I haven't blogged in awhile and I could really list the number of reasons why here - in easy-to-read bulleted fashion for you.  It's the same as always - life gets in my way.  It crowds me in and doesn't leave any gaps of time to myself.  I get snippets here and there... mostly at night. I waste them stalking people on Facebook or trying to outsmart someone in Words with Friends.  Yesterday, I played a 111 point word.  Extras.  That was the word.  Don't be jealous.... all Words with Friends is based on is luck.  Luck and the experience of being a psych nurse on the 7p-7a shift in a unit with insomniac rapists and murderers who liked Scrabble.  Does that sound interesting?  Scary?  Yeah... sure am glad that job is over and done with.

I thought 2011 was a shitty year with my mother dying unexpectedly (drugs.  I mean, the death certificate said natural causes, but lets be honest here - it was the drugs that did her away.).  Then, followed 2012 when I went through my horrible divorce and suffered name-calling and mud flinging at the hands of my jealous and emotionally immature ex husband.  Oh, and I got my heart trampled on by someone I thought was sincere.  Let's not forget that.  Maybe *that* year was bad.  But, never to be outdone is 2013, sliding in to take an ever pressing 1st place.  Death of someone close AND my ex husband is being a dick. All in the same year.  Congrats 2013, you conniving bastard. You win.  There's no metal to give out, but you've done it.....top prize for you.  

The problem with losing my nephew is that I feel like it's not in my place to be sad.  See, my sister and I - we're all we've got over here in Maryland.  I don't have a mom or dad.  No grandparents.  No aunts or uncles really. Just her.  And she gets to be devastated, you know?  Because she's Mom.  She's the one who grew him in her belly and took him to therapy and found his body. Sigh. I'm just a bystander.  So then why do I feel so much guilt? Oh, right... because similar to my mother, I checked out of the Zachary issues when they were getting to be too much for me to handle.  Tough love and all that.  I was the same with my Mom.  You have to wanna get better, buddy.  That's what I'd tell him the few times we spoke.  You have to stop cutting yourself and straighten up.  You really don't have that much to be sad about.

Easy for me to say. Because, I gotta be honest - it's real easy to feel abandoned even when you have a lot going for you in life.  Truth.

I remember one year when I took Zach with me on vacation (bc in my early 20's, that's what I did... I took him with me everywhere) and he was the most well-behaved kid on the trip.  I don't think I yelled at him one time.  He had such a good time getting buried in the sand and playing with me at the house.. and I remember on the way back from NC, I tried to stop at McDonalds so he could use the bathroom (he was 5) and it was one of those exits where they say there's a McDonalds - but really it's off another exit off that exit and then up a ways. It's such a tease.  "McDonalds, next left.  Then, a mile up the road, then a right, then a U-turn, then go through a toll booth and across a river.  You might have to travel by donkey". That's what it should REALLY say. So that by the time I would find the McDonalds, Zach would have peed himself in the back seat.  His little angelic face... I'm so sorry, Aunt Jessie, he'd say.  I just couldn't hold it in any longer.  And I didn't care.  Not too much.  I was just mad because I wanted fries.....bc see, this food addict thing's been around forever.

The holidays are here and I don't even care.  Halloween came and went and I put on a happy face and pretended to laugh at the annual party I throw for my kids and I gawked at the trick-or-treaters on Halloween night in their festive costumes (saw an awesome Edward the scissorhands) and played it up (should get an Academy Award for this stuff).  Cause Halloween is my dig.  It's my go-to celebratory time before all this shitty feel-good crap starts and that stupid song about the girl buying her dead mother shoes starts playing on the radio and I wonder what's wrong with me that I'm not excited about Christmas and New Year's.  Because every year they've been preceded by sadness.  And because if you don't have much of a family, the holidays are just like every other day really. Well, really they are about my kids and even they are sadder this year.

God, I sound so bitter.  I'm not usually like this, I swear.  I'm usually upbeat and funny and making jokes... at the very least, I'm talking about food.  That's what I do, right?  Make jokes and talk about food?  And make fun of myself? I should have taken a longer break from blogs.

I don't know how to end this so I will just state that this holiday season, you should focus on being kind.  It's not hard you know - being kind.  If I had one wish, it would be that people would just be nicer to one another.  That's all.  Not millions of dollars or a night with Ryan Reynolds - just kinder, more thoughtful people.  Can you make that happen for me please?  In exchange, I promise my next blog will be more upbeat. At least I will try my hardest to make it seem that way.

Here's hoping.

