Just a quick note to let you know that Aunt Becky is recovering well with her Painkiller Button Of Goodness.

To all who have pestered me for status updates, tweeted your well wishes, IM’ed, texted, or just thought of Becky while she went under the knife: THANK YOU. You guys go to eleven.

I know that Guilty Squid is preparing a guest post for the Internets but there seems to have been some sort of delay…so until then, or until they take away the Happy Button and send Becky back home to her crazy chilluns, I’m off to…uh…do whatever it is I do when, uh…Becky’s not around.

This is so weird.

Tomorrow, I will surgery.

That sounded so epic in my head. Like something you’d hear from a particularly dramatic scene in one of those annoying dramatic movies I don’t watch because they’re filled with trite dialog like, “Tomorrow, I will surgery…” stares off into the distance poignantly, perhaps clutching a heart locket or maybe a tattered book.

Either way, I’m scheduled to go under the knife tomorrow sometime. Because it’s the hospital, they don’t exactly GIVE you a time and then stand by it or anything. Dave can’t comprehend that, which means it’s a good thing he doesn’t work in medicine, or his head might explode into pulpy bits because he simply cannot comprehend how something cannot be at! a! given! time!

I mean, I get it. When I worked as a floor nurse, people would be all, “when is radiology coming to get me for my imaging study?” and I’d be all, “sometime today,” knowing ‘today’ is a nebulous concept in a hospital, where variables upon variables stack upon one another. Someone urgent needs the CT scan or the OR and you get booted from your time slot. Tough shit, home slice. Except you can’t SAY that to a patient even if you want to because, well, OBVIOUSLY.

So I’m assuming that I’ll have surgery. Except that maybe I won’t. Because shit happens, man.

But in the event that I do indeed have The Surgery, I’m really excited. I’m nervous, too, but really, I’m excited. It’s nice to finally be able to have a dream that I can accomplish. Okay, that was too Lifetime Movie of the Week for me.

In the event that I have The Surgery tomorrow, I’m thrilled because I’ll FINALLY have an excuse to lay around pop pain pills while I make others do my bidding. THAT is pretty much my life’s dream.

And uh, DRUGS ARE BAD, KIDS, Look at Your Aunt Becky. You don’t want to turn out like Your Aunt Becky. Remember that the next time you’re offered drugs by a gang of peer-pressuring street thugs. Or Lil Wayne. He’s a walking anti-drug campaign.

Scared straight yet, bitches?

Tomorrow it is.

Hopefully, I won’t die. Because that would suck.

I’ll update as I can from the hospital (yay! WI-FI) as I am staying overnight and likely housed with a roommate who will probably be a total psychopath, which means I will get zero sleep, so YOU will get drug-addled posts about the BUBBLE PEOPLE ATTACKING ME ZOMG THE BUBBLE PEOPLE, but I may or may not be up to returning emails.

Especially if they begin:

“Dear Blogger, we think your readers will love…”

Also: Wrote about body image at Toy With Me.

I pretty much live in the awesomest neighborhood ever. There’s a house that passes out beer and “severed fingers” (hot dogs) to the parents. Someone up the block makes Irish coffee. A couple other people make mini-haunted houses for the older kids. Really, you can’t go wrong.

And I love Halloween. I haven’t been feeling well lately, so I didn’t get as into it this year as I normally do, but you know, can’t win at life ALL THE TIME.

I didn’t know what to expect this year. Ben shrieked for his first three Halloweens, Alex was flabbergasted for his first two, and Amelia was merely indifferent last year.

This year, Alex and Ben were full of the excited for Halloween.

I’m motherfucking fluttering, okay?

When Amelia saw Ben dressed like this, she ran around the house going, “ARRRR!” Because she knows a pirate says, “ARRRR.”

She rules.

