100 things

100 things

1. I believe in fate/divine intervention/whatever you want to call it. All I know is I am where I am because it is exactly where I am supposed to be right now.
2. Because of that faith, I can get through just about anything.
3. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic.
4. I left the church at 12. It was a difficult decision but one I made on my own.
5. I have been to many other houses of worship and studied many faiths. I even went through a brief atheist phase.
6. Speaking of faith, I am more spiritual than secular. Therein lies my problem with the Catholic Church. Oh, that and original sin.
7. I know we are not alone. There is no possible way that humans are the most intelligent life form. If so, we have wasted a golden opportunity by being so egoistic.
8. I frequently think about the tenuousness of life, how random and delicate the balance is, and it frightens me, sometimes to the point of panic. We are surviving because a star is burning at the perfect temperature the perfect distance away from this perfectly chemically balanced blue marble ... yet we continue to pump chemicals into our atmosphere and our water and destroy rainforests and obliterate whole species ... who's to say we aren't next.
9. If we were next, I don't think it would bother me very much. Except for that whole dying thing, I would say we deserve what we get.
10. I think too much.
11. I don't tell people what I'm thinking very often.
12. When I do, I usually get it wrong.
13. I get the feeling I've done this before quite a lot. Yup, déjà vu. A LOT.
14. I have asthma.
15. I am allergic to dust, mold and mildew.
16. I am a bad housekeeper.
17. I make myself sick often by not keeping my house spotless.
18. If I could afford it, I would have a housekeeper. I can't help it if I suck at cleaning.
19. I will someday be able to afford it, dammit.
20. Every allergy attack, every cold, can turn into something serious.
21. I tend to freak out when I can't find my inhaler which, in turn, makes the attack worse. Self-perpetuating, I know.
22. I hate going to the doctor.
23. If I'm making a doctor's appointment, I'm either really REALLY scared or someone is making me go.
24. I hate going to the dentist even more.
25. If I make a dentist appointment, someone has held a gun to my head.
26. Because of the above, I'm pretty good at self-diagnosis.
27. I saw a shrink for 4 years. I was on meds for the whole time.
28. I stopped going, and stopped meds, after I got a divorce. I made the decision on my own after coming to the conclusion that I could live with the melancholia but I couldn't live with the severe depression and suicidal thought that the x inspired. Amazing how once he was gone, my symptoms all but disappeared. No panic attacks for 5 years now. Go figure.
29. I still experience grey patches but I'm better equipped to handle them now. I also make sure everyone around me knows that I need some space.
30. I just realized I missed the anniversary of my divorce. It usually hits me sometime during that wonderful day in January but I totally missed it this year. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure of the exact date right now. Proof that it does get easier.
31. Being divorced with kids, however, doesn't get easier. They grow up and it's inevitable that one parent will shatter any remaining illusions of unconditional love that the kids may be clinging to.
32. It's so hard to tell your kids that true love lasts forever and is worth waiting for when you are divorced.
33. As a divorced parent, I often struggle with the feeling that I have failed my children. At the same time, I know that if I had stayed married, I would not be here today and that would have been worse for my kids.
34. I just realized I have devoted the last 5 things to my divorce. Moving on ...
35. I'm happily involved in a wonderful relationship. It's not perfect (distance sucks) but it's better than I ever thought I deserved. Yup, I'm in lurve.
36. I am, by nature, a jealous person. This comes from being cheated on and blindsided with it. Trust is tough for me.
37. I am also, by nature, a loyal person. I have few friends and only one love. Just the way I am.
38. My kids are the reason I am where I am today.
39. Sometimes I resent them for that.
40. I used to drink more than I do now ... which is none. Personal choice, nothing against drinkers but I just don't see the point in self-medicating.
41. My family tree is full of alcoholics.
42. I don't like to call in sick to work.
43. If I do call in sick, I worry all day about what I will find when I get back.
44. Many days I will get to work and wonder why I came in and then have to turn around and go home for half a day. Some days, like today, I get stuck at work because I can't find a substitute.
45. I am a laid back person for the most part.
46. I don't lose my temper very often. I tend to simmer. When I do lose it, however, watch out.
47. I am passive aggressive. I don't always tell you when something is bothering me but you will know.
48. I don't like conflict.
49. Loud noises (loud voices) scare me.
50. Loud music relaxes me.
51. I love to sing along with loud music ... loudly.
52. I just love singing.
53. I got into community musical theater when I was 12. Our first production was Godspell.
54. I got into the theater department in junior high and stayed in it through high school.
55. I sang in a barbershop quartet group, the Sweet Adelines, for two years (age 16-18). We went to competition and everything. I was a baritone.
56. I almost didn't go to college. I met a girl through Sweet Adelines and we became a duo singing in local bars in my senior year. My aunt wrote me a letter telling me that I should never be in anyone's shadow, that if I was going to skip college, I needed to be the star. I quit the duo and enrolled in college.
