Let’s take another look at my complicated life.
This time of year is nuts for me.
We do half our business for the year in the first three weekends of December. That’s a lot of work. I produce around 55 events in 3 weeks when we usually do roughly 8-12 a month year round. It’s overwhelming…for most. It doesn’t really bother me much. Work is the only thing I actually do well. Last year during this work shit storm, I had the cheater around. The year before that The X. This year, it’s just me.
You know what though? I’m okay with it. I can work as long as I’d like, leave dishes for days, work all night, sleep in, drink a bottle of wine, not do housework, and really do anything else my heart desires or doesn’t. It’s awesome. There is a weight off my shoulders and it feels like a relief to not have a relationship this time of year. Last year I couldn’t fucking focus. My heart was broken, my head cloudy with grief. It was a rough season. Truth is it is hard on all of us, the team, me, anyone stuck listening to me. But we work a few hard weeks and then not as hard year round. Ultimately, it’s really not a bad gig. Plus I work from home, so it’s not like I’m stuck in an office somewhere. I’m at home with Mya, snuggled under a heated blanket working in my office.
My new operations manager, well new as of January, hasn’t been awesome. He tries. But he’s immature, inexperienced, and the boss/owner’s son. He doesn’t care like I care. Even though he should. We had an issue at an event recently with a photo booth. It pissed me off. I can solve problems with the photo booth via Facetime. No one knows that fucking thing like me and it has a new problem everytime we set it up. My bonus is tied to the production of events and not offering refunds. So when I had a pissed off client Monday, I was less than pleased. A refund would cost me money. Not a lot of money for a wealthy man and his son, probably not enough for them to even care about. But as a single, divorced woman, struggling to make ends meet and failing, it matters to me. So I said I would come to the shop and work on photo booths. I asked to have them set up and ready for me to test and work on.
Work Work Work Work Work.
I’m busy with my own job right now. Don’t have all the time in the world to fix other people mistakes. My job since hiring an operations manager was to focus on sales and marketing. And while that may work for his wife who has my position in another market, it doesn’t really work up here. Or at least not yet. No one knows the job in our market and no one gives enough of a fuck to help me worth a damn. My team calls me all the time still. I have never been able to completely step out like I was hoping. Sport hasn’t earned the respect I have and it has been a hard adjustment for everyone to allow someone into a position of management when they haven’t earned it and have no management experience. He doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time, doesn’t work events with the team, and instead usually disappears and leaves it for the rest of us to handle. All while making more money than most, calling in sick, and getting off way easier than anyone else would if they acted the same. I like him. I actually really do. But I have a ton of management experience, 10+ years of working in events, 4 years and 5 seasons working with this fucking company, and kid strolls in to help but spends more time at the gym than actually doing anything. It’s obnoxious.
If I don’t love confrontation, why am I so good at it?
So when I got to the shop, I was frustrated that nothing was set up. Photo booths not even powered on. Three people working in the shop and they wait for me to get there to do anything. I’m busy. I don’t have time to do my job and his. Yet I’m expected to. So what gives? I start with the photo booths. He notices my annoyance and asks what I have going on today. I reply, Um… My job? This is your job. That I’m helping you with. But the fact remains that I still have mine to do.
I’m annoyed with him. A team member starts helping me work on photo booths, tells me he’s not working on anything else. Dude, then why the fuck is there three of you at the shop doing nothing?? However, saving money is no longer my “job”. So I let it go and we start working on it. And I tell Sport, my patience is wearing thin right now. He challenges me, why? I say, “This should have been done by now and we don’t have time to be working on this. We have had all year and it’s now almost December.” So why the fuck hasn’t the photo booths been fixed before now? Mind blown. He says, well it’s not December. I stare at him for a moment then finally replied, “You know what I don’t need right now? Your fucking attitude problem.”He stutters for a moment in disbelief but offers no response.
Fast forward to now.
He’s so overwhelmed that he’s falling apart. Funny because he was pissed at me when I’m the bitch or the nag or his babysitter, telling him what to do. Why? Because I FUCKING KNOW what is about to happen. So swallow your pride and listen to me. I’m not talking just to hear the sound of my voice. I much prefer silence. But I also prefer shit gets done to a standard that doesn’t make everyone want to die.
So I have plans to meet friends. My new framily goes to a bar on the waterfront on Thursdays. It’s nice to have a weekly time to get together when life gets busy and you can disconnect. I invite a team member who is also part of our friend group to join. We finish at the shop later than anticipated, due to the fact nothing was ready when I got there. I spent a good 4 hours unfucking shit to get our machines ready. We head to the bar to join our friends. My friend Tom recants the story to our friends. They die laughing and tell me I’m such a badass. Tom tells us, “You should have seen his face when you said that. I was dying laughing…on the inside. I didn’t want to cause a scene. I also didn’t want to feel the wrath when you were done with him.”
