Yes, I spelled it "altar" on purpose. Just in case you were wondering. It's called irony. Or something.
Today is a bad day for me. I knew that it would be the moment I opened my eyes and saw the same wall, the same closet door, the same stacks of the same books I see every same morning.
I sat down to my Google Reader with a cup of coffee, and found all these blogs speaking to me, saying things their authors would never have intended. The blogs told me that my life sucks and my blog sucks and the forecast doesn't look good either.
My mom came bearing Starbucks. She told me that she Googled her name once to see what came up, and she found another woman with her name that had a condo on every beach, a veneer on every tooth, a flashy ring on every finger. It was like she'd discovered her alter ego.
I wonder if there's another one of me out there? A me with a more interesting, more privileged life, who can just go buy clothes when she wants or needs them, and find some that fit right there on the rack. A me with a dayplanner filled past the margins with notations and scribbles that must be consulted before the smallest engagement can be committed to. A me who knows how she's going to pay her rent and doesn't even have to think about it. A me with all the sorts of things that are so ordinary to everyone else and yet so unobtainable for this me. And which me is the true me?
Maybe the privileged one is out there dreaming of a simpler life, just staying at home with the kids all the time and never having anywhere to go or even any way to get there. Maybe she's doing it right now, sitting on a settee at an awful baby shower with a glass of sorbet punch, cursing me with her daydreams of simplicity.
If you see her, slap her for me.
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This is so excellent, you know. Your blog doesn't suck, though. The sucky blogs aren't on my reader.
I find it sort of fascinating to read how the "other half" lives, though. And there are some blogs that give us a glimpse into more straitened (sp?) circumstances. But you do sound like the woman in Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury) who has had a dose of her husband's "Happiness Machine" and hates it, because it makes her dissatisfied with her own pedestrian (yet important) life.
Before I even read your last paragraph I thought the same thing to myself - that someone out there is wishing for a life just like yours. Someone single who wants to be married, someone wishing for a child, someone wishing to stay at home...someone out there is wishing for just what you have.
I'll slap them when I run across them.
Your blog doesn't suck, the economy sucks!
The song we sing in our house is "mama don't let your babies grow up and marry car salesmen".
Yep, I married one of them.
I hear ya on the rent issue. And we've got a kid in college. We actually wish she would move in with fratboyfriend so we can save the on-campus housing costs!
At least we know how to do "poor" very well. Hang in there!
I posted a comment but had to change one or two words.
Don't worry, everyone has something they'd like to change about their lives. If it weren't for the military I might be right their with you wondering if/when I was going to be able to pay my rent.
Someone visited my blog today that made me feel like that. She and her family go to exotic places for vacation, we can only usually afford to stay in the states. If it hadn't been for the help of Kale's friends our trip to FL would have been far less then it was.
But then I think how there are those with less than us and how unfortunate they are. I know you via proxy and from what I have been told you seem to have a pretty great family. If I had to make a choice I would choose my family over my things any day of the week, I think you are the same way.
Feel better soon, you know you are the best family in your neighborhood. :) My kids go to school with all officers' children, so I feel inadequate quite frequently. I guess the jist of this long comment is, your blog doesn't suck and someday things will get better.
If it weren't for my husband's hobbies, which happen to be among the money- making sort, we'd definitely be in a lot more trouble right now. All of his projects are in the beginning stages, though, so we're still struggling a bit.
What I'm worried about is the amount of student loans I'm going to have to pay back once I graduate, and the fact that my lysdexia seems to be worsening and screwing me up in class.
But don't worry, your blog doesn't suck- or I wouldn't be making all my friends read it. And it probably wouldn't be worth... what was it, 4 mil?
It's kind of strange when someone's heartfelt angst makes for great reading, but there you have it. Sucky circumstances = great blog.
Hang in there.
If you have an alter ego, she is probably jealous as heck of your creative mind and kick arse writing! Plus? You are so tiny!
1. Your blog doesn't suck. If you like, I can hook you up with some sucky blogs.
2. I know how you're feeling. But then I go and see something on TV with people who have really sucky lives and then I feel bad. It's all relative baby! Maybe you should come out and play poker with me!
Nah, your blog doesn't suck.....and if it makes you feel any better, I'm recovering from a really bad case of the stomach flu....Thursday night into Friday afternoon I was in the bathroom and it was coming out of both ends. Not pretty. But
Everyone's life looks greener, but it turns out they have the same weeds we do.
You don't suck my dear,you're a
shining star!
Y'know what dayplanners filled past the margins mean? The person writing has to record every single thing to make their lives full. Simple and loved is much easier my dear.
I do not read suck ass blogs. I think you will feel better if you eat three Snickers in a row asap.
Alice- maybe that's my problem right there, I don't watch TV.
Mrs. G- LOL I did eat two bowls of Breyer's Waffle Cone Overload ice cream. :P Then I watched a few episodes of The Office online.
look at it this way, the alter ego of yours living the awesome life...she might have gonorrhea. :) That's the way I try to look at it. haha
Yeah but if your alter ego had all the things you don't have, then it stands to reason that she wouldn't have all the things you have - such as wit and charm and intelligence just to name a few.
If you are feeling bad about your blog just go see mine. It will make you feel much better. I am the high on the sucky blogger list. I sit down to blog and instead I end up on ebay. I usually don't even buy. I just put stuff on my watch list.
Just so you know, you are allowed a little pitty party every now and then. It is your right as a pregnant woman, stay at home mother of 2 and the wife of my brother.
Did you google yourself to look for the person to slap?
I kind of think my alter ego as having all the same stuff, but more. But that "more" could definitely include VD, if she's really living life more fully than me. :P
I haven't actually Googled myself, my name is way too common. Heck my MIL and mom both have nearly the exact same name, we're always getting each others' mail. I did Google myself with my maiden name once, which is a fairly rare and weird German name, and it yielded this very exotic middle aged woman in Belgium that worked at a university teaching Linguistics. That would definitely be interesting.
If I were that privileged one "out there" dreaming of a simpler life, I'd gladly slap my face for you. Unfortunately, I'm not.
The grass is always greener, etc. etc.
Oh, Marie. I so feel your pain ~ in waves. I think most of us do. We have friends who have a state of the art dream house, are "beautiful people," live near Aspen, travel everywhere... But are miserable. You have such a beautiful family and a loving husband ~ and like everyone has already said, wit, charm, and talent. You have it over most of the world, sweetie! (Still, we're all pulling with you in the struggle.)
I totally feel you right now. Ok, not "feel" as in grope. I'm really showing now and people wanna grope my belly - freaks!
Anyway, I meant to say that I have been in a funk lately too. So much so that my children baked cookies for me trying to cheer me up and my husband finally admitted that I was scaring him. hmmmm.... ok, I must have been in the muck pretty deep. It's the pregnancy hormones.
I did eat all the cookies that my girls baked. A few ice cream bars, another package of cookies, and then they went and got me a Starbucks Vanilla bean something or nother. I think I'll pull through.
You will too!!!
Must be something in the water this week. I too wrote about a (fictional) alter ego having a much better day than mine - she won the lottery.
Probably as much a grass is greener issue as anything else, but I'm sorry it's stressing you out right now.
You know as great as my life is right now (and it really is pretty good), I do wonder a lot if I'm just missing something completely that I can't point my finger on. Maybe that altar ego is somewhere inside just waiting to come out when the time is right. That's what I keep hoping. I'll find that part that's missing eventually.
Even when you're sad, you're funny. That's gotta count for something. I can't wait till you write your own Great American Novel someday. (I recognize what with the pregnancy and young kids it might be awhile, but that's OK).
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