Mirror Challenge

Wow - you all have no idea how tough this one is for me - I have truely been avoiding this one. What I see when I look in the mirror is a work in progress - not all of it forward motion either. I am getting old - I see wrinkles - age spots - roseacia - and way more facial hair then is necessary. The roseacia has been there for about 3 years now and it has gotten so much worse - makeup barely covers it somedays. And gray hair!!! I used to be proud of it - I earned it the hard way - but recently I found a gray eybrow hair & a gray mustache hair - come on now - seriously WTF!!!! Ok that is what I see that aggrivates me - but I know it is just part of the aging process - but no one ever said we have to go gently - right? I also see a pretty smile and kind eyes - I think that I have a trusting face - the kind that could sell used cars - ya know what I mean??
Ok that is the superficial stuff - now the deep stuff.....

When I really look at myself in the mirror I see a scared, lonely lady. I see the years of suffering and pain that I have endured - the failed marriage - my troubled children - and my financial failures. I see the girl that once was so smart and had such big plans for the future - and I do not know how I got so far away from those goals. College - I so wanted to go to college and I am smart - I know I could accomplish it. What happened to my dreams??? Here I am 43 yrs old - alone - broke - and no real future. What the hell am I doing so wrong?? I see guilt for the lousy childhood my kids have had to live through and the damage it has done to them - and you can't take any of that back - its permanent. I watched my boys be abused by their father - and I was too afriad to leave him - I let it go on for way too long. And then when I finally found the strength to leave my Ex - I was so financially devastated, I couldn't make it. I lost our house - the only home my kids ever knew - not that it was anything worth having - it was a crappy OLD mobile home - in desperate need of repair. But I LOST IT - I was working 2 jobs and still could not keep up on the mortgage and insurances - and I lost it to back taxes. Then just 2 weeks later my youngest son (age 17 at the time went to jail) I could not afford to hire him an attorney - he ended up getting a really raw deal too. The sentence should have been 3-4 yrs tops - he was sentenced to 11 yrs in prison. I was so devastated and I felt so guilty, if only I could have got him that lawyer - he would be here today instead of a prison. I know now that it was beyond my control - the circumstances were just too overwhelming. I kicked myself in the ass and made the Bold attempt to do something about this shit situation - I sold everything I owned and loaded up a tiny uhaul and moved me and my 11 yr old daughter to Las Vegas - to start over. I learned a lot about myself in Vegas - I learned I was strong - I suffered through some pretty rough times there - most of the 3 years I was there I did not even have a car - I took a bus everywhere. But I learned to let go of some of the guilt and some of the resentment in my heart. I also learned that I was not the worthless human being that my Ex proclaimed that I am for so many years. I found some peace with myself - I did not get rich - but I supported my kid and I alone with no help from a single person in 3 yrs. I furnished an apartment on commisssions only, and I did finally save enough to buy a car (which died 5 months later). We were surviving - and we were learning and growing. Coming back to Florida was huge financial setback for me - there is no future in this rural area - I knew this. And I am stuck without a car again - which I just hate - but I hold my chin up - I did not come home as a failure. I came home with respect - mostly from myself and my children - but that is the most important ones anyway. I still see failure when I look in the mirror - but I also still see HOPE. Hope that someday it will get better, HOPE that my children have learned from the mistakes of their parents, and HOPE for myself as worthy human being. I still struggle with the lonely part - I do not want to grow old alone - that is one of my biggest fears. But I also have earned enough respect for myself to not settle for just anybody in my life - he has to be worthy. I have learned to accept being alone - I just surround myself with my family and my dearest friends - YOU!!! Ok I may have been long winded here - sorry. But as I said this was hard for me - I do not usually like what I see when I look in a mirror - but I have learned to respect it!


Ok one more thing I guess - am I a different person online?? Yeah I guess that I am different when I am online - I am optomistic, humorous, endearing, friendly, proud, sexy, etc... a whole lot of things that in real life I do not feel. I guess I haven't REALLY shared all of myself with all of you - sometimes it is hard for me to be so open. I show all of you the good in my life - not the bad. Does that mean that I am deceptive?? No I don't think so - I think it just means that there is a time and a place to reveal yourself - your real self. Tonight I made a really big step to introducing the real Cherrie to all of you - and it is not all pretty and good. But on the other hand I am still genuine when I relate to all of you - I genuinely care about you all and I have come to love and respect you all and your families, and your struggles, and your pain, and your realities. I have not practiced to decieve anyone - I have just been a little shy to reveal the ALL OF ME. I am still very much a work in progress.

Wishes

ok first my serious wishes....My biggest wish is to become financially solvent - not rich mind you - just comfortable enough to be able to know that I can take care of myself and my family. I worry about not having money to pay for my daughter's college - heck I do not even have our own place yet - so this is a big worry. My whole life we have struggled, well mostly after my father passed away. But I remember her working the graveyard shift in factories to keep the mortgage paid - we went through a lot. I didn't marry well either, we have never really been much more than a low income family. I moved out to Las vegas (where I knew only 1 person) in a desperate attempt to better myself - get a career - and that ended up only putting me further in the hole in the long run. Since divorcing my husband 7 years ago we have done nothing but struggle to keep our noses above water - sometimes I wonder if it was worth it. There just has to be a way for a single mom to support her family - without having to work 2 jobs. See I did that before I moved to Vegas - I was really sinking in debt from the divorce - I worked 2 fulltime jobs to keep the bills paid and I still struggled. While doing this my boys ran the streets - I was never home - I was always working -( it is a big fat catch 22 and another long story). I just feel like I have let my family down, my kids should not have suffered the way they did - and I just feel powerless to fix the situation most of the time. It is a vicious cycle - one that I pray i will not have to live with for the rest of my life.

ok my playful wish...since I was a little girl I have always loved art - coloring, drawing, whatever. Well it was always my dream to grow up and work for the Great Walt Disney company. I wanted to be a cartoonist - work in the animation department. I made it as far as moving to Florida - closer to the Disney complex - but of course I got married and went the family route - it just never happened. Ok so you know something different about me - ta da!!

