be a part of, and here I was now, friends with one of the popular girls!! Kelli Jo and I were best friends for three years until sophomore year, when another girl kind of wedged her way between us. I threw my signature fit and gave Kelli and ultimatum and we stopped being friends for a long time. That is when I started being friends with Sonya Parish, my neighbor. We had so much fun hanging out, eating French fries and doing our make up and hair. We were best friends. I would ride to school with her and her brother, Curt who was always so nice to me. Then I quit school because I had so many health problems and Sonya graduated and went to college and became a teacher, I am so proud of her. Curt her brother is a dear friend of mine now, he is a computer geek like my fiancé Barry, now and we still talk almost daily on the Facebook. The only friend from my childhood that I was still in touch with was Craig Gregory, whom I had been in love with for several years in Junior high and high school.I got over that and he went and joined the service and retired from the Air Force a few months ago. I floated around with a few friends during my adult years and then when I got pregnant with my daughter I found out Kelli Jo was pregnant too. We had been feuding for several years over stupid things one or the other of us said or did, but I truly missed her, and that phantom friend pain was terrible. When we were pregnant we started talking again, albeit tentatively, and it was like we were never apart. Kelli and I are best friends to this day and even though I have a lot of friends, and I call them all my bestie, Kelli Jo is the one true constant friend in my life. Back a few years ago I had made a new friend, she was handicapped too and we got really close, then she got a divorce and lost her mind, running around doing drugs, staying out all night, making meth in her bathtub and such and I got worried about her daughter who was three our four years old being in amidst all that crazy and I snitched to her ex. I hate a snitch unless there is a child involved I would never tell on a best friend, but I had to that one time because I was terrified for the child. She quit speaking to me for a long time then we started hanging out again in 2009 after I almost died. She was still off her rocker, running wild and partying all the time. A few months ago we stopped being friends again because she got with a crazy man, literally he is diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and she told him I said a bunch of crazy stuff that I didn't say and he was sending me threatening emails and text messages talking about having his vengeance on me for trying to destroy his life. I just stopped talking to her because I was afraid and she started calling and sending hateful messages on facebook so I blocked her. I have that phantom friend pain every once in a while, missing her a little bit mostly because she understood my pain and being sick all the time, but I have a new friend, Summer who actually loves me. We have so much fun together and she has a lot of health issues too and so we compare our sicko problems and hang out as often as we can. She is really awesome and she is one of the best friends I have ever had besides Kelli Jo. Kelli and I have the kind of friendship that will last forever. I know if I called her right now at 6:00 a.m. and asked her to come get me she would, no questions asked, even though she lives two hours away. Kelli is the friend that it wouldn't just be a periodic phantom pain, it would tear my heart out and leave me bleeding and helpless, dying on the floor, if we ever stopped being friends again. Someone said the other day that the term best friend is childish and clingy, I don't feel that way. I have many, many friends and I call several of them my "bestie" because they are all the best. I love them all equally, but in different ways. I guess this is just mostly me rambling, but I wanted to tell you all my theory of best friends and what the term means to me. I love Kelli Jo just a tiny bit more though, because she is my soul mate as far as friends go. She is the sister of my heart. She makes me laugh so hard it hurts over absolutely nothing but a look. We giggle over everything when we are together and no one gets me like she does. We know each other better than we know ourselves and I wanted to pay tribute to her. I love my best bestie and if that is childish and clingy then I am proud to be that. I am up way too early, with way too little coffee in my system so if this makes no sense that is why. I love you, Kelli Jo.

