Crazy Virgo

I am woman hear me yell profanities at the top of my lungs

I would consider myself a strong woman.

At age 8 I crawled up an aluminum slatted slide that was clearly made for only going down, sliced my knee open and hobbled the five blocks home while bleeding. I still have a scar to prove it.

I withstood my formative years being teased and called "sarah pees-her-pants" because of a kindergarten pants-peeing incident only to shake it off and garner a new nickname in 8th Grade - "Charmin" - thanks to a bra-stuffing incident.

 

I went to college in the 90s, chopped all my hair off so I wouldn't be identified by my "beauty", and withstood all unecesaary, stereotypical lesbian jokes that comes with that.

I got hit by a car while riding my bike. I have two tattoos. I gave birth to a child, naturally. 

So, yeah. All in all, I think I'm a pretty emotionally and somewhat physically strong woman. No, I don't do ironmans, or climb mountains, or push huge tractor trailor tires around parking lots for strength training. But, I don't crumble in the face of hardship or humiliation or a challenge. My history has shown me that when I set my mind on something I don't stop until it's accomplished, no matter what. To me, that's strength. 

This year was one of my strongest years to date. I left LittleVirgo for a whole month to start writing a novel while living on an island 20 hours drive away from her. I had to put my 13-ish year-old beagle to sleep during the first two weeks I was on the island, away from her. Then I decided to uproot my life and hers and live on the island without any idea of what happens next - away from everyone.

The first month here, on beautiful Guemes Island, was the honeymoon. There were more sunny days than rainy days. The cozy cabin we're living in for the summer oozes charm out of every nook and cranny, and there are actual nooks and crannies. Everything was new and exciting and novel. So what if there were ants in the house. It's an island, right? The ferry is 30 minutes off schedule? Whatever. It's part of the island charm. LittleVirgo and I were going to be the belles of the island for sure. People would honk and wave and think, "There are those two adorable girls from Boulder." We'd have the loveliest days walking to the beach near our cabin, and learning the tide tables and identifying sea life. And even when it rained, we'd just put on our boots and keep going. 

Now it's the nearing the middle of month two. Honeymoon over. And this strong woman, who, for many years has looked adversity in the face and sang, Hear Me Roar, would rather yell fuckingFUUUUCKdamnitshitallhelldamnitassholeheadFUUUUUCK at the top of her lungs.

Turns out, moving to an island by myself is harder than I thought. 

On the drive here, during a snowstorm outside of Bozeman, Montana, the winshield wiper blade I'd just had replaced blew off its arm, leaving one functioning windsheild wiper, the passenger side of course, and one metal arm scraping across an ice-filled windshield. Normally, I'd have the man in my life or my dad replace it for me. Neither of those things are an option so I taught myself how to install a wiper blade in a snowstorm. Damnit.

The cabin we live in is  so unbelivably charming I could eat it for dessert every night. Seriously, it's probably been the inspiration for a nautical poem where the wife stays home and tends the fire (woodstove) while ye husband is out to sea. She paces the porch awaiting her gentleman to return home and alas, sees him off in the distance trudging up the road from Cook's Cove, where's he docked his fishing boat and sings him an ancient mariner's tune. But, it does have a bit of an ant problem. I thought I'd nipped it in the bud during week two by investing in some ant traps filled with, what seemed to be, ant heroin that had every ant in a mile radius beelining it to these traps, lapping up the clear liquid. They were supposed to live just long enough to take it back to their queen, kill her and the rest of the ant colony, and that would be that. Ant genocide. It was quiet for a day or two, but little by little, they've been reappearing. LittleVirgo has even created an Ant Can where she puts ants that she catches with her fingers. Just when I think I've got them all, a new little black ant crawls out from under a rug and I clench my fingers. FuckingAssholes!