Dreams

Just before Father's Day this year - I had a profound dream. My father died when I was just 11 years old - that was over 30 years ago. I had been really thinking about Father's in general - I had been looking at everyone's Cards and layouts they had made for their Father's Day gifts. I ended up having two separate but connected dreams that my Dad was still very much alive and well. Now like I said I was very young when he died so my memories of him are kind of juvenile - if you know what I mean. Well in this dream it was if he had never died - he was living here in Florida (he died in Chicago) and we were on a picnic with my grandchildren. This dream was so vivid and detailed - I usually do not remember dreams either - but this was different. A month later I can still replay the dream over in my head - he was in this park playing with my grandkids - they were running and laughing - he was chasing Katelyn trying to tickle her by rubbing his whiskers on her neck. I can picture it clearly - he caught her and she just giggled so hard she snorted. I can tell you what everyone was wearing - it was that detailed. So bittersweet this dream - he spent hours playing with the kids and talking and joking with my daughter Allyson too. In the second dream he got sick (cancer - just like what he died from), I was there for him - holding his hand and telling him that everyone was going to be ok. he was crying - telling me that he did not want to leave us. I held him as he passed away in the dream. I woke up that morning with my pillow soaking wet from crying - I just cried hard for over an hour. In fact I am crying again now just remembering it all. I had not dreamed about my dad since I was a teenager, I have ALWAYS carried his memories in my heart - but not my dreams. He was in my heart the days I had all of my children, the day I married, the day I graduated from High School, etc. - and most poingnantly he was with me the day my Mom passed away just 3 years ago. Dreams are so powerful - it kind of scares me. I think I am all big and bad most of the time - yet this one dream took me down HARD. Thanks for letting me share.

A few of my Favorite things

Ok first I apologize ladies I am a little behind here...

My Favorite Song right now is "Brooks and Dunn" ~ "I Believe"
I hear it on CMT a lot and I always crank it up and sing along - it is such a powerful song - I get all lumpy. Such a great song!!

My favorite movie is...Sabrina
I like both versions the old one and the new one.. I watch this movie over and over -such a great romantic story. I just adore it!

My favorite friend right now ... now this is kind of strange but my favorite friend is Jay (aka - the crow). Jay was a guy I dated for a year in Vegas - we hit it off as friends right from the git go - but it developed into a deeper (more fun) kind of friends with benefits kind of thing. He is the only person that no matter how long we are together we NEVER run out of things to talk about - never any awkward silence. He was a recent widower and I was the first person he dated - so he had a lot of difficulties with his feelings for me - I was going through a strong period of low self esteem and he made me feel so beautiful all the time! In the year we were together we never argued once - except one time I told him off and kind of broke up with him - and the next day my car broke down and I had no choice but to call him for help - he came running to. That is where the "Crow" comes form - cuz I had to eat it -feathers and all!! Anyway when I moved I knew I miss him so much - but our friendship has grown so strong since then - we talk everyday - I dont know what I would do without him sometimes. Now we offer advice and share war stories about dating and sex - it is just so strange yet so comfortable. I still pine over him sometimes and wonder what might have been - but I am so darned overjoyed at how close we have become since then - I finally told him I loved him - as my best friend just recently - it appears we have come full circle. I know that know no matter what I have a friend for life - and we know each other so well - we can share ANYTHING! Funny how things turn out sometimes .... go figure!

My favorite childhood memory - Breaker Breaker 19

The Citizen's Band Radio (aka - CB). My parents were both big into these things and they belonged to several groups/clubs that were involved with it. My dad's handle was "Tiger" and my mom's was "Kitty Cat", I was "Love Dove" (which I did not pick out - K). We had so many close friends in these groups and we would do all kinds of things together; camping, fishing, picnics, parties, coffee breaks, and my very favorite the "FOX HUNT". In a Fox Hunt, a large group of cars would use their mobile CB radios to play hide and seek. One person was the FOX and he would have to keep his CB radio microphone "Keyed - or talking" for 1 hour nonstop - within a 30 mile square radius - while the hunters searched for them - using only the strength of the signal that the talking FOX put out. So when we hunted -you had to have a co-pilot to navigate you - tell you when you turned here the signal got stronger or weaker - I was my Dad's co-pilot. Whoever found the FOX (sitting in their car talking) first would then become the FOX in the next month's FOXHUNT. We had so much fun doing this, it was always a good time. My dad came in second like 12 times -GGRRRRR, and just before he got too sick to be driving we actually won first place - so his last ever FOXHUNT the two of us sat in his van and joked and laughed on that microphone waiting for someone top find us!! These are Priceless memories!!!