Saturday, December 30, 2017

New Year's Eve REFLECTIONS


This is my last blog entry of 2017 and as the next 24 hours whiz past me as I write this new entry I realize I have a lot to reflect on.

I would first like to say that I do not agree that the New Year's Eve should serve as writing a list of your resolutions for the new year. You do not need a whole new year to do things differently and learn from your mistakes, that is what the gift of tomorrow should be thought as. Instead, I feel like the new year should be thought of as looking back at the past 12 months and rolling back your mental Rolodex to think of what you learned, went through and the progress you have made. After you tally all of that up the end result should be where you should go from here. Every time I think of "New Year Resolutions" I find it so ridiculous that it reminds me of the most cliche resolution most Americans choose which is making a promise to oneself by getting into shape by dieting and joining a gym. This goal has been something pending in their mind for quite some time but due to the holidays of never ending feasts it is a slap in the face to make them want to change their lifestyle. It is quite convenient that the new year follows right after and everyone loves to call this New Year's Eve the time of our "New Year's Resolutions." So why not put this dream of our wish of a healthy lifestyle to the subsequent holiday? I want to change this cliche and coin this phrase to instead saying, "New Year's Eve Reflections." For the first few weeks of January 1st you see a stampede of new gym goers scouring the treadmills, ellipticals and fitness classes. Then as quickly as the rush started, it is just as quick to trickle down to 0. What is the point of what I just said? My point is that this actual analogy that everyone uses is so ridiculous, just like how ridiculous I think it is that people need a whole new year to present itself in order to change your life. Resolutions should be an ongoing routine that is part of the building blocks of your life for self improvement. You should always be working on yourself and planning out what you need to improve on and goals that are beneficial for your well being. 
This past year has brought me many twists & turns and I wouldn't of been able to guess that I would've ended up where I am now. As one of my favorite sayings go, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." Looking back as a child I would never have been able to guess that this is where I would be at 33 years old. I am very happy that we don't have a crystal ball to look into our future. I wouldn't want to know even the happy and jovial events that are forthcoming. Do you ever look back in your life and wish the complaints you had back then are the ones you are facing now? That is one of the many obstacles I go through also. I wish I could take back everything I had to complain about back then in exchange for now. Sometimes I literally begin to laugh about how ridiculous it was that I was so bent out of shape over such obtuse things. I feel like slapping my younger self in the face! The most pivotal event that strikes me the loudest is when my mom after 20 years of being married, embarked on a 12 month long relationship with someone who looked like a hobbit. He wasn't just any hobbit, he came fully stocked with anger management problems, chain smoking, no job and living off of his never ending Disability checks. In hindsight it felt like it was a prank, almost like candid camera. It reminds me of that old reality show years ago, "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance." A young woman had to convince her family that she was engaged to an extremely homely, fat obnoxious man. If her family ended up believing her to the point of going through with her wedding, she would win a million dollars. My mom's new boy toy AKA Hobbit was a vigilante. He wanted to fight the war on crime and take the law into his own hands, even if that meant risking his life for women being harassed by drunks at a bar. He was more than ready to fight people with his bare hands. Standing at 5"7' and around 190 lbs. or more, he was more than confident (with no weapons of any kind). I was only 23 years old at the time and still living in the childhood home my father left us. Every day I would come home from my mind numbing data entry job and there he was with his bald head behind my mother's computer screen with the repetitive, daily greeting: "What's cookin' babe?" He had a bald head with a mullet on the back of his fat neck. His neck looked more like a tree stump; it was so stocky and fat like the rest of him. He would smoke constantly and even litter my yard with his cigarette butts. My mom would keep quiet and pick every one of them up one by one. He LOVED Wendy's.  He loved the Baconater and Frosty. He was in my house day in and day out. The most hysterical part is when my mom first met him. He just had surgery on his rotary cuff and the first time I met home was at Outback Steak House. There he was standing by the hostess stand. He looked like a troll in a huge cast. I was hysterical! I thought it was a joke and the person before me was screwing with me and pretending he was him. But no, it was in fact the new man to break my mom in after a long and stale marriage! I gained to realize that night over dinner that he hasn't had that drug/substance abuse counseling job my mom had told me he had. Oh no, he hasn't had that job working for the MTA in over a decade! He never did admit that he was actually in fact unemployed while living with his geriatric mother. He drove this old piece of junk station wagon that leaked oil even when the car was stationary. he would have bouts of road rage where just for shits & giggles he would zoom down the parkway blaring his horn! He would "brag" that he was a better father to me than my real father because he drove me to the Bronx a few weekends for a class I was taking. After enjoying sitting on my father's dilapidated Lazy Boy and using my mother's laptop, basically treating my childhood home as Pee Wee's Playhouse, he decided to bring back to life my brother's old dirt bike! He claimed he was a free lance substance abuse counselor. However, he had no computer, office and never seemed to go to work! I used to ask my mom when she would finally admit that he was collecting disability like the other lazy pigs that don't want to go back to work. The Americans tax paying dollars were going to sloths such as him. There he was in his cast from his shoulder down to his wrist riding my brother's child sized dirt bike all around the streets! Oh man, imagine if I took pictures of that and sent it to the Department of Labor?  After 11 months, I told my mother to finally dump him. I said to her: "It will be a year next month. Get rid of him already."  
The biggest joke is on me though. I thought I was on top of the world. Never would I have thought 10 years later after all this hard work and expectations I had I would be where I am now. The whole 11 months of the Hobbit being in my life ended up being the glue to my relationship I had with my father. This allowed my father's hysterical part of his sense of humor to shine. We would make jokes constantly on the phone with each other guessing who this "man" really was. Is he part of the Witness Protection Program? Is he a fugitive? Is he part of the Irish Republican Army? Every night before I went to class while I was studying education my father and I would be laughing over a barrel. My father's amusing jokes as to why her "boyfriend" led such a low profile was beyond witty. Even a decade later I still joke about it to my mom as if it happened yesterday. I now reflect on this as an outlet to laugh at and put me in a good mood. I sometimes find myself in convulsions while I walk outside in the street. People must think I am either drunk or the elevator does not reach the top floor! 
If only life were easier and my father was mostly comprised of these 11 months of such jovial memories I had with him. If only my dreams and wishes of being a teacher came to fruition to where I would be now. I never would have imagined that my enthusiasm and drive for studying education would end up being a nightmare. I hope to one day discover why I have this accelerated degree that I so arduously obtained while I am still young. Like I just mentioned, I know why other past event events had to occur in my life, this is one long calculated and methodical event that I hope that will one day click inside my head. Some people believe that one day you will look back and know why it had to happen.  


