Guuuuurrrrrl Talk...Part One

This one is an interesting topic. I was out with a girlfriend a couple of weekends ago, we just chilled and talked. We talked about er'thang under the
sun: friends, careers, children, marriage, hating our weight..ugh that's always a tough to talk about and of course MEN!!!
When it came to the topic of friends, we spoke about how some friendships require so much work to maintain, those, at my age..by the way i just turned 39, have no time for. My circle...WOW!!! this group does not require the every minute of the day phone calls, texts, email, etc. When we speak it is as if time stood still for us and we just picked up where we left off. Now, that's a friendship. In times of good and bad we're there for each other without all the drama. What I love most about my circle is there are no judgments. We've all done our fair share of dirt and when spoken out loud, you just feel, "this is it, this is what is going to cause the demise of this great friendship and they'll want nothing to do with me ever, cause im this horrible person that led them to believe I'm something I'm not." Then they do something to amaze you, they respond, "Is that it? Mang, we thought you killed somebody and if you did, that's okay, just tell us where we need to bury the body, we got you!!!" Okay, you guys do realize there is no dead body? I didn't kill anyone, I was just showing how these amazing people have my back, no matter what!!!
Careers..that was the next topic we spoke of. We talked about how ambitious we are and what we need to do to get the brass ring. Looking back at my various career choices, I have always managed to move up the ranks within no time. Unfortunately, the down side to that is a lot of sacrificing. I remember when I was younger, I was looking at old pictures of my family at different functions. I looked at one of my brothers at the circus, and thought, "I don't remember ever going to the circus" so I asked, "where was I, when this was taken?" They responded, "Working." Then I saw a picture of them in the snow, NOW I know I wasn't there, because I saw snow for the first time when I was pregnant with my son, 5 years ago. So, I asked, "where was I when THIS was taken?" the responded, "Working." Another picture was of them, at what seemed like a family reunion, I saw pictures of cousins I hadn't seen in years. When I asked,. "where was..." they stopped me in mid sentence, "WORKING!!!! You were ALWAYS working Lisa, you missed out on a lot of stuff we did. We sometime forgot we had a sister." Wow, that hit hard.
Does the sacrificing stop? The answer to that is, No. Instead of siblings forgetting they have a sister, it's children wondering where there Mother is, a husband playing both parents so his wife can get to where she needs to. I keep trying to tell myself this is not going to be forever, but only until we can get some breathing room. Hmmm, I tend to wonder, will there ever be ANY breathing room? Will the sacrificing ever stop?
Children. This topic is a bittersweet one. Oh, to be a child again without a care in the world. Remember how easy things seemed to be when were kids. No matter what we needed or wanted for that matter all we had to do was ask.
Well, until my Mom and Dad split up and it was a bit more difficult to get what I needed much less what I wanted. Being a parent has changed my perspective on life so much. I grew up in Santa Ana in the barrio and very proud of that. As far as I was concerned my life was as good as good can be and I did not complain. I always knew that I would live in my neighborhood and marry one of my best friends...yes, they were all guys, stay in our neighborhood and raise our children there. They would go to the same schools we went to and have the great memories we did of school. I never thought of where our school had ranked in the nation as far as academics went nor sports. All I knew, was we went there, so they'll go there. College? Well, if they wanted to go then we would help pay for them to go, if not, that would be okay, too. Boy, was I mistaken. I left my neighborhood, lost my virginity to someone whom I thought I was in love with, but later to find out I was more in lust than love and had my daughter. I became a single mother at the age of 23. Not exactly the plan I had, but I made it work. So when it came to what school MY daughter was going to go to, I started looking up where they ranked in academics, the grading was 1-10, 1 being worse, 10 being best. I looked up my old high school, we ranked at a 3...A THREE!!!!!!!!! Wow, no she will not be going there. Colleges...well, she doesn't just want to go to A college, she wants to go to several. Don't know how we're going to do it, but we're going to make sure it is done. I have told her, the world is hers, all she has to do is go out there and take it, and attending a school that is ranked a 3, will not be the way to go!
One the toughest topics came up next.....Marriage. You know when we got married we never really, I mean really looked at the vows that we were reciting for the whole congregation to hear. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness this man and this woman in holy matrimony...blah, blah, blah, blah,....then the questions get presented to you.... "Do you take ___ as your lawful wife/husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?" Hmmm, let's revisit these...for better or for worse? Mmmm, I personally think my husband got the short end of this stick....he's better and I'm worse. Whol'nother (yeah, not sure about this word, but I'll make it work, you know what I mean!!) Oprah, there. Next!! Sickness and in health...again worse...not exactly a Florence Nightingale there, never took the oath, I try....but do I try hard enough though? Ah...richer or for poorer...THERE! THAT's THE ONE...that's the one that fucked us all up!!! Especially those of us that were in the mortgage industry. When spouses were losing their jobs, it put us all on a whol'nother (yes, there's that "word" again...I'm trying) level of stress that we could never have imagined. Role reversals were happening...men staying at home and women holdin' down for the family.
Husbands still expecting their wives to give more and never saying, "I appreciate all you do!!! You ARE my QUEEN!!!" Instead, what is being said is, "Why was your check so low? How are we going to make it all work? Can't you get another raise? Can't you get a second job?" Lots of marriages have fallin' apart during these times because the money talked for the marriages.
As long as the money was there, there was no need to ever communicate. You had a bad day at work, instead of going home and discussing it..you went out and paid for a round of drinks with you co-workers. You got into a fight with your spouse, instead of locking yourselves in the bedroom to fight it out...you went to purchase those $800 boots you were eyeing for a week and needed a good excuse to purchase them. Marriage isn't something that should be taken lightly. I was talkin' to a friend and he made a point that stop me in my tracks, " Women, when thinking about marriage only think of the wedding day, never the day after nor the life after "The Day" and it's because of this that marriages nowadays don't last." Then I started thinking, "Was I one of those women? Did only concentrate on "The Day"? No...not me? Really?

That's it for today...my head hurts...I'll finish the rest of the topics tomorrow.