Now the only child without a costume was Amelia. It’s not that we didn’t WANT to get her a costume or that we were all, “YOU CAN’T HAVE A COSTUME, AMELIA,” it’s just that every time any one of us tried to explain the concept of Halloween, we realized how absurd it sounded:

“So, we dress up as other people and then go ask our neighbors for candy.”

“We put on costumes and trick-or-treat.”

“We go door-to-door dressed up and say, ‘trick or treat.'”

Yeah. It sounds like that.

So of course, Amelia was baffled and I wasn’t about to drop a significant amount of cash on something that baffled her, so instead, I picked her out a reasonable costume at Old Navy, and figured at worst, she could wear some jammies. She’s a little girl. Who cares? If someone had an issue with a non-dressed up ickle girl, they could talk to my Fists of Fury.

When I got the costume in the mail, though, I made a big deal of presenting it to her, like it was this big prize. “OH AMELIA, LOOK AT THIS PRETTY PRETTY THING!”

She took a look at it, grabbed it from my hands and threw it on the ground and began to stop on it. I grabbed it away before she could take a shit on it. Her fury was hilarious if not slightly baffling. It was a fairy princess costume, not something that should really have evoked ire in a toddler. I mean, this is the child who loves pink, sparkles and Mary Janes. She’s my daughter, after all.

But…okay. To the closet it went.

Until yesterday.

She saw her brothers dressed up, and as she was getting on her ballerina jammies, on a whim, I grabbed out the Fairy Princess costume to show her.

She grabbed it from my hands, and instead of attempting to take of her diaper to take a whizz on it, she lovingly caressed it, then hooted her desire to put it on. When it was safely on, she ran over to the mirror to take a look at herself in the pretty dress. She smiled.

Then she went up to her eldest brother, stole his sword and the costume was complete:

It’s Amelia The Pirate Fairy, BITCH.

Where Alex, my ickle Jay was afraid to go from house to house the first year he could toddle around, Amelia marched up to each door, hooted when she got her candy, and ran as fast as her thunder thighs would allow her to the next house, keeping handily up with her brothers.

I swear, Pranksters, I was misty with pride. My girl, she’s fierce.

AMELIA, FUCK YEAH.

P.S. You should visit my home slice Peggy and her Etsy shop. Why? Because she’s crafty and I’m not.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I hesitated to ask this question, because deep down, I think I know the answer, I just don’t want to believe it.

My husband of 6+ years has developed a noticeably heavier drinking habit lately than he has had in the 9+ years that I have known him. We have a 4.5 year old son together. I love my husband, but the Dr.Jekyll/Mr. Hyde syndrome is wearing down my nerves, my energy, and my self-esteem.

He has begun to curse at me in front of our son, tell me that I am not allowed to eat dinner and then throw it away. He has threatened to forcibly have sex with me. He’s told me that he will have me committed. I suffer from anxiety and depression for the last 3.5 years but am stable and compliant on my meds, seeing my counselor regularly. He tells me that I am fat, stupid, lazy, a lousy housekeeper, a bad mother…

I work 6 nights a week every week, do almost all of the housekeeping, the laundry and ironing, most of the child care when our son is not in daycare, and pay all the bills.

I am also trying to go to college. I love my husband, and here and there I dream of happily-ever-after – which he says is fairy-tale bullshit. “This is what marriage is” he says. I don’t want my little boy to grow up without his dad, but I don’t want him to grow up LIKE him even more. I am thinking that I should leave. Take my son and move out.

Part of me wants to have more class about it than his last wife did (surprised?), part of me wants to take everything but the house and let him have back a piece at a time until he gives me what I want: full custody. I think he loves our son, but he has a cruel streak and refers to him as a “son of a bitch” or a “motherfucker” within his hearing. I do not think that he is good for our son in the state he’s in now with the drinking and the verbal abuse and bullying. I am scared: scared of him, scared that I can’t do it, scared I’ll cave if he gets sober and then he’ll go right back to it.

