I’m not sure who I’m writing this for, there are many.

~ tiffany ~ Leave a comment

It may not be to the person going through a deep metaphysical struggle for their identity and it probably isn’t for the dipshit, clueless girl who is #blessed.

This might be for the people in between.

I stopped writing many years ago. I just simply put down my pen. I threw my journals away. I abandoned my tortured writers soul. I never shared much of my writing anyway. No one would miss it. I used to write from this very earthy part of the wrinkles in my brain…most likely more under developed than I can recall.

I used to dig and dig for the words that would make everything look effortless… like poetry. And I, in fact, did write some published poetry. Aka, someone put my stuff on a blog. But those were just blips on how my brain processed my experiences. Lucky, orgasmic bursts of things that were so intense, only poetry could capture them. Locked in those words forever, I’ve kept a few of them like little china dolls.

My most fond writing is journal style. My pen to your ears…sometimes it’s a whisper and sometimes it’s a sucker punch but it’s not dressed in a macrame dream catcher. But just maybe, we can all get some understanding of our experiences through my brash words. And, experiences, I’ll tell you…I’ve had some. I’m going to be leading the court of old people in senior living. Please don’t let your grandchildren around me…because I will tell them the truth about life, loss and love.

These are my stories, from my life. Some of them are pretty fucking funny, others…not so much. But again, I don’t know who I’m writing this for… maybe I’m imagining you all wrong. Maybe you need a laugh because you’re searching or you’re just fucking tired and want to sit down for a minute. Or maybe you need to sympathize with a similar heartbreak like the ones in these essays… so you don’t feel so alone. Maybe you know me. Maybe you wish you didn’t. 

Above all, I’m happy you are here. And by you, I mean ME.

Where to begin..is it where you ended?

~ tiffany ~ Leave a comment

This bullshit again. Dusting off the old brain for another crossroads examination.

I’m a hardline decision maker in the sense that I rarely debate; I decide and I do. I, also, rarely look back to see if I missed the path….which has put me in some less than admirable situations.

It’s not a great personal attribute but it has also landed me some truly amazing experiences, which I *think* would tip the scales in my favor for this particular personality flaw. I have many, but that is for other times.

Once I turned 40, everything just seemed harder—all the while getting easier. I think about death often..but I’m totally into getting old. I miss the moments that I don’t remember by getting black out drunk, but I know they created the wild shit I do remember. Losing weight is hard but reminds me that I was pretty damn hot when I never felt that way. These are just the basic bitch things. There’s all kinds of metaphysical aspects that have gently (and not so) wandered their way back into my life that I’m exploring now… as a grown woman instead of a teenage girl into early 20’s— only to abandon it to have some quiet/dumb down. I’m ready for the noise and ascension. I’m also VERY into aliens again, lol.

That being said, I feel that I have enough life juice behind me that I can be confident in making hardline decisions as I always have. I think I can trust myself and the universe enough at this point because I did the time, still working on the work but the time is paid.

I did take more than 3 seconds to make some life changing decisions this time. I took a week, but I let it sit within me. I spoke with my partner. I let him know I was scared and sitting right there in my scaredy cat bullshit, without making a decision, led me to actually making one.

I don’t know if you’re like me, I simply don’t know something until I know it. I can’t figure things out immediately, I think that’s why I make the decisions the way I do. Just FUCKING GO…what’s the worst that could happen??? Well, everything and nothing.

My brain provides me with epiphanies on things where I simply go “OH, jesus fucking christ …ok–damn, got it”. That sentence is not made up. That little machine in my skull is working overtime while I’m doing other shit, knowing it has to be the one to take care of “us” (lol). Cause my dumb dumb ass is mindlessly meandering topically through something. Yes, I think my brain has a duality and I’m pretty sure there is science to prove it. *insert science reference here* (or please comment a link to what I didn’t research)

Who knows, when I log into this thing again in 6 months or a year (or never cause I’m dead), my life could be WILDLY different than the decision I’ve made to this new path. A few things will not have changed: my acceptance of how I got there and the little machine doing the work to change it, if it’s bad and I’m not dead.

Cheers to life juice. You may have more that you think stockpiled in that little machine of yours.

DRINK IT–I mean trust in it. OK BYE

Language is in the ear of the beholder: FUCKING pet names

~ tiffany ~ Leave a comment

I clearly have strong opinions. Some of these opinions have formed from origins unknown…and some have formed from things that I later found that didn’t suit me… after I had formed opinions on other things. If that makes sense? Maybe I said it backwards.

