Today I said another goodbye. To a house. To a yard. To a pond. To neighbors (ok, I didn’t literally say goodbye to the neighbors since most of them likely hated me). To everything I thought my life was going to be. I went to pick up one last thing – a painting of a golf course from Ash’s home town in Texas because God knows I can’t live without that (insert sarcasm here). And I walked in, for what will be the last time, and while I still felt great disdain for this house, something about walking in it for the last time ever broke me just a little bit. I let the grief wash over me, sat on the floor in the middle of the living room (even though there’s still a couch in the living room but the floor seemed a logical choice for my dramatic theatrics) and I sobbed. I walked out on the back deck, sobbed some more. Walked in every room, more tears. I never fell in love with that house, honestly. It kind of fell into our laps and seemed a reasonable move. But the house itself never felt like home, necessarily. But there are still so many memories there. Some wonderful, some fucking terrible. And while I will take the memories (the good and bad) with me, it still hurts something fierce to let that house go.

I miss my husband. Sure, I thought I hated him a lot of the time. Sure, I thought about divorcing him a lot of the time. But at the end of the day, we always made it work. Because, despite all our flaws, all our bullshit, all our ridiculous quirks that didn’t fucking matter, we did love each other. I miss my life as a family of 4. My kids miss their father. Colt still grieves outwardly, nights of tears and fears. Jack, poor kid, is just like me, keeps the grief inside and makes horribly inappropriate jokes (also fucking hilarious) about “Deady” and me being his favorite parent now and giving me awards such as “World’s Best Dad”. We’re pretty fucked up that way. I’m sick of constantly having to ask people to help with my children, feeling like a giant piece of shit when I need a break. Or when the girls are getting together for a night of wine and laughter and the dads are getting together with the kids to decorate cookies and I have to tuck my tail (metaphorically, I don’t really have a tail should you be concerned) between my legs and ask if Colt/Jack can join. And they are, of course, happy to have them (or their wives at least force them to be happy to have them!!). But it’s not easy for me and I imagine it’s especially not easy for my boys. Thank God for our family and friends, though, always here for us, always loving us through it, rarely ever judging us.

Moving on, in other events, to my fellow humans, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, what the fuck and calm the fuck down!!!!!!!!!!! Jack’s 12th birthday is at the end of the month. Right after Jesus’s. And rather than fill our house with more shit that we don’t need and will be played with once and then forgotten about forever, I like to give experiences. This year, we did a mother/son trip to Florida – a couple of days at Universal Studios and then on to Tampa for a Buccaneers game. We had a great time, for the most part. As I mentioned, he is turning 12 and if you don’t know, 12 year old boys know absolutely everything. They are so cool. And they must be fed every 7 minutes or they will bite your head completely off in a matter of milliseconds. So great trip, lots of fun, some hiccups. Back to the game – it was amazing. My kid loves Tom Brady and Chris Godwin, he was decked out in his Bucs gear, bought the foam finger, the souvenir cup AND the team cards, the game was definitely (nearly) worth the price of admission what with Brady breaking some kind of record I could careless about and with the overtime and the Bucs winning in the overtime. All very exciting. However, my fellow humans, I get that drinking (and possibly drugs – no judgment here – you do you, boo) are a part of a lot of recreational activities. I get that we’re not always our best selves when partaking in said drinks and/or drugs. However, when in the actual fuck did it become an acceptable social practice to fight with every single person around you that was not cheering for the same team as you? Our section had security called on it 4 times. We had men fighting with men, men fighting with women and my personal favorite, women fighting with women. Over a fucking football game. Did you all have some kind of stake in this game? Did your team losing mean that you were going to lose your house, family, job? If so, then I guess you had every right to yell obscenities all throughout the game to your fellow humans who also were in jeopardy of losing all their most valuable possessions as well. This was not a cheap game to attend. There was a whole group of people that left before half time because a. their team was losing and 2. they kept arguing with everyone because their team was losing. Who the fuck cares?! It’s a goddamn sport. It means nothing. And that’s a lot coming from me as 1. I fucking love sports and b. I’m about as competitive as it fucking gets. But I understand that those fuckers on the field are getting paid an exorbitant amount of money to play a game. And some days they have good days at work and some days they have bad days at work. I mean, look at poor Detroit.

Anywho, there was a woman sitting right behind us. She was probably in her late 20s if I had to guess. She was perhaps the biggest Buffalo Bills fan on the planet based on her behavior throughout the entire game. She was loud, she was banging on seats, she was screaming, jumping – just really putting on a show for her team. Side note – I don’t think the Bills even noticed her; perhaps that’s why she got so upset. Tampa dominated the first half, the Bills came back in the second half – just for a little background information should you not have seen the game. A very inebriated Tampa fan, also female, probably in her late 50s, was leaving the game. Tampa was up 27-24 at the time. Bills Super Fan very politely yelled “BYE BITCH, WE’RE ABOUT TO BEAT YOUR ASS” or something equally as charming as Drunk Tampa Fan is stumbling her way out to which Drunk Tampa Fan replied exuberantly “LOOK AT THE SCORE BITCH, LOOK AT THE SCORE YOU STUPID WHORE”. They exchanged a few more words as Jack and I watched on in utter disbelief. Drunk Tampa Fan’s husband/boyfriend/keeper is having to hold her back from I’m assuming physically attacking Bills Super Fan and Bills Super Fan was spewing some very colorful language that was even making me blush, which, again, is really saying something. I let them have their spat. I kept my cool. However, husband/boyfriend/keeper got Drunk Tampa Fan out of there. Mad respect to him. It was not an easy task. She was gone. We could no longer see her. Bills Super Fan, however, could not let it go. She continued to yell and yell and yell. Cunt. Bitch. Whore. Pussy. All sorts of fun words that I’m sure my son has heard, probably even said (most of them anyway). But she was relentless. And loud. And absolutely, ridiculously unacceptable. We are at a sporting event. There are children everywhere. It’s maybe 7 pm. Sure, if I’m in a bar at 1 am with my kid (don’t worry, that rarely ever happens, we usually leave the bars by midnight! Just kidding! I don’t take my kids (or myself for that matter) to bars), I fully expect to hear such eloquent language and will keep my mouth shut. But I am not in a bar. It is not 1 am. And quite frankly, I’m sick of hearing it.

So my adrenaline is rushing because who knows what hate Bills Super Fan is going to spew at me, but no longer can I bite my tongue. My son has heard and seen enough. I turn around, see first her husband/boyfriend/keeper (side note – if she can find love, that gives me a lot of hope for myself!!), who looks at meet like a deer caught in the headlights and mouths an “I’m so sorry” and then I look at her in all her red, white and blue skin tight Bills attire with her electric blue eyeshadow painted up to her eyebrows and I politely but sternly say “Ma’am, my son is sitting right here, can you please be quiet?”. And then I brace myself, Jack standing steadfast at my side (he later tells me that while he may not look strong, he is quite strong and he was ready to fight that lady for me. It made me chuckle). Luckily, she just looked the other way and didn’t say anything. What I really wanted to say is that I hope one day you have kids, and I hope you are at this same type of event and I hope that you sit right next to you from 10 years ago and your children get to witness what mine just got to witness. Because I’m super mature like that. But I didn’t.

Here’s my point though, I’ve said it once, but I feel I need to say it again: CALM THE FUCK DOWN. Most of the shit we are all worrying about doesn’t fucking matter. Be a good human. Be kind, humble and honest. Be grateful for what you have. Laugh as much as possible. Respect thy fucking neighbor. And for fuck’s sake, lead with love.