Back to my 2017 Reflection:

I have a lot of blessings, mostly blessings in disguises to feel grateful for as well as validating my belief that actions speak louder than words ever can. I will always firmly believe that where I am living, where I am working, and the people in my life is where I need to be and am meant to be (with). No matter how unhappy I could feel, no matter how much I wish to accomplish I will always hold on to the belief that there is a reason you are where you currently are in your life. Whether it be to teach you a lesson, prepare you for your future, or because it is not the divine timing for all your dream(s) to come to fruition yet. This way of thinking brings me much solace and faith that I too deserve to be happy and the best is yet to come. There is a reason why the word "faith" is in the dictionary.  As I have previously stated, I believe that everything happens for a reason. It is a "belief" of mine, meaning that just like the rest of us human beings we don't know for certain, but adhere to our perception of the world mostly shaped by our life experiences. Until God opens up Heaven's gates to float down to this Earth and give me all the answers, the all mighty creator of this universe to answer our question of why we are here and the purpose of life... I'll believe what I want. I already know why previous events had to take place in my life to be able to handle what I am facing now. I would never have been able to predict that certain people are no longer in my life anymore, even if it is the one that helped contribute to my existence on this planet. I had to do a mental inventory and finally face the music. Why have I been conversing with these people? Some for many years? I had to stop and think that they weren't adding any value or purpose to my life any longer. Some of them never did. They're not horrible people, I do wish them the best. They never did any harm to me. Especially since some of them went out on a limb for me and helped me in my time of need. This person was a blessing to me and I had met her under unexpected circumstances. I will forever be grateful for the help she gave me but just because a person is nice and was there for you doesn't mean they are meant to be in your life forever. 
Thanks to the invention of the Internet and social media, it is easy to give them the proverbial cold shoulder. You just take them off of your Facebook, Instagram, etc. After I grew up and matured I come to realize we don't see eye to eye on anything while viewing the world with different glasses. Another friend I've known since childhood I also had to reassess. I am not God but I do not agree with the life she chose. I am not judging her but the thought of what she has done with her life makes me foam at the mouth. It is one thing to make bad choices that affect yourself but to bring kids into the world when you are not fit to do so is another. I finally realized that this woman suffers from a lot of mental problems and it is not mine to fix; I have my own problems to work on and solve. I can't stomach having to hear or see her delusional social media anymore. It took me almost all my life of knowing her to figure it out, but hey, it's never too late to smell the coffee! After completing this task I now know to make connections to like minded people who are on the same page as me; that have the same goals as me; that add to my life and purpose along with a compatible personality.  The real kicker who fell off the grid is my father. I was finally able to detach from him and break away from his clutches. I would never have been able to predict that I would be facing a new set of challenges apart from him. I am also not surprised that after ceasing all communication from him for a little over a year now I wouldn't hear from him. One of the biggest lessons I had to learn this past year was to remain calm and learn not to explode at anyone. That is the reason why I haven't responded to my old friends that have messaged me wondering why I deleted them and ignored their messages. The biggest lesson was learning to ignore my father after finally claiming my independence. If you have followed my blog for quite some time, you probably know this story. The real person I would've loved to really rip a new a**hole from is is his tramp of a second wife. She is his accomplice and the final straw that helped break this camel's back. She is a God Fearing Church Lady now preaching about gratitude and humility while sponging off my father's money, pill popping, drinking while heckling him and acting like an innocent victim. She is probably one of my loyal silent followers of my blog and reading from a distance only a computer screen away. A computer screen her Sugar Daddy provided her, while she is smoking until her teeth rot and decay at the same time as drowning herself in a Vodka Cranberry drink. I caught her stalking my Facebook page; I am happy I have given her a new activity to