I'm sure you didn't hear it here first...

It’s all sunshine and shit till someone gets hurt…

You all know how a 3 year old can go from laughing joyfully to the end of the world-snot-bubbling-cry in about .03 seconds?

Well, I don’t always get upset when he does that…sometimes… JUST SOMETIMES... I freaking GET it dude.

Shit sucks. Sometimes.

And crying feels like the RIGHT thing to do. Sometimes.

And when you are three, not only does someone else still wipe your ass, but you are ALLOWED to break down for 3 minutes over not getting the RIGHT kind of sprinkles on your donut. It’s just ok. No one looks at you like you’re crazy. No one says, “Shit, bitch… relax”.  No one says ‘why are YOU so upset?’  It’s not even JUST ok for a preschooler... it’s almost expected. Kinda like, “Oh, there he goes being a baby asshat again….but it’s cool... he will get over it in a minute…literally”   And they DO bounce back…every single damn time, with big ol belly laughs almost immediately after the breakdown. Man, being three is freaking AWEsome!

A lil over a year ago, I was homeless.  February 1, 2012 to be exact. Another one of those lovely side effects from not receiving any child support for many years and a VERY bad time to lose my great job…sigh. Yep, no roof. No bed of my own. None of my pots and pans or towels or doohickeys or happy crap. ALL my crap was firmly… VERY FIRMLY, squeezed into a 10 X 10 storage room. It was a VERY bleak few weeks for me. My girls had to go live with their father in his mothers’ one bedroom apartment. My son and I went to live at another house.  I cannot count the ways in which this very well MIGHT have been the hardest month and a half of my life.  Well I could count then, and list them even... but I’m TRYING to stay positive here dudes… just take my word for it… it was B. A. D.  

I’ve been thru some very rough crap. Someday I may share that here… but hey, no matter what bad crap I have been thru… there are other awesome peeps out there that suffer worse. I hate to be a whiner.

I was in a place where I didn’t feel like I could be myself… I couldn’t parent my son like I would normally parent him.  ALL my ‘norms’  were just gone. I had to suck it up and play by someone else rules. Rules that I not only didn’t agree with, but didn’t even KNOW of usually. Like surprise shit rules that I wouldn’t even KNOW I did wrong till AFTER I did it and got yelled at for it. Sigh.  I had to go days without seeing my girls.  I had to pretty much just sit and cry inside daily.

But I didn’t sit on my ass. Oh no baby. I got out there, I got rides, I got help and I FOUND a place to live again. I managed to get into an apartment on March 17^th, 2012…less than two months of that crap and i couldnt have been happier to get back on my own feet~! I was able to have ALL my kids back under MY roof. 

I have NEVER lived my life in such an unstable way before. It was horrible in every way. I wanted to cry almost every second I was in that situation.

But I did my feelings like a 3 year old…except I kept it to myself.  I broke down in the shower for 5 minutes.... I would take a walk around the block and cry…I would text/call/see my kids every chance I got. I refused to let the fact that NOTHING was going right change the fact that I was and always will be a rock for my kids.

And THIS year, when the year-iversary of those dates rolled around, I did a lil mental happy dance… cause I got thru THAT shit man! I will, and have, had more shit thrown in my path… but I will get thru THAT shit too. That’s what I do. I get thru shit… and come out smelling... at least decent afterwards.

They say (and don’t get me started on who exactly is this ‘they’ that always SAY this shit..) that being grateful for the small things in life makes a BIG difference in ones attitude and ability to face challenges. And I have to admit ‘they’ are right. Some days I am just grateful I have clean clothes… and during THOSE dark days, I was FOREVER grateful that my kids had a roof, and they had a way to get to school...even if that DID mean getting up at 5am to take a 1.5 hour train ride… and I had my health.  I mean, shit…one can ALWAYS find something to be grateful for.

And honestly, if my kids grow up not having the latest crap that the other little spoiled brats…I mean... err... children… can’t live without, and are STILL grateful for the crap they DO have…then I will consider my job done well.  

And not only did Oprah say it… but I think Dr Oz and Jerry Springer too… THAT must make it fact. But either way, being grateful rocks. Really…

 Trust me… or don’t.

 But I’m right.

Soooo…

as of NOW, you officially have my permission to throw a full on tantrum snot bubbling fit for five minutes when you damn well FEEL like it... 

Trust me.

And BE grateful.