I did leave him once before, but didn’t make it a week, and things weren’t nearly this bad then. My parents and sister will support me emotionally if I leave, and have offered to help financially where they can, but I do not feel right asking them for money. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how this happened to me.

Please help me, Aunt Becky.

———————

Abuse refers to harmful or injurious behavior to another human being

Verbal Abuse: constant name-calling, labeling, ridicule, making fun of, mocking, spoken threats, and regular bullying. Verbal abuse can occur at schools, in homes or at the workplace. It can be very hard to prove verbal abuse as it’s often hard to obtain evidence, even though it’s incredibly damaging. The victim can be told that it’s “all in their head” or that it’s “a joke” and made to feel that the constant attacks are really their own fault or their own problem. This can lead to long-term psychiatric damage to their self-esteem and self-image.

(information taken from Abuse Resource Page of Band Back Together)

Domestic Violence Resource Page on Band Back Together

Prankster, I’m so sorry that you’re in this position. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY deserves to be abused, and your husband is abusing you. You do not deserve this. If any ONE of my Pranksters reading this is in the same position as the writer, know that I am addressing you, as well:

YOU DO NOT DESERVE THIS.

The subject line was “is this what marriage is supposed to be?” and my answer is, of course, FUCK NO. Marriage is about love and more importantly, about partnership. Marriage isn’t always good or always easy, but it is never, ever supposed to be like this. Ever.

Prankster, please get out of there. Please go. You mentioned that you have family that will support you and that’s full of the awesome. Here is a list of state-by-state resources available to victims of domestic abuse. At the bottom of this post, I’ve listed other abuse hotlines.

I was in an abusive relationship, too. There are a lot of us out there who have been there before and have gotten out. We’re on the other side and we want you to join us. We’re here for you here, and more importantly, I think that Band Back Together has an awesome network of support, too. You’re not alone. We’ve all got your back and you can do this.

Pranksters, help me out here. Help me help this Prankster.

Much love to you, Prankster. Please be safe.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline:

1.800.799.SAFE (7233)

National Child Abuse Hotline

1-800-4-A-CHILD

National Sexual Assault Hotline

1.800.656.HOPE

Elder Abuse (state hotlines vary):

Visit National Center on Elder Abuse for a directory of state hotlines

Because now that I am officially a fugitive-at-large scheduled for surgery that I wasn’t quite expecting to happen so, well, SUDDENLY, I am now carefully spraying down every surface of my house with bleach. And Lysol. And then more bleach. Why? Because GERMS EXIST WHERE CROTCH PARASITES LIVE.

Also, one of the major risks for a surgery like mine is infection, so there you have it. I am trying to minimize my risks WHILE staying sane. Also Also: if anyone knows anyone local who can paint some walls, like, in the next three days, CALL ME.

Because obviously.

(and yes, I was serious about the come sit on my couch, yo, offer)

I invited my home slice Mompetition to guest post for me. So I could go buy more bleach. And maybe stare adoringly at my John C. Mayer pictures. A lot.

But I’m over at Mushroom Printing and I’ll prolly be over at Band Back Together because I am obsessive. They’re group blogs, yo, so you can post there too. FANCY.

——————–

Aunt Becky asked me to do a guest post. Besides a moment filled with excitement and glee, I felt an overwhelming sense of, well shit, what do I write about?  Typically, I like to write about amusing topics.  Perhaps one of my tales from days cooped up in a laboratory, pounding out the cure for cancer.  Or I could tell you the tale of worms who frolicked in my toilet.  That’s right, worms.  Someone (not a member of my family), had gone poopoo in a guest toilet we never used, and failed to flush.  A week went by and I noticed a horrid smell.  I opened the lid and to my horror I found black water and worms swan diving into the sewage.  Yes.  It happened.

But instead, words that Aunt Becky told me (ok, not me specifically, so I guess I should use the word “US”) resound in my ears.  It is important to be honest with your audience.  People yearn for truth and hence, will be drawn into the prose.  Let’s talk about feminism aka, wearing your vagina on the outside, as well as the inside.