embark on after she is done berating the man who is 26 yrs. her senior and older than her own mother: She could go view my blog and digest each word that has been on here for over a year. Her name is Ms. Stoli by the way. Ms. Stoli and Daddy Warbucks are my two biggest challenges that I have always had to face, but have to face in a new light since 2017. Is there really a point in tracking down Ms. Stoli and telling her what I had to bury deep down before 2017? Where would it get me, besides giving myself a headache and the inevitable clicking sound of the other end of the phone? Do I really need to hear her defending herself by lecturing me with her delusions of how she is a child of God and she is not a home wrecker or whore; she accepted my father's advances AFTER he left my mom with garbled speech almost as if she has marbles in her mouth? Now that I finally have the freedom to do so, I now know this is not a good idea. I shall remain silent and whenever these wastes of trash enter my mind I must dismiss it entirely. This is what I have learned the most in 2017. My biggest wish is that the both of them live long enough to torture each other till the end of time. They both should be each other's demise's. My father was and will always be my biggest challenge I always have to face. I didn't ask for any of this, I didn't choose him to be my father and the other 23 chromosomes of my DNA, just like no one asked for their parent's to be their parents. On the same token I am humiliated over my family background. It is overly embarrassing that my old, insane father started a whole new family with a tramp young enough to be his own daughter. But the kicker is that he actually had more children at 60 yrs. old. I have to remind myself that I should not be defined by my background and feel ashamed. It is not my fault that one of my parents are slime. Plenty of people come from a poor and unappealing upbringing but it is what they do with the gift of life that should define a person. You can't help where or what you come from. You should only be defined by what you do with your own actions and the life you choose to make for yourself. There are plenty of success stories where people who made it came from the dumps. This could actually be a blessing in disguise. The white collar trash I came from gives me more inertia and determination to make my life happy and to be proud of myself. Paulo Coelho summarizes it beautifully when he says, "...You don't choose life; it chooses you. There's no point in asking why life has reserved certain joys or griefs, you just accept them and carry on...We can't choose our lives, but we can decide what to do with the joys or griefs we're given."  this is a quote taken directly from his novel, Adultery. Kudos to Paulo Coelho. 
2017 helped provide me with the freedom I so desperately craved even if it came equipped with a whole other set of challenges. He has been weighing so heavily on my mind lately that I had a dream about him last night. It felt so real. All the acrimonious feelings and anguish I always went through while speaking to him rose to the surface in my dream. That is how realistic it felt. This validates my decision that it is best to keep the severed ties of a person who has made me feel tortured. It is a double edged sword really. I feel a part of me feels liberated that I no longer have to hear his abusive and negative words he loved to dispel on me; I no longer have to deal with his pendulum mood swings and manic episodes he goes through from being extremely angry and agitated to elated and euphoric. Most of all I no longer have to hear him trash talking my own mother with words that he should be using to describe his own whore of a second wife instead of my mom; because that is the person he is really describing, my mom are none of those things. The last I left off I texted him saying, "Ms. Stoli couldn't find a man her own age? No one fit her standards? Only someone old enough to be her father?" That is the type of language he always used on me so I dished it back. Could you guess his response?? Drum roll please!!!!! He texted back, "f@!k you!" When I asked her the same question via phone she responded in her drunk stupor & garbled speech, "I fell in love with your father!" Sometimes in life you have no choice but to stop speaking to a toxic person who just brings you nothing but turmoil and despair; even if he is your own father. This makes it easier to decide since I have not heard from him and probably will never hear from him again. I know deep down that is the best conclusion in order for me to live a peaceful and tranquil life. I could find further solace in the fact that I know he really doesn't care that I no longer bother with him like he screamed at me about; he has no human qualities which means I don't have to muster the will power to ignore any messages offering any truce or closure of any kind because they don't exist in his stoic world. 