I’m a pretty badass bitch. A self-proclaimed nutbag. I consider myself a realist and I choose not to live in other people’s fantasy. So I’m happy to tell you the truth. That’s just life. [clickToTweet tweet=”The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. ” quote=”The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. “] I was giving the opportunity to run this business four years ago and I truly love it. But it’s hard sometimes. It causes problems in my life. The X hated it, told me I needed to get a “real job”. My friends and family don’t understand that even though I’m at home, I do still actually need to work 40-50 hours a week… most of the time. During our busy season, that escalates to 60-96 hours a week, for a month, maybe two, and right around the holidays. But in the slower months, I have time to go to the pool with my nieces, run away for vacay, sleep in a bit. It balances out.
But this year, with no man in my life (well no one that special) I find that I’m working literally all day every day meaning 9 am to 12 am and it is burning me the fuck out. I’m working my day job, I’m selling Lipsense. Plus I’m writing for the blog and trying to expand on a new exciting project. After too much wine, too much work, and too little sleep, I’m feeling sad. I feel like I am now just going to die alone, never meet anyone, and I should have just stayed in my marriage. Hopefully, the thought is fleeting.
I’m off topic though. My divorce has given me the opportunity to engage with the friends and family I love. I wasn’t able to spend as much time on them through my relationship with The X. He hated my family. He hated my friends. Most of the time I’m pretty sure he hated me. So I have been able to reconnect with friends I didn’t get to see as much. I spend multiple days a week with my family. I now get several days a week with my new framily. I do it all without guilt and it fills me. Plus, I get me time whenever I want. I have honestly been a little afraid to get into a relationship again because I’m afraid that I will lose me again. I sometimes feel like I have so limited time to give, I don’t want to lose it to someone ever again. I don’t want to be one of those a-holes that disappear when they get a relationship. I hope that when the time comes again, I will find that balance.
You know I love my music and during this divorce, I have found so many new albums, songs, and singers. I first heard Green Light by Lorde when she performed it on an award show. It resonated with me and led me to Liability. I admitted to a man I have been dating tonight after a weird argument Saturday that I just discovered a new fear. After the shit year I had, I am afraid that any man I date, like, show interest in, commit to, will leave me for someone else. Maybe someone better. I didn’t realize I truly felt that way until I blurted it out in a vulnerable moment after I freaked out on him for going to dinner with a “friend”. To be fair, he didn’t answer my call/text for hours, so that obviously means he’s cheating and out with a girl. #baggage
I do realize that I can’t keep blaming everyone for The X and the Cheater’s mistakes. But I’m still scared. That’s why I’ve stayed single. If it were so easy for me to move on when things fail, maybe I would just jump in again like they did. Then again, I somehow doubt that they felt as bad as me while moving on to their new lives and girlfriends. I know they didn’t spend the time working through hours upon hours upon hours of therapy so they didn’t repeat their mistakes. I know they likely don’t give a fuck about being left again because they will just move along to the next. Instead, I’m still afraid everyone will leave me because as The X said, “[I’m] too much for him.” He just “can’t handle me” and he “doesn’t want to”.
I listened to Lorde’s new album, Melodrama, on repeat for days and weeks and months. I quoted lyrics in conversation. Halloween is my favorite holiday. It used to be 4th of July, but considering that’s now my failed wedding anniversary date, I guess I’ll switch to Halloween where I can be someone else for the day and the thought of it doesn’t make me want to die. Last year, I went as the Joker. Since the divorce, I’ve considered myself the villain. He thinks so, so it must be true right? Everything is my fault and he had nothing to do with it. So as I listened to Lorde say,
Baby really hurt meCrying in the taxiHe don’t wanna know meSays he made the big mistake of dancing in my stormSays it was poison
I realized I wanted to dress the part. He thinks I’m the villain. He thinks I’m a liability. That I’m poison. So my friends, as usual, I decided to go all out. I planned and plotted to become Poison Ivy.
Sister time.
My sister was coming to town to go out with our cousins for Halloween. You may or may not know, but I love to go all out. I love to doll up and to take things to a level that makes most people uncomfortable. In September when we had planned to go to a 90s party for my cousins birthday, my sister and I went shopping. I found a purple dress that was outrageous and had purple cutouts showing the midriff. It was on clearance and my size so I decided to try it on. My sister was horrified. But I bought it. Wore it. Loved it. I’m not a super skinny gal but being my size and shape has never much bothered me.
I planned my costume, not sure how I would pull it off. I ordered a few pieces from Amazon and pieced it together. Bought a bunch of ivy with no idea how I would make it work. But not making things work isn’t my strong suit. I can literally do anything. That sounds conceited and I don’t mean too. But nothing much scares me. When I took my job running this business, I did things not because I wanted to but because if I didn’t no one else would. So I hosted game shows in front of crowds of people. I ran a huge team in a crazy season when I had three weeks prep, zero experience and cried every day… in secret. I just get things done. And apparently, that’s usually offensive to most. I say the truth that most people are uncomfortable with and I do things that would make most people uncomfortable.