Growing up I was constantly told I could be anything:  a veterinarian, an artist, a brain surgeon, anything my little pig-tailed heart desired.  I did my time in high school and then went to college.  I majored in genetics.  It seemed that was not enough, I felt the canines of Virginia Woolf, piercing through my brain.

Next, I continued on to graduate school and completed my studies in cancer biology earning a PhD.  During this time I struggled with infertility and triumphantly gave birth to boy/girl twins after my graduation.  At the same hospital, I had found a fantastic job that I loved.  I utilized my writing talents, people incorporating skills and even had a boss that understood my quirky sense of humor.  Then, I gave birth to my babies and 12 weeks after their birth returned to work.  I smiled each day and enjoyed the coffee break complete with alone time at my desk.  But inside, I was dying.

No one told me it was OK to “just be a mother”.  Staying at home with your children was something our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did.  Stanton and Anthony didn’t work their bustles off so that I would merely sit at home and be a wife and mother.  Oh no no.  I owed it to our sub species to work work work and be proud of my success.  I would stare at my business card mounted on my desk and daydream about what my babies were doing at daycare.  Were they sticking to their routine?  Did the ladies there remember to not do tummy time with my daughter?  Is my son smiling at that other woman who is holding him close.

I worked and worked, some days I would only see them for 30 minutes total.  I was not happy.  Then, it happened.  I got the best news I ever. We had to move.  My husband’s job relocated us halfway across the country to the sweltering craplands of Miami.  I was in heaven.  Now, I had an excuse to quit my job and not return to work.  “OH! getting a job in Miami?  We may only be there for a few years, it’s not worth it for me to try and find a job.”

We moved.  I stayed home.  I was happy.  Sure there were a few days (weeks!) that sucked here and there.  Nap refusals, food thrown in my face, children rolling around on the floor trying to bite one another, all that good infant-toddler transition stuff, but it was the happiest I had ever been.

Then, we had to move back.  We all came back to Texas and suddenly it wasn’t an anomaly that I was unemployed.  Back in our home state, back with connections, back where people spoke English, I had no excuse not to go find a job.  I chose not to and decided to be, a STAY AT HOME MOM (dun dun duuunnn).

I hate it when strangers ask what I do.  I still feel the need to justify or say things like “well just until they start school”.  Don’t worry, I will work again, please don’t think less of me.  I also hate forms.  “Employer?”  “Work Phone?”  My answers are always bitchy or full of sub-text.  I wonder if anyone catches it.

I find it interesting that as little girls, we are given baby dolls to play with.  Yet, when I was growing up I was never told it was “OK” to be a mommy.  Playing mommy was for fun, but you better finish college.  Where was all my inner struggle coming from?  GUILT.  Guilt that I was letting all the women who had come before me down.  I had the brains and drive to be a successful working woman, I owed it to them to climb that ladder.  And then, one day, it hit me.  Feminism is not about being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or being the chief of medicine, it was about having a CHOICE.  I can be a woman in a suit or a woman in a rocking chair.   It’s OK to be a stay at home mom to support my husband in his career and be with my children 24 hours a day.  If that is what I chose to do, so be it.

Many don’t get it.  A woman I once worked has called it a “shame”, and “such a waste of talent”.  Others comment on why I bothered to get my doctorate if I’m JUST going to be a mom.  My friends without children constantly ask me when I’m “going back to work”.  Every time someone says that it makes me want to hurt them, possibly slowly and painfully with voodoo needles.  But instead, I normally follow it up with the passive-aggressive “what do you mean?”  Whether they meant it or not, I thank my fore-mothers for standing up for my rights to be employed by my husband and children.

My only hope, for anyone out there who struggles with the insecurities of this job, is that you are comforted in knowing you are ALLOWED to be whatever you want to be, even if it is a bugger rag for your babies.