Past, Present, and Hopefully Future

So today I was trying to think of something to write about. I was stuck without a thought in my head on what to entertain you folks with and then my friend said to write about myself and the changes I have gone through or made in the last year. I like that concept except I haven't changed or done much in the last year except quit being friends with someone I thought was a good friend who turned out to be not so great and I got a beautiful kitten and an awesome camera for my birthday. What I think I will do is compare the past Terrie with today's Terrie. First let me say when I was a child, I didn't have much of a childhood. I spent most of my childhood in hospitals sick or having surgery. It made me bitter and hateful. I hated anyone who was "normal" in my eyes. I spent my fifth birthday alone in the crippled children's home because it wasn't a visitation day and my family couldn't visit. I don't tell you this to make you feel sorry for me, but so you will understand when I tell you how awful I was in my youth. I was always thinking everyone was making fun of me and self conscious about the way I looked. I wanted to fit in but it was like a triangle trying to be a circle, it wasn't going to happen. When I did get a friend to hang out with me I was so controlling and mean they never stuck around for very long because I demanded all of their attention. They weren't allowed to have any other friends besides me. I remember this one girl name Stephanie, who wanted to be friends with me. I made her carry my books, carry my lunch, do my homework, whatever I could think of to make her do I did. One day she dropped the sandwich out of my lunchbox and I screamed and cursed at her for ten minutes straight in front of everyone in the lunchroom. I WAS AWFUL!!!! When I met my first boyfriend I was the same way, of course he was cheating on me all the time so I was right about him. I went for many years like this, treating people terrible (especially my family)and just being a mean, ugly person. Then I started drinking and using drugs. I got even worse then and by the time I was 24 years old I was in rehab. After rehab I learned to take an inventory and write about and deal with my resentments instead of letting them fester and explode. I started realizing I could be nicer and a better person and so I became the Terz you all know and love today. I try to be nice to everyone unless I just am not able and then I avoid them so as not to be ugly. That's not to say I don't have days or moments when I do and say ugly things because I still do. I get better every day though. I am a mother, a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend, a friend, and a recovering alcoholic and addict and I am a better person for all my faults, just for today. I hope this makes sense and doesn't sound like I am babbling like an idiot.

My Worst Date EVER

ok people, our government is shut down, things are looking bleak, my hands are killing me as are my legs so I am going to go lighthearted and silly today with my blog post. My best friend Kelli's husband at the time, Jim decided to play match maker with myself and one of his friends. The guys name was Doug Something or other, I wouldn't tell you his real name any way but I can't remember it any way so whatever. So Jim tells his friend about me, the usual she's cute, funny, good personality, yadda yadda yadda. The guy agrees to a date so I get all pretty and smelling good and wait. He shows up and hour late, still I am late a lot myself so no biggie. Then when he shows up he has his three small daughters with him. Apparently though it wasn't his weekend, their mother decided to be "She-Devil" and drop them off to go on his date with him. They were FILTHY. I can't stand to see a kid with dirt and funk on their face it just IRKS me. They kept wanting to touch my face and my hair with their filthy hands, and that's fine I let them because I figured being as filthy as they were they didn't see clean skin very often. He was still dressed in his h.h. Gregg uniform and a dirty black trench coat. I thought we were going out, but since he had the kids we just ate McDonald's and hung out. He got the kids to lie down and they finally fell asleep and like some kind of lizard, he managed to jump me and put me almost in a choke hold. He started kissing my ear (I HATE THAT)and I felt something fall in my hair. Before I could reach up to see what it was (for all I knew he had spiders all in his clothes,or more likely roaches)he was on me like a lizard on a fly with his tongue halfway down my throat. I pulled back and he kept coming forward. I finally disengaged myself from him and he was just grossing me out completely so I told him I didn't think things were going to work out. He got mad, woke his dirty children and left. I found out after he left what was in my hair. He had a breath savor in his mouth and spit it in my hair trying to spit it over my shoulder I guess. EWWWWW. I thought nothing more about him until Kelli called me a few days later. Apparently he told Jim that I got naked, threw my legs over my head and walked on my butt cheeks like Stimpy the cat on Ren and Stempy!! He said I was too aggressive chasing him on my butt cheeks no less, across the house and trying to get with him!! I was horrified at first then I just started laughing and I still laugh to this day thinking about how I couldn't put my legs over my head no matter how hard I tried much less walk on my butt cheeks. I mean seriously dude, you couldn't have come up with a better story?? ugh WORST DATE EVER!!!!!!!!

