32 flavors

tonight i spoke to p which is always very enlightening. she reminded me that since she met me, i have always done what others wanted because it was the easiest way. i have followed the advice, desires, wants or needs of others without taking into account what it was that i wanted.

nicole wanted to move into my apartment in germantown and i let her - even though it was probably the wrong decision...she needed a place to stay as i saw it and i was her gf at the time so why not.

my grandmother - she wanted me to move to va...even though a huge part of me wanted to move with nicole..even though it was my decision to live separately.

then i got into school and i was on cloud 9, all prepared to move in with nicole, move on with my life...and work towards a career...nicole and i fought so much that living together didn't seem wise...so living separately didn't make sense to me if we were in the same state and a couple....planning to get married...so as they say things worked out for the best.

i was not meant to move to erie...go to gannon and take that path...

now i am mom. i have this baby that i must take care of and provide for and be his #1 go to person. this is not a job i take lightly or a job for those who have a weak heart. so its about time i reclaim myself while trying to build one for him.

now that mommy is gone and the only child i have to parent is lil j...i am gonna do me. i am always telling others to take care of themselves and everything else will fall into place welp! this is me taking care of me.

1. starting with ending my relationship with lj. though it has been my old standby - it will be no longer.
2. deciding on a place to live for at least the next 5 years. most likely atlanta which by plane is 2 hours from tx.
3. remaining single for hopefully the next 5 years.
4. finding a job that pays between 38k and 40k.
5. buying a house.

probably in that order. this is about me taking control of my entire life and not just letting my life lead me...i haveto lead IT. mommy's death is a HUGE eye opener and I need to figure out where i am going to go from this place of sadness -

what will it look like once i do?

until then -

bye bye lj

i am worried about julie. i have not heard from her. i have no clue if she is back home, if she is still in ny, if she is just not talking to me ever again. no clue.

i guess its best not to know.

no jonathan...well i temporarily have custody of him until august...or june depending i dunno yet. his stupid father wants joint custody of him....why he cant just call me up and ask for visits - why he needs joint custody i have no freakin' idea. but we'll see what happens UUGHHH!

too much has happened.

i jumped in the car drove to erie, pa, in hopes of creating a life with who i thought was the love of my life. i found out my baby brother was born and my mother was in a coma...i jumped in the car to be with them....deferring plans to start a pre-medical program....and a job that i actually liked....but i knew what my destiny was.

i struggled to give him a life....to get him out of the hospital...nurse my mother back to health...was unemployed for 3 months...found a job....supported my mom in getting back on her feet....she was doing great. i broke up with the "love of my life" my dog was given away...i deferred my pre-medical program...and i stayed in new york....

then i started talking to a long time friend, things seemed to be going well, at least better than they had been, then my mom dies, my whole reason for being in new york..some friends came through for me and others wrote my mother off as a nothing because she was a recovering addict..and therefore not supporting me...so i remained strong through it all...planning my mother's funeral, picking out a casket, paying the undertaker, identifying her body, calling the medical examiner, fighting with my father over calling the medical examiner....while taking care of jonathan all the while.

and today....a judge could tell me that all my hard work and sacrifices meant nothing and take jonathan away from me.

if she does...this strong woman will break.

i am back from va, back from the tears, and ready to begin to move on. i have a newfound hope!!!

i found myself saying (typing) i love you. i wanted to say it while talking to j...but got too nervous so took the low road and texted it. i will say it...rather than type it....if i could just put aside my nerves.

after tuesday, april 17th and jonathan (crosses fingers) is permanently mine..then i can go anywhere i want to. after, of course, i save money and figure out where it is we will be. or should i say discuss with j where we will be. IF we plan what i think we might plan it will be nice to plan it together and not feel any pressure to DEFINITELY plan a move when we are not ready for it...plus it will give us a little time to make ourselves ready for the "next step" - perhaps this is talking too soon or moving too fast...but since there has not been a MOVE then i think things are going WELL....

that's all for now...going to go and try to wind down from my trip..lil j is still up!!!

she arrives tomorrow!!!!!!

mommy is gone. no more. it is still incredibly surreal.

what happens when i get married? (which i hope is sooner rather than later)

when i have a baby? (who will be there who has experience and coach me?)

what happens when i buy my home? (who will be there to help me pick out paint colors that i can shoot down?)

who will go with me to get my eyebrows waxed? (and i can tell her to shut up bc she talks too much?)

she is no longer here and it still has not hit me!!!!!!!!!