A couple of weeks ago, because I’d been too busy watching dancing cat videos, I forgot that I had Jury Duty. I’d actually been pretty excited to serve, because I watch Law and Order: Their Life Sucks More Than Yours So Shut Your Whore Mouth like it is my job and I was all, “IMMA JURY OF MAH PEERS, YO” so when I opened my date book and saw I was four hours to late to show up, I panicked.

Immediately, I tried to figure out what to do when the cops showed up to bust me for contempt of court. I put on a full face of makeup and hid in the bathtub for awhile while I contemplated blacking out a couple of my teeth, just in case COPS, the TV show, showed up, too. I mean, this was my television debut, and I should act the part, right?

Eventually, I got cold and bored and the lure of Uncrustables pulled me from the tub. I put on one of those fake mustache and glasses, which meant that when the cops DID show up, I’d fool them. Clearly, I wouldn’t look like Your Aunt Becky any more. I’d look like an entirely different person now!

The following day, I realized that I liked to wait as much as I liked to cook (read: not at all), so I called the number on the back of the Jury Duty summons.

Me: “I’m a total idiot and forgot to show up yesterday for Jury Duty. I considered fleeing the country, but figured I’d call you first. I’m really sorry.”

Her: “Bwahahahaha! Happens all the time. We weren’t going to arrest you.”

Me: “OHMYGOD I hid in the bathtub for an hour. But it was really like twenty minutes. But still, I’M SO SORRY.”

Her: “BWAHAHAHAHA! The cops do have better things to do than stalk people who forget Jury Duty.”

Me: “OHMYGOD that’s so relieving. I didn’t want to have to adopt a new identity!”

Her: “No! You don’t have to do that! We’ll just put you back in the Jury Pool. When is good for you?”

Me: “Doesn’t really matter. I don’t have a job or anything.”

Her: “How’s November 8th?”

Me: “Sign me up!”

Her: “You got it.”

So there I had it. My new date in court! I was all a-flutter! I was going to help DECIDE THE FATE OF SOMETHING OTHER THAN A DELICIOUS UNCRUSTABLE. I couldn’t have been more excited.

Until, looking at my slightly unexpected surgery date, November 3rd, I realized that November 8th was…uh…kinda close. Like, really close.

I debated what I should do. Should I call and try to reschedule AGAIN? Get a doctor’s note? Limp my sorry ass in there with a cane and sexy drains hanging out, all doped up on pain meds?

SHOULD I FLEE THE COUNTRY AND ADOPT A NEW IDENTITY?

To think straight, I put on the fake mustache and glasses. Then I called the Jury Duty lady and left it up to her.

January 3.

Watch out, petty criminals: AUNT BECKY is coming to give you JUSTICE.

Probably while wearing my fake mustache. Just so I can think straight. AND so they can’t find me and firebomb my car or something. Because, obviously.

No one will recognize me!

In order for this to make sense, you have to read this post first.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

…

…

…

Done?

Okay.

So, that plan didn’t quite work out. I shouldn’t have expected it to.

Let me back up a moment.

I’ve been in terrible pain for so long that I cannot remember when I wasn’t. I’ve had daily migraines since Amelia was born, something that I’d had off and on before that. I take a drug called Topamax (I lovingly call it “The Max,” when I’m feeling especially jaunty) to treat them, but it leaves me feeling a bit blurry.

The muscles spasms I have in my back, neck and shoulders are relatively new, and they trigger the migraines that The Max once blurrily held at bay. Through a mixture of muscle relaxants, pain medication, and daily chiropractic appointments, I’ve managed to keep them decently under control.

The pain has made me excruciatingly depressed. It makes me feel broken that “something is always wrong” with me. My friends tease me about it. I hate it because deep inside, I fear that they’re right. I’m irrevocably broken.