I will always believe that only the strong survive, and God only gives you what you can handle. Like I said, I am not religious or belong to any organized religion; I am spiritual and I have my own beliefs. I like to believe that there is a creator of this universe and that is God. I will never believe that we are just here to collect space until we don't anymore. Every religion believes that they have all the answers to the enigma of this life; Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Christians, etc.....Who really knows. They think they have all the answers because it has either been passed down to them from their family or they turned to religion to achieve salvation and feel better for their current state of being. They believe word for word in the bible that it is true and set in stone. I've even been mocked by an Orthodox Jew on Facebook that only "Jewish people" go to heaven, non-Jews go somewhere else. He made it sound like it was more of a cult he was describing than a religion. He said he has proof of the Talmud being 100% authentic and literally the voice of God because it has been passed down for centuries by all of his ancestors. In that case I must be a bad person then. I do love the color red and the heat! Does that mean I am damned for an eternity in the great abyss/black hole because I didn't flock to a labeled religion, sort of like music that falls into different types of genres? I respect any and all religions as long as you don't sell it to me like a car salesman AKA zealot.  I will always admire the Christian holidays; I find Christmas and Easter to be so beautiful. All of the lights, trees and decorations are so enchanting, especially here in New York. I  am also very fond of crosses and find cross necklaces to also be alluring.  

Monday, December 25, 2017

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas from Me, Myself & I 



May all your dreams come true & more in the upcoming year of 2018!!!



Sunday, December 10, 2017

Christian Pastor (From a Spiritual Standpoint)

I just want to make one thing clear: I do not belong to any kind of organized religion. I am spiritual and have my own beliefs. I respect your religion just as long as you don't try to sell it to me like a used car salesman a.k.a. religious zealot. I was pretty astonished to find out that the inspiration behind this quote was originally created by a Pastor (according to Google, unless it is not true....let me know)! How cool!!!!!!! :0)  

So I was surfing the internet while google searching this quote listed above & if I am correct, the person behind creating this very true statement is the Pastor Charles Swindoll. Listed below is the exact information verbatim where this was derived from:

The longer I love, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.” 
-Charles Swindoll

I have never realized until recently how true this is. As of recently, I have learned that every circumstance and situation I have faced has shown me that it is my reaction to things that predominately take precedence over the actual situation. Most times I have created a false perception in my head of something I thought was a "problem" where in actuality it is almost like a figment of my imagination, nothing in fact happened, it is just how I reacted to it and blew it out of proportion in my mind. Also I have discovered that if you remain calm and nice you could mollify the entire scenario completely.

NEW MOTTO TO LIVE BY




"Expect nothing & appreciate everything"




Thursday, December 7, 2017

December...The Most Wonderful Time of Year!!!

Happy Holidays!!!! It's that time of year again where everyone asks you what you would like for the holiday.....Everyone running rampant throughout the shopping malls and ordering gifts online and don't forget to ask first "are we exchanging gifts?" Also wondering how much to spend on such and such a person, especially at work for Secret Santa. Am I the only one that looks at this differently than most people though? As a child you write a list for Santa what you would like for Christmas and the list is endless and you could think of each must have item on a whim...Whatever the fad was at the time as a child......games, clothes, video games, etc. But as the years pass you by and you become an adult you no longer want gifts that come with a price tag anymore. How about priceless things such as your desired physique, a new job or a soulmate? For the first time in my life although I've been an adult for a while now, there is nothing tangible that I want, nothing that involves inanimate objects.....Instead of Santa Claus I need to find the magic lamp and rub it so I could have the Genie appear and grant me my 3 intangible wishes....

For the first time, this winter season has compelled me to reflect on my relationships, how far I've come (what I need to work on) and more goal setting. So I need to thank Santa Claus for this brainstorm. This is the first winter for me where I underwent significant changes since the previous year and where I need to go from here......God bless to all and Happy Holidays! to whatever holiday you may celebrate.....




Love & Light,
Dara