Night out. Halloween Day 1.
The day my sister was due in town I got to work on my costume. I felt a tad uncomfortable by the fact I planned to wear a skin-tight outfit out in public. Even in a wig and full makeup. I needed to modify my costume to achieve the look I wanted so I scoured the dresser and decided that the perfect addition to my costume was to re-purpose an item that had been mocking me in my drawer for a year. I hesitated to ruin them, the same way I’ve hesitated to sell my wedding ring. But a pair of wifey panties is a small step to healing so I went for it. Truth? It was a phenomenal addition to my costume. I felt a little empowered by taking more former wifey self and transforming her into Poison Ivy. So we went out with the cousins for Halloween. Then the next day I had back to back Halloween parties.
Back to Back Parties. Halloween Day 2.
Friends, I have a problem with over-committing. I am happy to report though that I am getting better. I dropped off 2 of the 3 boards that I sat on. I learned to say no. I make time for me. Maybe if I made these changes sooner I would still have my marriage. But maybe not. So shoulda coulda woulda. I believe that we likely still would have ended up where we are. Divorced. So now I will just do my best to not repeat my mistakes.
I was so late for the first party. Like so late I hadn’t even got in costume by the time I was supposed to leave. Plus I had to pick up a photo booth for my second party. So my sister left and then I drove to get to the booth. I had offered my box of old costumes to a friend for the second party and we arranged to meet to exchange it on my way to the first party. When I got there I planned to stay for only a minute. But then a new girlfriend that I met recently and LOVE, offered me a mimosa. And so the first party went to the wayside as I enjoyed a lazy Sunday with girlfriends, mimosas, and a lot of poison ivy.
I couldn’t skip the second party though. I had to bring a photo booth. It was an industry event. A friend of mine and his husband own a liquid catering company and once a year they open doors for a super fun, somewhat drunken event at their venue. So I forced myself to leave after a few mimosas and 10 minutes out from the second party. I didn’t really know who all might be there and I was feeling a bit awkward. But as I walked in the door as Poison Ivy, I saw my best gay friend and his husband. He embraced me and my fear melted away. Everyone loved it. My costume was to die for. And in what my gay friend called “Fag Central” (a party of mostly gay men) they loved it. And the gays are the hardest to usually please, plus the most judgmental. I received so many compliments and praise for my costume all weekend. It made me feel great and validated. I was poison and people loved it.
The 3 days of Halloween.
Halloween was on a Tuesday. So while my party weekend of celebrating was over, the actual holiday was not. Part of the reason I love my job so much is that I have a lot of freedom. My boss (our owner) is located two hours away and leaves me pretty much to myself. I get to exercise a lot of creative freedom with marketing and sales. I love to bake. Our separation last year was during the holiday season and like a lot of things, I found it difficult to enjoy a lot of the things I used to love. Like baking. This year I have found those things I used to love, the things that made me me, slowly coming back.
I frequently do sales visits that include food. No one has ever turned me away when I had food. True story. So I knew I wanted to do a Halloween themed sales blitz. I just needed some inspiration. While shopping at Joann’s for ivy for my costume I found a tiny chocolate knife mold. I wondered how could I get this to work for my blitz. An idea was born. Tagline: Happy Halloween! We think you’re killer. So Monday night I started in on prep. Insomnia has plagued me lately so baking until 4 am sounded like a nice way to pass the time since I wouldn’t be sleeping. I worked all night baking, woke up early and finished my packages. They were to die for. Pun not intended. But after I wrote it, I think it’s pretty perfect 😃 I was hesitant to go in full Poison Ivy costume. Not sure why but I was. So I decided to switch it up. And pulled off a cute, professional, fun semi-costume that I still enjoyed. My sales blitz was awesome and a super success.
I had plans to with the family to have dinner and go trick or treating with my 4-year-old niece. I ran home after my blitz, changed my costume, and did my Poison Ivy makeup for the 3rd time in a few days. Prepped some food, then ran by the guys’ house I was seeing to drop off a couple treats I didn’t get rid of during the day. I was super late for dinner. As per usz. When I got to my sisters finally, they were leaving for trick or treating already. I was starving. And wearing 6-inch heels. So I stayed back with my 6-week old niece and ate food with my mom and sis. They didn’t spend much time out. Olivia (my 4-year-old niece) wasn’t super into the concept of trick or treating. When they returned I tried to get her to selfie with me. She said “Ka! I don’t want to take a selfie.” I said, “Um, well you’re going to.” My mom said recently I take so many selfies with my nieces. Geez, I just love them, deal with it. At least the baby doesn’t care yet. Olivia wouldn’t smile. Hence the awkward picture. I headed home after a long few days of costume wearing, makeup, and super high heels. Overall though I would say, operation Poison was a huge success.
Friends, sometimes you just have to steer into the skid. Embrace what scares you. Everything is going to be okay. And if it isn’t? At least once a year, on Halloween, we get to be someone else.