as for friday:

julie will be here. i want her here now, to hold me while i go to sleep, to take me out tomorrow and we'll have an US day. i miss her immensely. friday is not coming fast enough.

i kept telling folks there is some significance to the number 232. (the funeral home she is at the phone is
727-2323, she wrote on her exray 232 only, and the zip code to where she will be buried is 23027) i played it saturday and the number came out the day before my mom died. WEIRD!

so now i am trying to check out hotels to see where we can stay once we arrive because nanny's house is definitely NOT that big. and there are already people staying in her free rooms.

its sad that i haveto be the one thinking of all the extras....and worrying about payment. i mean everyone who wants to go should understand that they haveto shell out $ for this trip - i am not rich AND i am the one who is doing the grieving damnit.

so finiding a cheap hotel is definitely easier said that done.

last night i missed talking to j. we have not spoken a typical "us" conversation in what feels like some time....soon i hope we will have some time to talk. i had to cancel our hotel reservations for saturday because I am unsure if i'll have the money to put into another hotel. i know that i want to badly hang out at the hotel with her...and feel a little domestic but for $120.00 we'll haveto feel that domesticity another way.


i got some sleep last night. i don't feel like i did but i did. it makes me happy to have gotten SOMETHING....

j was a little cranky last night but i guess i cant have everything :)

diana is coming out tomorrow for the wake and betsaida (i believe) is coming to the funeral. i am not 100% sure because she didn't know if she could take off anymore time. but i will be ok if NO one is able to come. i am going to pick up some sodas to take with me for the repass.

so i am not sure if i said that i rented a mini-van for the trip which came to something like $222 from Tuesday to Friday and i thought that was HELLA good. it fits 7 but we have 8...i wish my cousin would leave her 10 yr old daughter because that'd free up a seat plus she didnt know my mom all that well anyway...but now that i have jonathan and if someone asked me to leave him some place because they didn't want him i'd probably not go myself. so.

no of it seems real. i took 2 weeks off from work. i am not sure if that will be ok and i am not even sure how much time i get for bereavement if any.


so in the future (like within the next 6 or so months) i will:

1. haveto buy a new car (unfortunately) my credit is so bad i am not sure how i will do this. maybe my great aunt will do it.

2. figure out where i want to live...my cousin wants me in ATL, my j wants me in Portland, my other cousin wants to help me with a job in Baltimore (she works for the board of education recently bought a townhouse and an older bmw), and i am sure my grandmother will suggest VA again. - some time a decision has to be made there.

3. travel to maine once

4. go to ga for a wedding.

5. find an art of living course to do.

6. get permanent custody of lil j, at least apply for it.

7. begin a relationship so that i can find a wife....i know she'll come to me and i wono't haveto find her.

8. get a therapist.

9. sleep better.

10. eat/exercise better!!!!!!!!!!

for now i think that is it. ppheewww. i guess that's enough :)

those people who refuse to be there for me because they are not sure how to handle the life my mother lead...its a shame. no one on this earth has the privilege to judge my mother, that has been done already and its no one on this earth to take that responsibility. my mother is in heaven and i am proud to know that no one on this earth put her there. she got there all on her own.

as for nicole, i have not heard from her since the night my mother died. thank god i was not depending on her support. it reminds me/reinforces the reason (s) we are not still together!

i feel my mom's spirit...it is CRAZY strong. i wonder since i feel it - if that means she is officially in heaven? being that her death is so so so so close to me....i feel like death is hovering over me too. i am not sure why this is....it's a feeling i wish would go away. i mean i am assuming its natural...to think you are going to die when someone so young has died. i dunno.

still cant sleep...hence the 12:45am lj

the funeral is wednesday at 1pm

i have twisted and turned for the past 2 hours. i kept jumping up out of my sleep, lil j still has felt VERY hot after his tylenol at 2am. i hope this sleeping think or lack thereof gets better. mommy would tell me to take a benedryal and i would tell her no because i want to be able to go to sleep without any drug.

so i really have no direction now. i don't know where to go or what to do. i don't know what direction my life is going to take now. my mom was my best friend in a lot of ways...and now she is gone..


where do i go from here?

for maybe an hour.when i woke up i was crying. i hope there aren't many nights like this

she died. yesterday she died. she wasn't everything a mother "should" be or "could" be but she was still my mother. people found it hard to believe that i loved her or why i gave her so many chances..and all i could ever say was that she was my mom. and it's true. she never knew what it meant to be a mom...only that she loved us and we loved her and in her reality that was all she needed. she loved us all regardless of our faults or our differences. we loved her...time after time after time. she gave the parts of her that she could and held on to the parts that she could not bare to share with anyone else.