I hired a part-time nanny for LittleVirgo back in February while I was getting everything in place to move to the island. She seemed great on paper. Long story short, she wasn't. After confronting her for purchasing movies from iTunes and not being repaid for these movies, she quit on me with no notice, leaving me and LittleV to freelance together. Oh, and she's in full-on "mama i wanna heeeeelp" mode all the time. If I'm sitting at my laptop typing she's got her fingers between mine typing too. I love LittleVirgo, but Mama's gotta work and pay the bills. Shit all hell.

And speaking of LittleVirgo, she's coming into her own out here on the island. And again, I type this next part with all the love in the world for the little girl I gave natural childbirth too, she's driving me batshit crazy. I love her. I do. She's a spirited, independant, stubborn, strong-willed child. She's me, at three years old. It's a minute-to-minute practice of patience with her. Especially because now it's on 24/7, where as before, I shared time with her Dad. (Note: I'm not going into how we share her time now. This post is not about that. Thanks.)  So we're together all the time, singing the "Frozen" soundtrack and Baby Beluga, playing with a family of slugs she's adopted, and collecting every seashell on this island. There have been plenty of nights after lights out, which is hard to explain to her up here above the 42 parallel where daylight lasts until 9ish p.m. and there are no lights to turn out, that I've taken whatever the alcohol du jour is, found safe haven on the front porch and closed the door behind me, leaving her to figure out sleepy time on her own. Really, I want to yell GOTHEFUCKTOSLEEP, but I exhale and drink my wine. 

I ran out of firewood to keep the cabin warm. I could pay for a half-rick (I think that's the measurement, anyway) of wood, but I'm kind of cheap. I don't have a truck to go pick it up. I don't want to pay delivery cost, and quite frankly, I just keep forgetting to do it until the day here and there that it gets a bit chilly at night. Tonight is one of those nights. It's been in the upper 60s for a week or so, even on cloudy days, and I've gotten used to not needing anything more than an extra blanket at night. It's been raining for two days, and the wet chill set in this afternoon. There's was one huge chunk of wood in the rack, that if split up, would be a good four-hour fire. So, I hauled it out to the wood-splitting stump, stood it on it's end,  told LittleVirgo to stand back because of course she's on my tail, picked up the ax and heaved it over my shoulder and totally missed. I tried several more times, always reminding myself to look where I wanted to hit, but I couldn't figure out which side the ax felt more comfrotable on, which side should I swing. I kept throwing it over my shoulder and then launching it into the wood and it would get stuck. Obviously I wasn't hitting the grain right, I deducted. After the tenth swing with no results, nearly dislocating my arm, I looked over my shoulder at LittleVirgo who said, You look funny mama, and nearly launched into a poem of woodchopping profanity. MOTHERCHUCKINGFUCKINGWOOD. 

GAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.

In case you thought every day on an island was a perfect, glorious day. It's not. In case you thought I was just living it up out here, cruising on sailboats every day and kayaking through coves and along shorelines. I'm not. In case you thought a handsome man was delivering fresh seafood to my door, he's not. And don't even get me started on the absense of dating out here, or how I look like a harried single mom with dark circles under my eyes and and a tantruming child in tow every time I see a good looking man. Yes. I'm living a dream. My dream. Don't get me wrong. I love it. So much. But for once I find myself not feeling so strong. Wanting to stomp my feet instead of roaring. Wanting to curse the Universe and my lack of strength instead of praising them.

Turns out, life is easier if you just stay put in the comfy zone. That's not me though. Never has been. I'm sure I'll revisit that old Helen Reddy tune someday and roar again. Right now, I'm gonna keep creating new explicatives and perfecting my profanity. Sonofabitchassfuckingpissantshittingcocksucker.