Because nothing can go according to plan, it’s no surprise that the surgeon took one look at my breasts and said that while they were, in fact, large, the insurance company would deny my reduction. It wouldn’t be enough tissue removed to meet their arbitrary criteria. I could, of course, fight it, appeal it, and in the end, perhaps get it covered. But, he also warned, I’d also probably want a lift and restructuring of the breast as well, not just a removal of tissue.

I saw dollar signs add up and I knew he was right.

I’d also gone in to talk about an abdominoplasty, which, in non-medical terms is a full tummy tuck. I’d heard you Pranksters talk about having both done at once and figured that I might as well, since I was going in for a reduction that I was certain insurance would pay for, see about having that done at the same time. Or really, just see what that was about.

We all have Those Things that we hate about ourselves. Maybe you hate your hair or your nose or your feet. I hate my gut. Always have. I was blessed with a pot belly and I’ve always planned to have it removed…eventually. No matter how skinny I become, I can’t lose it from there. Drives me bonkers.

The surgeon palpated my abdomen and discovered that the three babies that gestated in my short torso had done a number on my abdominal muscles. I’d suffered diastasis recti, or the separation of the abdominal muscles, which was weakening the core muscles of my body.

It made sense.

The surgeon wasn’t pushy about the surgery at all. He didn’t promise a miracle cure or that somehow my symptoms would miraculously improve overnight. But between what he said, my nursing/anatomical knowledge, and my symptoms, I felt that it made sense. Yes, it will be partially fulfilling my lifelong dream of having a tummy tuck, but also, and it’s a shot at me trying to get better.

I’m having surgery next week on Wednesday. I’ll be having the full abdominoplasty, not simply the outpatient cosmetic one, which means I’ll be in the hospital overnight.

Frankly, Pranksters, I didn’t want to post about this.

I’m nervous about the procedure and I know that there will be enough people reading this who don’t agree with what I’m doing. Whenever you open up about some health-related thing on The Internet, there’s some faction of people who are all, “YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT, YOU SELFISH HEATHEN,” and really, I don’t need to hear it. This is my decision and my body.

To those of you who feel it’s important to come and attack me for my choices: I don’t have to ask permission. If you do not like what I am doing, that is absolutely fine. I don’t ask that you like it. I ask that you respect it as my choice.

But as my Pranksters, I know that you deserve the truth.

The Internet Mole People that will invariably come and shit all over me can suck it.

And to the person who said that I am proof that bad things happen to bad people? You can eat a bowl of hot dicks, baby.

Under the best of circumstances, I sleep like a hot bag of dicks. No, I don’t actually know what that’s supposed to mean because I’m tired.

It’s not like I lay awake worrying about things like normal people. No, I lay awake night after night with that Do-Do-Do-Do A Dollop of Daisy commercial going through my head. Or the Dora the motherfucking EXPLORER theme song. It’s an endless loop of irritation that seems to inflict the maximum amount of annoyance for the minimum amount of effort.

Last night, however, in a blissful turn of events, I was tired. Like bone-tired.

Happily, I curled up like a tic in my blankets and prepared for the blissful embrace of sleep to overtake me.

THUNK-THUNK-THUNK

Whaaaa?

I pried my eyelids open and sat up, dismayed. It sounded as though someone was rattling the door, trying to get in. Probably my cat, I grumbled, as I got up, preparing to boot him down the stairs.

Opening the door and squinting into the bright lights of the hallway, I was shocked to see…nothing. No orange tabby stupidly looking up at me as if to say, “What, me annoying?” Harumphing my way back to bed, I once again curled up like a bedbug and closed my eyes. Just as I was munching my way to dreamland on a delicious marshmallow sandwich…

THWAP THWAP THWAP

What the fuck?

Again, no dazed-looking orange cat, no NOTHING in the hallway. Just a rattling door.

After the fifteenth time, I’d had enough. I wasn’t going to let any rattling door distract me from my delicious marshmallow mountain-top slumber. So I carefully turned myself into a nice fire hazard and pushed a number of things against my door.

