You Are Grand. Grand Canyon Grand.

I feel weird to be me sometimes.  Like I just can’t quite figure myself out on certain days.  Today was one of those days.  I was all over the place.  Zero to one hundred real quick.  Angry then content then sad then happy. Cue the song “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter (am I right??). One second I’m waking up in a blurry haze with crusty sleep eyes and hair in tangles.  Then I take a shower trying to wake myself from this place between being awake and asleep, between reality and a dream. I then read my phone to see that I am substituting at a different school for my job today, causing me to be in a rush because I hate…like ABSOLUTELY HATE…being late.  For pretty much any occasion.  I just feel stressed and embarrassed and not put together when I’m late.  I grab a Capri Sun (because everyone knows it’s the best), a chocolate coconut energy bar, and a bag of Boom Chicka Pop Popcorn for my lunch as I rush out the door.  I get in my grandma’s 1995 booming red Cadillac (which doesn’t have AC) and start to drive off.  I pull out of my driveway onto the street, and the car just completely goes kaput.  I am already on my wit’s end so this just adds to my delirium and panic.  Meanwhile, cars are piling up behind me.  I turn the car off and then back on.  It turns on with some smoke wafting from the engine, and I barely chug it into the driveway.  I am definitely not going to trust that car to get me to work which is 45 minutes away today. So, I frantically run to my cranberry red car Ramona which I haven’t been using because it’s sticker is out of date and in need of renewal.  I turn it on and rip out of there.  I start to calm down as I drive further on.

Then I get on the toll road, and I just start to bawl.  I don’t know where it suddenly came from.  It just came pouring out all at once and for the life of me wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.  It’s like all these emotions I had cast aside were now being thrown in my face.  My window shield wipers would not be of any help in attempting to cast this rain aside.  I am upset, but I didn’t think I was upset until others close to me were starting to ask if I was okay.  I kept saying I was, but there’s that old friend called denial.  The funny thing is that I actually believed myself when I said that all was fine.  That I was content.

Truth of the matter is that I have always wanted a mother who was like all my other friends’ mothers.  A mother that was there for your school dances like winter formal and prom.  A mother that was there when you had your first kiss or your first heartbreak.  A mother to go shopping with, especially when it came time for bra shopping.  Dad, you were a champ for sitting on the bench outside the store and not asking any questions.  You were also a champ for being my #1, my day one, and my best friend who saw me through it all.  Who the only time I’ve ever seen you cry is when I didn’t want to live anymore.  When I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.  When I thought life wasn’t worth living when it existed with so much pain in it.  You reminded me of the good.  You took care of me and got me the help I needed when I refused to get help myself.  You listened to me and genuinely heard what I had to say.  How I felt like while you were so much for me and meant so much, I still yearned for a mother in my life. While it hurt you to hear me talk about her, you still encouraged me to try.  You let me choose my own path, and you supported my decision.  My decision to leave Texas and be the first of my family to go to college out of state. My decision to head off to college in San Francisco, which is exactly 1,781.3 miles/26 hours away.  You have always believed in me.  That I could not only live life as someone with bipolar depression and general anxiety disorder, but as someone who lived life well. Happy. Joyous. Content. Spontaneously.  Genuinely.  Faithfully. And Hopeful.  You believe in me when I am my harshest critic, when my brains just tells me no.  You believe that I can succeed in California, in my job, and in my passions.  While I often wish that I could have a mother that was present in my life, rather than in and out when it is good for her.  I also wouldn’t have it any other way.  Because, I wouldn’t have seen what a strong male figure looks like as well as one who is devoted, hard-working, honest, selfless, caring, and loving.  Ever since my mom left in 9th grade and my brothers were both off at college, it has always just felt like my dad and me…and my grandma occasionally.  It has been you and me conquering the world to the best that we can.  You’re my partner in crime.  The reese’s to my pieces if I wasn’t allergic to peanuts (but I had to say that since it’s your fav candy). You are my rock, my lighthouse when I’m lost at sea, my buoy when I can’t stay afloat.  I didn’t intend for this to set out as an appreciation post, but this is what it ended up as.  Dad you are more than enough.  You are grand, and I mean Grand Canyon grand.

Back to the story. Later as the day went on, it turned right around.  I was giving out stickers to my Kindergartners today. If you get 3, you get a prize.  One of my kids with a name that had a q followed by an o and who was wearing a Spiderman shirt lost his sticker.  I asked him where he thought it went, and his response was [gasp!] “What if the dog ate it?” (for some background context, a girl brought a puppy which the kids were playing with). I LOLed. Some days working with kids as your job can be very tiring as well as testing, yet other days it can be so much fun because they always manage to say the darnest things. After work, I get gas and run in the gas station store to get my dad’s and brother’s favorite candy.  It was time for me to show a little spark of gratitude since lately I had been a huge Scrooge.  I get home to Digiorno’s pepperoni pizza with stuffed crust (I’m a sucker for stuffed crust), and I am very, very happy.  I turn on “Change of Seasons” by Sweet Thing, which is my jam- like complete, utterly ridiculous jam in the car or in my room or everywhere for that matter.  I just start dancing like a mad man with my craziest, lamest yet rockin’ dance moves. My dad just looks at me chuckling at how much of a fool I am coming across as right then.  Then I do some chores he asked me to do.  Afterwards, we watch an episode of New Girl because that is our show.  And that speeds us up to this moment.

Let me get to the moral of the story: Days where you feel defeated at times can be turned around when you shake off that bad juju and you decide to show gratitude, silliness, and hard work.  Today was one of those days.  Stop constantly wishing for more and realize all that you have. Enjoy a life thankful for silly, outrageous dance move sessions; a New Girl episode where the boys get Brazilian waxes on accident but then on purpose; a story about a badass woman pilot (a former Navy fighter pilot as well as one of the first women pilots for the Navy) who lands an airplane full of passengers and whose engine just exploded safely on the runway in Philadelphia; and excitement about the future attendance of the last Vans Warped Tour with my two brothers.  Make it a day where you laugh your way through a bad mood that can potentially last a long one to where it turns out to be a bad moment instead.  Laugh because you are still living, and it’s a grand life at that.  Just laugh.

I am pretty positive like 2% of people will actually read this all the way through because I definitely babbled which I have more than just a tendency to do…especially because I’m doing it again. Comment “Digiorno’s Pizza” if you read this to the end.

Surprise! Here is a funny vine my friend Emily showed me as a treat for you reading to the end.

https://youtu.be/_cW-QwnzdI0

C ya l8r my fellow freaks and geeks!! -BEE