 

Yoga Revisited - It's even better than I remember

When the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2013, I intended to have a Little Talk with myself. Alas, I think I was toasting cheap champagne, and dancing to a 80s cover band. But, shortly thereafter, maybe even on a bathroom break, I looked myself in the eye and said, CrazyVirgo, in 2013 you need to make some changes, do a lot of things differently, find balance, and shed your old skin.  So, in an effort to hit restart and center myself for 2013, I opted not for a cleanse or a new way of eating - because we all know I could never - and I headed for the obvious and joined a yoga studio in my south Boulder hood. It's a gorgeous space, with a huge West-facing window and a view of the Flatirons. There's an incredibly clean women's locker room with Pangea Organic Soap (which, in my opinion, makes any restroom, shared or not, sublime), instructors with naturally peaceful, rhythmic yoga voices, and cold-lavender-scented compresses passed out at the end of class for Shavansna (did I spell that correctly?). Truly, it's awesome.

I haven't done yoga since I was pregnant with BabyVirgo - basically two years ago. I prepared myself for the inflexibilty I would certainly encounter (without judgement  of course. This  IS yoga after all). I found that yoga, much like riding a bike, comes back to you in a snap. You never really forget warrior one, warrior two, triangle pose, oojaya (i'm sure that's not spelled correctly) breathing, cat-cow, wonderful words that roll off the tongue like Utanasna (spelling), and of course, the glorious release into shavasna. 

I bought a $10/10 days pass and have been three times already, including 6:30 a.m. yoga on a Tuesday - early morning exercise, which I NEVER do. Damnit, it felt good. Yoga feels good. Hey, does everyone know this? Yoga feels really freaking good. Breathing in and exhaling all the old ickiness, or the extra glass of wine you shouldn't have had, or an argument, or judgement, or pizza, and inhaling an entirely new breathe feels transformative. Man oh man. Why hadn't I really indulged in yoga before? This shit is awesome.

After my third yoga class, I've realized, I'm oojaya breathing all over the place. Yoga is - gasp - extending in to my life at large. Oddly enough, inhale/exhale helps get through any situation. Traffic - inhale, exhale the shitty driver in front of you. Work - inhale, exhale the ridiculous feedback from a client (or boss, or co-worker, you get the point). Child - oh hell yes. Here's where it reeeeeallly helps. Right now, I'm potty training LittleVirgo, as well as wading my way through her developing personality (read: sassy independence). Since I've started yoga-ing again, I've inhale/exhaled my way through the following situations:

poop on my hand

bed time resistance: MOMMA! I sleep with you and Ozi (dog). Please?

a car that won't start

an overturned plate of food with ketchup on a teak-wood table

an constantly uncertain job situation

CrazyVirgo 2012 would have freaked out in every one of these situation, at least a little, over-dramatized them, for sure, and never woul dhave kept her cool. CrazyVirgo2013, nay, 2.0, took a moment, look inward, inhaled, and exhaled the negative feelings that were bubbling up my throat like acid reflux. Funnily enough, each situation turned out ok. Some better than expected, even. So, I'm sticking with it. I'm hooked on yoga this time around. I'm buying the overpriced montly membership (why is yoga always more expensive than the gym???) and I'm gonna be a full-lotus doing, oojaya breathing, open-hipped yogi.

Damnit Yoga. You're good.

 

2012 - The Year I Learned to Breathe

Well pals, here it is. My year in review. You'd better sit down for this one. And swallow, if there's liquid in your mouth. And, make sure there's no children in the room. 

Now, I consider myself a normal, average, ok slightly above average, female. I wake up on the right side of the bed most days, brush my teeth, dress, drink copious amounts of coffee, work, take some shit, go home eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. But for some reason, the great Universe decided to test my personal, emotional and physical strength as, not only a female, but as a human being this past year. Yes, the Universe picked this unsuspecting fool to throw daggers and fireballs and mud and a bag of nails, you get the picture. Can a normal female surive when thrown into the claws of confusion?

Short story - Yes. But I hope you continue for the long version.

First, I got a divorce. It's fucking hard. The hardest thing I've done, next to natural childbirth, which is hard, but in a rewarding way. It sucked. It sucked almost everything out of me. I lost 20 lbs., and if you know me well, you know that parting with food, and not eating, is NOT something I make a habit of. It was an awful, gut-wrenching experience that might turn some people bitter and cold and make others doubtful that love exists at all. But me? Well, I chose to look at the sunrise, not the sunset. I chose to focus on myself, my sweet child, my job, my friends. I chose to stop and breathe, and inhale and exhale and take a step forward. 

