2000-10-20 - 03:38:56
Okay, I mother three children all day, and I am discovering that I am getting good at it. I'm nice, and they (well, the ones who can talk) tell me I'm the best mommy. And, I am for the most part. I haven't tried to kill anyone yet. I love them and appreciate them more and more.
On just an update note, I got my car back in "working order" and it is driven by me now, legally (yay!), so, we went to the library today, me and the three saplings. We checked twenty books out. I felt like such an extremist. I'm so silly and wasteful sometimes. I WILL make time to read all of them this time, though. Most of them are for the kids, but, I have some big ones for myself that I can't stop overhearing about. Jane Eyre, and Crime and Punishment to name a few.
So, anyway, I made a mountain of chocolate chip cookies tonight. I'm getting along really well and feel really good about my relationship with my beau--heehee, boyfriend. (I always thought that was such a funny word.) I really appreciate him nowadays. I wrote him a note telling him so and remarking on how I have always loved him (cuz we've known each other and been friends for like twelve years) because I felt his soul was genuine and the goofball kept the note. I was hoping he'd just throw it away, because I hate evidence lying around that shows that I can be mushy...I don't know where he hid it. Oh, well.
So, I was sitting there looking at the little sucking baby of mine. My beautiful son. And, I thought, damn, I'm good at this, but, there's gotta be more that I can do. I don't know where this strange overachiever feeling has come from...but, it's around and it's driving me to do something that will hopefully turn out great.
I am finally admitting some of my strengths to myself lately...some that I've overlooked or never wanted to admit for fear of seeming selfish...but, I know I can be damn good sometimes. I am a good cook, and can almost automatically throw together a dinner that touches on all food groups most of the time. I can bake with love with seems to make things taste a whole lot better. My boyfriend really likes me cuz I have an art for being good to him. Which, really, I've been trying to be in this particular position for years now. I've wanted to be able to be a housewife/girlfriend and take care of offspring, and cook and clean, and bake and cater to someone who thinks I'm spectacular. I don't mind my present position. I like my man and I would have done this a few times before if I would have been treated right (their losses). (My husband was just an idiot, who knows what he was freaking thinking. He is missing out--haha.) So, I'm okay with my life.
But, I saw this little discovery show or whatever on the learning channel or some where else about showgirls. Well, I used to strip and I related to what they were saying about feeling powerful over men because they could flaunt and they never let them touch them. I liked that part about dancing. They also touched on the topics of youth and women's bodies and the art of seduction and how some women are abused by men early in life and this helps them regain their power somehow over perverts and how some dancers or showgirls are successful and how most of them have the desire in them to just do it and they don't want to stop even though they always know in the backs of their minds that they can't or don't count on doing that type of thing FOREVER. I felt the same way about almost everything. Especially, the part where some showgirl's ex-husband was saying how it was hard for him to know that those guys in the audience are sitting there lusting their little brains out over his wife and all the other women, and then, they went on to say, that once a woman is in that business, they just want to do it, they need to be in that position and how it feels good to them as a woman to have that power over men. That's part of my problem. My boyfriend doesn't want me to go back to doing that job. But, sometimes, I'll hear some new song on the radio and think how I would laugh and joke with the d.j. and talk him into playing whatever song for me, and how cool I would feel knowing every little tune and sound in the song as I walked up the stage steps and started parading around above all the men in a skimpy little whatever thing making them give me money...such easy money. The money was very easy when it was plentiful. I felt so cool knowing that they probably never would be able to even talk to a woman who looked like me. I would talk them into paying me while I "danced" or seductively moved (is more like it), and they would always (or almost always) ask me what I did in my free time. Most of the time I would tell them the truth which was useless and silly because it bored them...LOL. I would answer, "sleep, take care of my two kids, and try to find energy to dance more." DUH! I guess they expected me to tell them that I had wild lesbian parties on my nights off at the spacious studio apartment that I was being put up in by my rich, numerous sugar daddies. I would tell them other truths sometimes, like how I was a student, or how I hated dancing, but, they were so bored, I could tell. I should have just done what the other girls looked like they were doing, telling them that they would meet them after work, or keep leading them on and just smiling and teasing. No one ever really told me their secrets on how they had regular customers, hopefully my naive beliefs that they were just innocent women trying to make a living and who never prostituted was true, but I know that some of the rumors were true about the 'coke' whores and the heroin junkies who worked and did a little bit of everything to support their habit. I was never like that. Sometimes I would tell my "customers" that I would probably be the straightest stripper they'd ever meet. I could tell their eyes would glaze over as they would figure out ways to gently decline any further dances. They would switch couches (I suspect this) because sometimes people looked very familiar as the hours would pass.
Anyway, this ex-showgirl quit at the height of her career and then, went on to paint pictures of her time during that part of her life. I feel like I need to learn how to paint. Let's face it, I won't get to dance for awhile as long as Jimbo is around, at least until he goes to jail or dies early. I want to, though. I don't want to be real wild or develop a drug habit, I just want to experience something that is kind of fun. I want to be me and then, go somewhere and be beautiful and intriguing and mysterious and powerful over men. I don't get those feelings with my children. They think those things sometimes, but, not in the light that I wish I could be seen in. No, I don't want my children to see me as a stripper or to even really know that I was one.
But, I know I am great. I know simple things about myself that aren't really used or noted in my frumpy little life I'm leading here. I know when my skin isn't stretched from having a baby, that, I have an awesome body. I'm tall and should really sit and stand up straight. But, it always goes back to that horrible little fact, that people just don't always live in functional families. And when there is dysfunction, it really takes a toll on chldren and what they grow up learning to believe and feel about themselves. Some overcome and win medals and prizes and gain great successes...but, not if they don't meet someone in their life to tell them they are wonderful and that they can DO IT. Some meet their reflection and that is who tells them they are wonderful, etc. But, how come the people like us don't realize that THEY are the ones that have to tell THEMSELVES that they are wonderful and they CAN DO IT??????? I wish I would have done that long ago. I'm so worried about self-image that it just makes me wonder where my mommy is. I know now. My mommy is over somewhere in her house not knowing that even though she has come this far and succeeded in so much that she CAN DO IT, she just doesn't know it.
I've been through a lot of crap. I never really knew I could even achieve half of the crap that I have been through or achieved. Now, I have some strange desire to overachieve, but, I have no idea where to begin.
I don't really know if anything in this whole entry even relates to each other, but, it's what I have been feeling. (Duh.)
