Welcome To My Dark Side

This weekend was my 47th birthday. I'm not going to even try to pretend getting older is rewarding or any of the crap I've heard other people say. I pretty much think it sucks great big green apples but what can you do about it. The only thing I know to do is to fight tooth and toenail looking and acting my age. I'm not going down without a fight! Two things happened this weekend that really amused me. The first one is I had two different friends from completely different areas of my life send me a text that said "Okay Jac, your blogs are scaring me". I didn't think much about getting the first text but when I got the second one I just had to chuckle. It is true that most of my poetry is and always has been written out of some kind of pain and tends to be very dark. The funny thing about that is I don't usually plan that stuff. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, go the computer and it just comes out. A lot of time (not all of the time) I have no ideal where it's coming from or where it's going. When I'm depressed or just going through some life transition, the way I cope is to write; for me it's therapy. I was talking to a friend this weekend about the blogs and I told her if you didn't know me you might think I'm a really dark person that leans on the crazy side. The people who know me may say I'm unusual (I believe some use the term unique) but certainly not crazy. I know of many women at this stage in their life that are going through the very same emotional transitions that I am... They just don't blog about it. I think it's important to talk about the things we are going through because let's face it, everybody has something they are dealing with. If we could be real with each other we could bring a lot of comfort to hurting people who think they are the only ones struggling with whatever "their stuff" may be. My personal opinion is that pride keeps us from being real, not only with others but also with ourselves. Let's face it, we want others to think that we have it more together than we really do. We don't like it when people see our vulnerable places because if at all possible it's nice to feel a little superior to others and in order to do that we have to keep a lot of things hidden. If you know me very well, you know that I keep very little, if anything hidden. In fact I bet some think I should keep more hidden then I do. I guess I don't have much of a need to feel superior to others, in fact the thought of being placed on a pedestal makes me extremely uncomfortable! I know without a doubt that I will never live up to any ones expectations of me and when I fall (and I do fall) I want as few eyes on me as possible. So if you're wondering, yes I have a dark side but my dark side isn't as dark as it may seem and I'm more than willing to shine a light inside so you can see my darkness. I figured out a long time ago that things have more control over you when they are allowed to stay in the dark. Shining a light on your dark side can make things a lot less scary, at least for me. The second amusing thing that happened is the two friends that sent me text about my blogs (they don't know each other) got me the exact same present. They each got me a little plague that says "Pretending to be a normal person day after day is exhausting". I think that is a hysterical saying, so much in fact that a couple of years ago I bought a large framed painting that has exactly the same saying and I have it hanging over my desk at work. Now I don't care who you are, that's funny. Being normal, typical or usual is WAY over rated!!!! I am certainly not ashamed that I do like to be my own person, create my own style and live in my own reality and it's obvious that my friends know that about me too. The one thing I do know without a fact is I'm okay. Yes I have my struggles and I've cried some tears, but I cry them out loud so maybe someone else can see they aren't alone. It's perfectly normal to feel like you are going insane sometimes. In my view it's just part of being a woman, a Mother, a wife and a friend. So if you feel like crying, cry. in fact I invite you over to the dark side to cry with me and when we're done crying we'll pull out our compacts, put on our lipstick and have a good laugh, cause that's what real people do.