It worked…sort of.

All night, my bedroom door rattled, the windows shook, and every time I fell asleep, THWAP THUNK THWAP

Finally, at 7 in the motherhumping morning, while the kids slept peacefully (lucky assholes), I heard the ominous sirens.

Thar be tornadoes afoot.

Grabbing the small ‘ens, my iPhone and a Diet Coke (you know, the ESSENTIALS), we headed to the basement.

This is what I pulled up from Weather.com, after typing in my zip code (I live in Chicago):

Gee fucking, THANKS. I need to think about ITALY now.

Then, I noticed this priceless bit of information. I mean, I couldn’t live without this at 7 in the morning when I was stuck in the basement waiting for a twister to suck me up and dump me off in Kansas somewhere:

We can find out about the fish. And what they’re doing today. PHEW.

WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE FISH!?!?

And then there was THIS gem:

If you’re in the fucking tornado, why are you uploading shit to YouTube?

Douchebag.

Then, I was happy in the pants to note SOMEONE had finally busted out the Scare Tactics. FINALLY. Fucking FINALLY.

It wasn’t quite “Stairway to DANGER” but it was good enough for me.

Then, the tornado looked for more mobile homes to uproot. Sensing that St. Charles did not, perhaps, have any, it moved on.

But we’ve been left with a Gusty Bags of Wind Alert.

Which pretty much means that shit can get fucked up most of the day.

Also: by the end of this, Kansas may not be in Kansas any more.

I hadn’t realized just how long I’d allowed myself to stagnate. Maybe I had and just hadn’t wanted to realize it, I can’t be sure. But the process of purging most of my closet forced me to really stop and take a look at just what it was that I was holding onto.

The answer is: nothing.

When I “became a grown-up,” I tried to live my life the way that I thought a grown-up should live. I never bothered to take into consideration that despite my age, the number of crotch parasites scampering about my feet, and my mortgage, underneath all of that, I was still Your Aunt Becky. The product of two alcoholic parents, I’d never had someone to teach me how to be a grown-up, how to live a life where I was responsible for anything beyond a fish tank, so I made a mash-up of what “grown-ups” did in my mind and I did that.

It never worked for me.

I’m not the person that can hold onto twist-ties “just in case” because I’ll end up storing them in the toilet tank. Extra crap stresses me out. Always has. And yet, because holding onto “just in case” stuff was one of those things I thought that I should do, I did it for years.

Undoing that has reminded me of all of the other things that I’ve been doing simply because I felt that I should.

Every single thing that I remove from my house reminds me that I’m moving on to start my own new life as Your Aunt Becky, not as who I think I should be. While it’s undeniably a positive step, there’s a lot of grieving I’ve been doing along the way.

I suppose this type of purge removes stuff from your mental closet, too. I’m pulling out all of my skeletons and teaching them the motherfucking tango. My skeletons, in turn, are teaching me the waltz. It’s a fair trade, I think. I have to learn from my past or I can never move on.

And I must move past this Waiting Place; this stagnant place I’ve found myself in.

So much of what I want to do with the rest of my life relies on outside forces and while I’ve set the wheels in motion, I have to simply sit back and wait. I’ve been waiting for so many things for so long. I’m ready to move on with my life.

The Waiting Place is a terrible place to be sometimes.

I’m ready to move on with my career, or at least, make one for myself. I’ve got the tools at my disposal, I’ve got the dedication and Lord knows I have the drive, but I’m stuck waiting on outside forces to allow me to move forward in such a manner that I can do something with it.

The Waiting Place is exhausting me.

So instead of focusing on the negative, I’ll see what other tricks my skeletons have to offer me; what else I can learn from them. Something will come to fruition, it always does. And if the past is indicative of the future, it won’t be anything like I’ll expect.

I hope that The Waiting Place soon turns into forward movement.

It’s what I want. It’s what I need. It’s what, eventually, I’ll get.

