Worst. Year. Ever.

What is the best and/or worst thing about your life right now? – Dana

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. <—-Excuse me while I lose what remains of my sanity all over your computer. This year has been, well, a fucking motherfucker. And I'm so glad this prompt is encouraging me to do this because for awhile now I've seriously considered writing a list of all that's happened this year so that I can go back whenever I doubt myself and see that I wasn't being melodramatic at all. This happened.

1. I decided to leave my marriage.
2. Despite it being the best option, there were some dark times for me through the winter.
3. And then he moved out and I spent the next month rearranging the house.
4. I was extremely broke during the spring. One month I made $200.
5. And then I was invited to New York to do a spot for the Today Show for SOAM.
6. So I had to figure out how to plan for and schedule and then have a trip to New York on zero dollars (helped in large part due to the fact that flights and hotels were taken care of, of course).
7. And then they said I wasn't going to New York, but that they'd come to my house instead.
8. So I had to figure out how to have my house suitable for NATIONAL TELEVISION (helped in large part to the fact that my house is kind of awesome in general these days).
9. And then they were all, "haha, just kidding. nvrmnd."
10. *sigh*
11. And then it turned out that, while running all over town on Matt Lauer's newest whim, I'm missed the deadline to turn in my paperwork for food stamps and was in danger of losing them. So I spent FOUR DAYS trying to get through on the phone.
12. Only to find I'd hadn't missed the deadline at all. Well, not until I spent FOUR DAYS not being able to get through to them.
13. But it was OK because I ran directly to the office that day and turned it in and all was good.
14. And somewhere in that month someone stole my debit card number so I had to deal with all that in the midst of Matt Lauer/food stamps drama.
15. June was OK, I think.
16. And then my mom died.
17. And all her neighbors hated me.
18. And her house was horrible.
19. And it hurt so, so much.
20. And so we began cleaning out her house and her storage. And it took three months.
21. And in September all my body parts suddenly went numb.
22. But it turned out to be just stress!
23. Duh.

And there have been so, so many other small issues. Like stupid banks, or stupid housing development employees, or surprisingly not stupid DMV employees, but stupid neighbors who used to be DMV employees.

My mom used to have a magnet on her fridge (which I’m sure I’ve already said here, but that’s totally my style: telling the same stories. get used to it) that said, “You are not stopped by the mountain in your path but by the small rock in your shoe.” Word. My hardest days are often the ones where it’s just tons of little shit chipping away at my resolve. And when you add those things into a year like the one I’ve had, I just feel so tired. And you know what? I AM SO GLAD 2011 IS ALMOST OVER.

And now for some recent Happy to balance things out.

Stuff I Became Obsessed With, Part III

Cause you know what I didn’t mention last time? Babysitter’s Club Books.

Oh, by the way, this is yesterday’s prompt. See? What was your favorite children’s book? – Niki

Naturally, I had a lot of favorite books over a long childhood, and one of my first choices was to write about The Monster at the End of this Book because it’s still one of my favorites, but A) I just wrote about Muppets, B) everyone else seems to be writing about that one, and C) I’ve forgotten what my third point was, but I’m sure I had one.

So the next book that came to mind was The Ghost at Dawn’s House.

I read my first BSC book at a time when my life was probably getting quite hard. It was fourth grade, probably sometime after my mom lost her job and sanity. The first time I read one I was hooked. These girls had strong and deep friendships, they were responsible and smart and funny, and they lived normal lives. And so I read all of them. And then Ann M. Martin wrote more so I read those, too. And I read all of them many, many times. But none so much as The Ghost at Dawn’s House. It was my first ghost story and it was so scary (not so much it’ll make it into my list of Shit That Scares Me). I read that book until the pages started falling out. And, honestly, I have nothing much more to say about it now that I’m an adult because it’s kind of terrible. All those books are kind of terrible. I’ve tried rereading them. It hurts too much.

I should have written about Deenie instead.

But it was the BSC I was obsessed with. I remember somehow acquiring a map of Stoneybrook, the neighborhood they lived in, and pouring over it, wishing so much I lived there. To this day I can name you all of the Pike kids, quote you some jokes (“Let’s get them!” “Pimples?”), or tell you about the time they got stranded on an island. I even still want to go on a Disney World cruise someday, all because of the BSC. They got me through a hard time in my life, those fictional friends of mine. And they set the stage for a lifetime of fictional relationships, apparently.