After that step forward, I got completely bruised in the tumble cycle of emotion that is re-discovering relationships. I discovered I have this wide open heart that people like to jump into - like a god-damned kids jumpy castle - get really comfy, have a ton of fun, feel super good about themselves, then beat it, leaving me wondering why I let them in.

But, did I let any of this keep me down? Nah. In the grand scheme of things, if this is what I was dealing with, it could be way worse. A broken heart can be mended.

Oh, that's not all. It did, in fact get way worse.

Next came the DUI. Yes, you read that correctly. Driving Under the Influence. I won't go into morbid detail here, except I will, because maybe it will save you from doing the same thing. I did what many warm-blooded 35 year-old people who consume alcohol have done many times. Drank a few at a party, paired each drink with a glass or two of water, waited a few hours after drinking, then drove home.I happened to reach for my phone, swerved, a cop was behind me, and wham, bam thank you Colorado Highway Patrol. Pulled over, given a sobriety test, given a breathalizer, hand-cuffed and put in the back of a cop car, in a fancy party dress, in heals, in shame. If you're thinking, holy shit I would have been in shock, guess what? I was too! Hey, that makes two of us. Mug shot taken, fingerprinted, and lectured, I was then taken not to jail, but to a detox center. In Aurora. Pardon me if you're not from Colorado, or if you've not spent any time here, but Aurora is much like, oh Jersey. I had heard tales of friends that had been thrown in detox. "Oh it's all drunk frat boys and mouthy girls." Not in this one. That would have been a welcomed sight. I was propositioned to dance my forthcoming lawyer fees off at a lovely establisment off West Colfax by an old, wrinkled drunk man who owned said establishment. Then I was yelled at by two girls because wearing a dress made me better than them. "oh you think you're better than us becuase you're wearing a dress, chica?" Then I had to watch a heroine addict come down from her high. And, I got to see a drunk old man vomit all over himself, several times. And, in case I was tired and wanted to sleep it off, I was given a bed, covered in rubber, to get cozy. My punishment continues. I lost my license for 30 days. Couldn't drive. Now, I have a breathalizer device in my car that I have to blow into while humming (insert hummer joke here to ease the tension) for the next 4 months. The amount of money this has cost me is enormous, but the humiliation far outranks the financial implications. What did I do after months of payment and punishment? Stop and breathe, and inhale and exhale, and take a step forward. 

Oh, that's not all.

On December 20th, I got laid off from my job. In a flash I did not see coming, a job that I only had for four months, a job that I had completely fallen in love with, a job that I had coveted for years, a job that I thought I would have for years, was gone. 

And that, was it, as Malcom Gladwell wrote, The tipping fucking point. Ok, he didn't write "fucking", I did.But, it certainly was the the point at which something, that might have been small, happened at a time that it started a movement and a change within myself.  What the hell had I done to deserve this? Eleven short days away from the end of a pretty shitty year, and I had to lose my job, too? For the love of.... I had nothing left to do but run to the open space across from my house - thank god Boulder has so much open space - and scream and scream and yell and scream and yell and kick a tree. But then, I knew what I had to do - brush myself off, stop and breathe, and inhale and exhale and take a step forward.

It seems nothing, short of bodily injury, can keep me down. Much like a punching bag, I keep coming back for more. Rebounding, wiping the blood off my face, and saying, Thank you. May I have another. It took a year of compounded catastrophe to teach me that about myself. It took a year of life-altering experiences to teach me that breathing, the most basic exercise in humans, will help you survive anything. Anything.

This isn't a sob story. This isn't a plea for pity. This isn't a tale of woe. It's narration. It's proof that you can get the shit beat out of you so emotionally that it starts to feel physical, and you can survive. If, you just keep breathing.