Once, I’d guess, my dance repertoire is complete.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I need your help. But before I go into details I must warn you that my husband is extremely stubborn. Very stubborn. Like a mule.

When we were dating and considering marriage and parenthood, I made it clear that I wanted three children by the time I was 30. This was very important to me as I am an only child and I didn’t want my children to be lonely like I was. Early on, we had two children in less than two years. He also has a son from his first marriage, but rarely get to see him.

Because I was pretty busy with two little ones and working full time, 30 slipped past. At 32, I was diagnosed with cancer. The treatments were likely to cause menopause and the doctor suggested harvesting eggs to use at a different time. I was too shell-shocked to consider that, but my husband did. We opted not too as that would be time-consuming and my cancer was aggressive needing treatment quickly.

Fast forward a few years, I’m in remission and not in menopause. I’m past the obligatory waiting period to have children safely. I also no longer work and am a stay at home mom full-time. I have a raging case of baby fever! My husband does not. I have begged and bargained with him and he’s not budging. I told him how I was clear that I wanted three children. I would like one more and even volunteered to have a tubal done after a healthy baby is born.

Still not budging. He says that he has three kids and that’s enough. He’s counting the years til they are all 18!

I brought his interest in harvesting eggs, that I thought he wanted more children as well. He has stated that he does not want to stop my desires and would gladly let me divorce him to find a husband who would like to have children. What the heck!? I don’t want to have children with anyone but my husband. But the stubborn as a mule gig is getting old and his comments about divorce are really ticking me off. Mule is quickly turning into jack ass!

Any ideas how I can bring him around and get my way? I’m at that geriatric age when it comes to having babies, 35. So I’d like to do this sooner rather than later. Thanks!

Oh Prankster, my heart goes out to you. Genuinely it does. I wish I had a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am answer for yo, but I’m afraid that I do not.

I can easily see both sides of the equation and why you each feel the way that you do, believe me, I do, and you each have valid points. You each have blinders on to what the other wants and are refusing to compromise and it’s making you desperately unhappy.

Prankster, I think that you need to see a marriage counselor to resolve this situation. I say this not to pass the buck, but because I want you both to come to a solution that makes you both happy and fulfilled. And in this case, neither of you are happy. That is clearly not okay.

I wish you luck, Prankster.

Dear Aunt Becky:

My houseguest and I were in East Hampton, NY this weekend and as we were walking to our local fish store to buy some fish for dinner we found $121.00 on the ground in the parking lot. Inside the fish store we thought we might have seen or heard a customer realizing their loss and if so would have returned them their money. Instead all was calm and no one there seemed at a loss. There was one gentleman there with a wad of cash that appeared to be in the hundreds (he was carrying it in a plastic baggie – how weird is that?) but upon leaving the store he did not walk in the direction of where the money was lying on the ground. At this point we used the found money to purchase two lobsters as well as some sushi quality tuna and splurged on a nice bottle of wine.

Should we have done more to locate the owner? Should we donate an equal amount to charity or should we just assume that whoever lost the money probably did not even notice it and enjoy our found luck?

Ethically Challenged Prankster.
East Hampton
New York.

In the past four months, I have found two sets of diamond earrings and a bag of loose diamonds.

All were in my own closet, of course, but still. I consider that karmic payback for all of the stuff I donate to charity rather than haggling with some toothless yokel on eBay over fifty cents on my old Kate Spade wallet. In places where I should probably at least attempt to make money (read: my incredibly pointless blog)(also read: my old Kate Spade wallet), I never do, so when I find something like my own diamonds, I consider that repayment.

If I were to find $121 in East Hampton, I would absolutely consider that karmic payback for some prior good deed. Especially since it’s the Hamptons, where I think money actually might grow on trees.

So, Prankster, what I’m saying is this: I hope you enjoyed the hell out of that dinner and know that you’d somehow earned it.

Now go do something good for the Universe. It’ll pay you back somehow. I promise.