she never made excuses or wanted us to make excuses for the lives we made for ourselves (primarily me since i am the oldest). she was a genuinely good person. there will NEVER be a person that said "that woman their i despise her" or "that woman there hates me" my mother had the biggest heart i have come across yet. if she didn't like something that you did to her...she would tell you...friend or not...she would generally curse you out and never miss a step. she would be laughing with you the next minute. and if someone messed with her brother or sister...she would be there to defend them until the end...even though they never did the same for her.

my mother loved people...she cared for those who had less..even though she never had much for herself. she is a true survivor...she survived the beatings from my father....the nights in the cold she spent sleeping in her car....the nights she spent in seedy motels...jail...prison...4 births....a heart attack....high blood pressure...and cocaine.

i regret not knowing more about her. we were reconnecting...and trying to build a new relationship...even with all of the craziness. there were so many things i wanted to learn from her....like how she became so strong...how to forgive people and still look them in the face....how to get knocked down, kicked and punched and how to get back up again. she won't be at my wedding. she won't be in the delivery room when i give birth to her first grandchild. she won't be there when i sign the papers on my first home.

i felt her hands. they were cold. i felt her cheek it was starting to get cold. i looked at her feet. i saw her bag of clothes on her cot with her i could not touch them because of the "investigation." there was a tube coming out of her mouth, her nose was bloody and her body was swollen. i didn't know what to expect. my mind was blank. people were talking to me....they were telling me what to do next...they were rolling it off of their tongues like it was routine. but THAT WAS MY MOTHER...LYING THERE ON A BED THAT WAS NOT HER OWN...BLUE, COLD AND GONE FROM OUR LIVES. but they could not refrain from telling me that the medical examiner would be there to pick up the body, that i could not remove her jewelry that i'd haveto come back to pick it up tomorrow...that i would haveto make funeral arrangements. this all as i wipe tears from my eyes...because even as they are talking to me...about what to do...i could not help but to feel like they were asking themselves "why is this girl so upset"

my mother was relentless. my mother was strong. my mother was friendly. she was understanding. she was fragile. she was sensitive. she loved others. she wanted more for herself...and more from herself.

so my mom is gone. i know she will watch over me. i know she will be there when i call. but tomorrow morning she won't call me..to say goodmorning or ask me how jonathan is.

i want to get married.

i want to get pregnant.

i want to have a baby.

i want a job that i LOVE.

i want to be a good, all-around mom.

i want to be a good person.

i want...


i am considering applying to a new job: http://www.medhunting.com/job-detail.php?id=797

the drawbacks = the commute. being away from lil j in case of an emergency.

so i dunno. i kinda feel bad applying for a job when i just got this one. plus that makes me a bit unreliable. what to do what to do!

til j comes :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

today is the day begin my weightloss regime because i definitely weigh toooooooo much....i even feel it and its not a nice feeling by the way!!!

i just got back from a mini date with lauren. it was soooooooo soooo soo so nice to see her. at first i thought that it would be awkward because she was never one to talk ALOT unlike me of course. but she talked and talked and we discussed her wedding, her ring, the planning, her wanting babies like now :) her getting her masters just about everything. it was nice to catch up with her.

i enjoyed it very much. she asked me if i knew when i was starting school and i told her i did not. i told her everything is really just waiting until november.

so MY plan is:

to hang around (clearly) until november - see what will come of the custody situation. and then if jonathan is mine he and i will figure out where to move then. i want to apply to stony brook. they do not require the gre's for admissions into the social work program which is GREAT! so stony brook is definitely an option. then i will apply to maybe 2 more schools and see which i get into. perhaps....i am wavering on this decision so because i am not sure i want to go back to school RIGHT now. but i do want to make more MONEY right now...so i really don't have a choice....i guess a year is not RIGHT now...and based on the past 4 months alot can change in a year...

so all i can really do is wait until november and continue to save and work at the job i am working at...and go from there really. what else is there?

i am getting my period because i want to have a baby BADLY and whenever this urge comes like this - i get my period. i love knowing when its coming :) now i wish it'd just come already!

i am home because i did not feel well. i left and am home making a pot of beef stew and hopefully lounging (after washing the dishes of course :)

its bitterly cold here and raining....gross gross gross

at the moment i am having a wonderful conversation with j and i am reminded that i have a friend...which i like ALOT!