It's been months since I wrote in here and I'm sure you've missed me terrible.  Or maybe you haven't, I don't know.  No one has been beating down my door demanding I write more - that's for sure.  No one has complained.  At least not to my face.  There have been no pleading rants via facebook or twitter (except I don't twitter - and I wish, for the life of me - that someone would explain to me the point of twitter.... I just cannot get into it.  I've tried many times.  I have.  For reals).

The last 12 months have been, by far - the most tumultuous and angst-filled that I've endured yet to date in my (ahem) 35 years.  They've been amuck with loss & insults & sadness & a tremendous amount of change... starting with my mom passing away (one year ago today) and ending with the apogee of 2012 - the ultimate ending of my joke-of-a-marriage (more on that later).  Somewhere there's a list of significant life events (who created this list?  What makes them an expert??) and how they cause stress and, no joke, I've had like the top 10 happen in the last 12 months.  I think the only one that doesn't apply to me was "retired".  Here's the list if you'd like to check it out and see just how stressful your life has been. While you're there, maybe you can explain to me what "make redundant" means and who thought to include it amidst significant life events.  At any rate, my point is - it's been rough.  It's been such a significant period for me that I feel like it's my own fiscal year.

That would be a good album name.  My Own Fiscal Year.

Where was I?  Yes - so I'm really hopeful that the next 12 months will be a lot more positive than the previous period and that I can apply all the lessons I've learned in my own fiscal year to the future - resulting in greater, more productive & even more thought-provoking ways o' living.  And really, if I were being honest here (which is what I strive for most of the time) - despite the fact that there have been some pretty awful things happening to me in the last year or so, it's been one of those life-shifting & destiny altering periods where (when it's over and done with and most of the bitterness has worn off) you can look back and see the lessons you've learned.  At least most of them anyway.

What are these lessons, you ask?  Well, I'm so glad you're *that* interested in my life, Chester!  I've compiled this here list to make it easier for you to understand.  I know most Jess-blog readers do well with lists (well, and with crudely drawn stick figure diagrams, but who has time for that?)

Lessons Learned in My Own Fiscal Year (Part 1)

- People are never what you think they are.  And really, how could they be?  Just as we each have our own opinions on things (foods we like to eat, shows we watch on TV, which New Kid was our favorite, etc.) - we are all unique beings and we all have our own perspectives on how we view other people.  I'm not just talking ex-husbands either.  No two people are identical in life perspective, religious upbringing, moral character, etc. which is definitely something to consider when you're passing judgement along in life.  I'm talking in circles.  My point is this:  it sometimes takes a tragedy to see who you really are as a person - and also who other people really are.  Through these dramatic events of cataclysmic proportions, you evolve into something better - something smarter.  These are gifts really.  Gifts of Wisdom. 

Gifts of Wisdom would be a good band name.  Gifts of Wisdom: My Own Fiscal Year.

I should get on ADD medication.

Back to the lessons...

- Life is way, way way too short to get caught up in drama & anger & hatred & not forgiving others.  There's probably more to this list really - but basically if there's something that is making you feel bad in life (you hate your job, for example.  Or you have an extra toe... anything) - then do something to change it. Stop complaining about it and dragging people down with it and just make a change.  You're no more or less special than Oprah, or Albert Einstein, or Mother Theresa.  Seriously.  You're not!  The difference is - those people got off their asses (no easy feat for Oprah circa 1987!) and did something with their time. They didn't sit on their living room couch eating Funyuns and updating their facebook statuses to yet another variation of "Woe is Me". 

I made this a Part 1 because I knew that I would be distracted with the chaos of my life and I wouldn't be able to dedicate the time and energy to this blog that it (and you - having patiently waited months and months for my words of wisdom) deserve.  So I promise to finish this list at a later time (soon, I promise) and continue to teach you important lessons in life (including my divorce story, which is really not as exciting as you'd think it would be) and I will abruptly end now.  Because some wise person told me that my blogs are too long (is that true?  Please advise)... and mostly because I have to pee, it's 6am and I have a sleeping 4-year-old on my lap, drooling onto the work shirt I never took off and slept in last night.  I never said I led a glamorous life.

I'm going to Ocean City today - to sprinkle the remainder of my mom's ashes into the beach.  She loved the beach, my mom.  Well - she loved Ocean City.  And really, she loved hanging out on the balcony overlooking the boardwalk chain-smoking, cursing and people watching.  But it would make a much more poetic statment (and less likely to result in community fines and riots than a heave-ho of charred DNA off a top floor balcony onto a lane of crowded bypassers) to put my moms remains in the water down there.  So that's what I'm doing.  Today.  Which is why I must go now.  If you feel so inspired - or even if you don't, but you are in a heat induced delusional state - you could leave me a comment below.  No pressure.

Oh, one more thing - I've missed you too.