57. I got accepted to Syracuse and Emerson but my father wouldn't pay. I ended up going to Salem State College. I often wonder how different my life would have been if I had gone to Emerson.
58. I moved out of my mother's house 2 weeks after my 18th birthday. She told me again and again that as soon as I was old enough I was moving out and I did.
59. The day I moved out, she told me she wasn't serious.
60. I hate Hate HATE being late.
61. I don't like fast food ... unless you call hole-in-the-wall Chinese fast food.
62. I love daisies. They have a fresh, clean grass smell, unlike other stinkier flowers like lilies (funereal) and lilacs (old ladies). Not yellow ones (though I wouldn't object to a thousand yellow daisies someday). Volunteer ox-eye daisies just grab at my heart, too. My kids used to pick them for me at our old house.
63. I love to move. Not dance, necessarily ... can't stand nightclubs ... but looking in someone's eyes and just moving together, as if there is no one else watching.
64. I only have a few pieces of jewelry that I wear. Gold claddagh ring (will give to someone someday for a wedding ring, if he'll have it), silver art ring with a moonstone, surgical steel hoops (5) in my ears.
65. I love earrings on a guy.
66. Hoping to get a tattoo next month. (Kanji symbol for 'Read' ... or Serenity ... this is why I keep putting it off.)
67. I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters
68. I am an only child.
69. I love to hold hands
70. I don't like wearing makeup.
71. If I don't wear makeup, I scare the children.
72. I need to wear sunglasses if the sun is out. Something to do with my eyes being so light ... oh, and the time I fried them in the tanning booth.
73. I have had one manicure in my life ... and I have never had a pedicure.
74. I'm still learning what it's like to have my own opinions.
75. I like having my own opinions.
76. I hate glitter ... and sequins ... and ribbons and lace and other embellishments.
77. I'm not high maintenance. I'm the opposite of high maintenance. Negative maintenance.
78. I don't think I'm pretty. Never have.
79. My hair is weird ... but I have finally learned to manage it.
80. My eyes are my best feature ... they are big, green and expressive.
81. My eyes are my worst feature ... they show every flicker of emotion, every flinch, every wince. Damn them.
82. I miss the ocean. Not the heat and the sand and the sun ... I like a good rocky beach, a brisk breeze, ocean spray. New England Ocean ... too cold to swim in but lots of personality. I don't swim much since my brush with a riptide in the Gulf of Mexico.
83. I have, at most, 5 pairs of shoes. Sneakers, 2 pairs of sandals, 2 pairs of black for work. Just don't see the need for more. I wear my New Balance every day.
84. I have 2 or 3 handbags. Again, who needs more?
85. I don't like to try clothes on before I buy them. Dressing rooms are evil black holes of destroyed self-esteem. Witness the last time I tried on jeans. *ugh*
86. I don't wear perfume/cologne. Can't stand it. Drives my asthma nuts. Don't like it on my man, either.
87. I do use body wash and body spray from Bath & Body works. It's one indulgence I enjoy.
88. Favorite scents: Vanilla Sugar, Cotton Blossom, Juniper Breeze ... anything fruity.
89. I don't like full-calorie sodas and drinks. I'll kill a 2 liter Diet Mt. Dew before you can blink, though.
90. Coffee ... nectar of the gods. Black, strong, with Splenda. Not for wimps.
91. As a treat, I like Mountain Mudd's sugar free syrups. Favorite combo - pink chocolate (raspberry/white chocolate). OMGasm.
92. I read. A lot. It's rare that you will find me without a book going.
93. I hate romance/chick novels. These people wouldn't know romance if it hit them on the head. Giving without resentment, without expecting anything back. Unconditional love. If I'm having a bad day and someone takes the time to just sit and wait for me, in case I want to talk ... or makes me laugh when all I feel like doing is crying ... or distracts me long enough for the pain to fade so I can turn around and face it, and then stands by me while I face it ... that's romantic to me.
94. I hate chick flicks. See above.
95. I hate stereotypes and bigotry, ignorance and small-mindedness.
96. Sometimes I wonder if I'm normal. I usually don't like anything that is marketed for women/girls. From Barbie's to books, from video games to movies. I don't like to male-bash ... I love males ... most of my best friends have been male. I will x bash but not all x's, just mine. I guess it comes down to sexism. Humans are humans and I don't see the reason for sex differentiation.
97. I also don't see how people can put so much stock in the color of someone's skin. It's just SKIN people. A bag that keeps your insides in. People of different colors don't act differently ... I do think people of different cultures act differently, but colors? I don't see it. I don't think it should be so emphasized with our kids, either. We are raising a generation of bigots by living as if its all Us vs. Them. .
98. I love Love LOVE spring. Rebirth, a new chance. Watching buds unfold and eggs hatch gives me hope.
99. I don't feel 41.
100. I've never finished one of these before. *gasp!*