Rooms

I was thinking today, while waiting in the car for Barry to get some things in Sam's Club I spent some time alone with myself. This is something I rarely do any more since all the electronic geegaws have entered my life. Between Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,and Angry Birds I don't really sit quietly by myself and think any more. It was nice. I had a nice visit with me. Anyway I was thinking about my life and all the people who have come and gone. I was thinking about life and how it is kind of like a castle. Every person is a room with a door. I have many rooms. Some have been closed off for ages and some need to be locked and chunked out the window of another room into the moat. Some are warm and inviting and bring joy and comfort. Some are destroyed beyond repair, yet I haven't bothered to shut and lock the door on them for fear I might miss that room. There is no comfort in those rooms, the walls have holes, profanity spray painted on the ceiling and the floors are torn up, yet I didn't want to close them off...to let them go. I have nicer rooms, rooms with a fireplace, my favorite book and a cup of coffee. Rooms that make me happy. Yet I continued to hold onto those nasty, filthy, trashy rooms because I was afraid to close the door. I recently learned that those rooms bring nothing but pain. I closed a door I didn't want to close because leaving it open was like allowing raw sewage to creep into the rest of the castle. I closed the door and I was afraid. I was afraid I would miss that room, but I don't. The rest of the rooms had told me for years that room didn't belong here in my castle. The day I closed that door my life got cleaner and better and happier. I have many rooms in my castle. The ones I choose to keep are warm and bright and filled with joy, love and goodness. If you think you'll miss someone if you cut them completely out of your life, you will keep holding on and going into that dirty filthy mess and you might miss some of the nicer rooms you haven't explored yet. When you're wading through all the raw sewage in a dank dark nasty room, you could be sipping coffee in a bright, warm, joyful room filled with love. This may not make sense, but it's been a while since I spent time with me so I am not sure if I am nuts or not.

Koala Bears are Evil

For a while now I have been trying to convince my dear friend that Koala bears are not some cute fuzzy little bear, they are pure, undiluted evil. They will sneak in your home at night and murder you, then rip your face off and wear it to trick your less intelligent friends and family members into letting them in so they can murder them, rip their faces off and wear their faces.....you get the idea. Yesterday I was perusing Facebook and a friend of mine was watching Nat/Geo Wild and said there was something about Koala bears having chlamydia. That is right your heard me. CHLAMYDIA!! What is going on in the Koala community? And more importantly is this some new tactic to get people to think they are cute little victims of sexually transmitted disease? Something is up with those little tricksters and we need to be on our toes because the next thing you hear there will be a new strain of chlamydia going from koala bears to humans. I can't understand why no one sees their evil but me. Either way something wicked this way comes.....it smells of eucalyptus and the clap. BEWARE!!!!

Exes and Liars

Today I was on facebook early this morning (my new kitten Gracie likes to launch herself at my head like a little velvet missile with claws)at five thirty or six a.m. every morning. Anyway I was perusing facebook as I do every morning, telling folks happy birthday and such and I came across something that gave me a chill. One of my exes (yes I have a few gimpy girls need love too) anywho I was overwhelmed with a sick feeling just looking at his name. I won't tell you dear readers what his name is because it's not my place and even writing it makes me sick. I have seen his wife's (the girl he left me for)profile and she is always happy this and oh how good my life is that but I know better. I lived with him for a year and he is a terror. He is controlling to the point that when I walked to my GIRL friend's car to borrow some lipstick he screamed at me for three hours and threatened to beat me because he thought I was trying to get with her. He abused me emotionally and verbally but never physically, sometimes that is worse. He also abused my daughter who was nine at the time. I was thinking about why people get on facebook and lie about how wonderful their lives are and had to write this down and get it out. I don't lie when I tell you I am happy I am telling the truth. I have a wonderful life now with a man who is super duper laid back and awesome. I go where I want when I want if I want and he smiles and says have fun. I know what this woman is going through because I lived it myself and I just cannot seem to grasp why women lie and act like they are happy and being treated well. He never hit me but I know he hits her. I don't know dear readers (all four of you lol) I guess since getting away and getting a better happier life I don't understand anymore. I acted like he was wonderful when I was with him too. Is it just an instinct to pretend it's all roses and romance when it's really not? Can someone explain to me why we lie and protect to the bitter end the one who hurts us the most?? I don't know the answers. If you do please let me know. As for me I am happy except of course I am awake on a Saturday at 8:08 a.m. because of a furry missile. My life is good and I am just going to enjoy it and if any of you figure out this mystery give me a holler cause I am lost.