I truly cannot stand pet names and quietly judge (and not so quietly sometimes) my friends for using or receiving them. The true hatred began when I dated someone about 3 years younger than me. He was unable to accept that I didn’t want a boyfriend, refused to give me the space I wanted…and called me “babe”. I mean, that should have been enough to say no thanks, but, to explain my brain at the time…I was in a place we all know.

I had ended a relationship a little less than a year before meeting him, wanted to work on myself (didn’t do the work) but really didn’t WANT to be alone (couldn’t be alone). We can have all the best intentions for ourselves, but maybe it comes down to: (I’ve asked friends this as well)

What do we think we deserve?

Maybe it’s what someone seems to be able to offer us?

A way to escape the work we know we need to do?

A way to feel wanted?

For someone to tell us we are beautiful?

To give us a reason to get out of the bed we can’t seem to move from?

To just stop crying for ONE GODDAMN MINUTE?

I think there’s a million different sub-reasons for why we do not listen to the plan that we KNOW will be best for our emotional health.

OH! And the THE MOST ANNOYING reason you can’t shake:

“Maybe this is the one”

It’s hard to resist that particular one, especially at the beginning. We are conditioned to think that this tricky, FUCKING disaster MIGHT JUST BE HIDING THE LOVE OF OUR LIFE. Because “love is hard and it takes work”. We get rewarded for hard work. We are taught that so young. Sometimes the conditioning is toward the good…like because of our model parents that somehow made it through… but it will, sometimes, sadly justify bad behavior by adults around us. And that could mean anyone, not just our non-model, shitty parents.

If we give up too fast, we’re impatient or we don’t care; didn’t try. But if we hang on TOO long, we’re weak, don’t know ourselves or maybe…just desperate. I know most of us have figured out that love doesn’t have to be some form of medieval torture to have been real, even if it ends. I’ve had loves in my life that were easy. Ones that came to me without a second thought. Maybe the endings weren’t SO easy but the love itself was truly joyous; an emotionally rewarding experience. Sure, there’s work involved, but once we become a slave to that work (when it doesn’t work)—the joy just leaves.

“Love is hard and it takes work”. How do we even win when that’s what is impressed on our brain? We can still lose?!? Even after we’ve done the work?!? Do we ever win? What is winning? Should love be about winning EVER?

Changing perspective: where do we find the leveling plank? How do we establish our checks and balances? 

Boundaries (even for something seemingly as innocent as pet names). 

I started off my romantic life (at 14) really very unaware of emotional boundaries. I had a fairytale first relationship, minus when he cheated. We are still friends after 26 years. And weirdly enough, he had a pet name for me. He called me “sweet pea”. It wasn’t this blanket name that all my friends were throwing back and forth. He seemingly had put some thought into it and he only used it when he was expressing real love, affection and adoration for me. It never made me mad, I just thought it was cute, unique and maybe a little quirky…what did I know? Looking back, it was probably just something his grandma called him. But, he DID have a knack for being unique (unique to me by recycling shit, as he was 2 years older than me).

I didn’t really allow anyone to call me pet names after we broke up, as a very thin emotional boundary. Looking back, maybe, because it was the norm… the quintessential, blasé “babe” or whatever the boyfriend had probably called the girlfriend before that. I had known the value in pet names. It gave me a small gauge of effort. Some tools in my newly forming adult tool belt. I wanted deep connections as a teenager. I hoped we had known each other in past lives and we somehow found each other again. I wanted to know everything about you. Please put in the thought as some 16 year old boy did or leave…I have a fucking name, say it. 

For some people, trivial things like pet names do not matter. But what I’m asking, is that if you’ve never thought about how a pet name does or does not matter to you or bother you, what else haven’t you asked yourself? Sometimes, the devil is in the details. And sometimes, it’s just not. It’s just personal preference, shaped by something that happened to a 14 year old girl.

So, going back to the “babe” boyfriend, I had to repeatedly ask him to not call me “babe”. I think it took about 3 or so months but I finally broke him of it. He never really asked me why it annoyed me so bad, which is pretty on point, but most likely because he probably thought it was from some feminist part of my personality.

Shit, I’ll take that. But what I’ve really identified as the issue, is that those things come with intimacy. Intimacy takes time. I refused to get into a relationship with someone, spend MY mental time getting to know them, only for them to call me some knee-jerk pet name, when we BOTH hadn’t put in THE TIME. 

“You called your last girlfriend babe, my name is Tiffany—We are not the same.”-Me (this is for anyone who reads instagram meme’s)

We are all yearning for deeper connections, not knee-jerk, blind, societal reactions. 

Calling me “babe” in a relationship is just like saying “Bless you” to me when I sneeze. It’s cute. It’s probably just what you’re used to…but, “HONEY”, I’m light years from what you’re used to. Act accordingly.