Dear Anonymous Comment-Leaver

A few months ago, I began moderating the comments on my blog for a number of reasons. The first, was some of the comments were spam, but the greatest reason was I feel no need to have trolls leaving hateful messages on my blog - though the number of times this has happened has been fairly low. This morning, I received one of the ugliest messages I have ever received. Ordinarily, I simply delete comments such as these but today I decided to publish it in my own way. Below is the iPhone screen shot of the email notification I received.



Hi there, Anonymous.

Thanks for stopping by. I genuinely appreciate that you took the time to drop by my blog and read my words. I'd like to be able to appreciate your comment, too, so in an effort to be a better person today, I'll focus on the fact that you took time out of your (no doubt busy) day to actually write a comment.

I'm sorry if my last blog post upset or offended you. That was not the intent. I wrote that with a smile on my face, while F played with his trucks at my feet. That post was a tongue-in-cheek, giggle and move on kind of mindless post that fits into the day that your head feels like it might explode. Raising kids is hard. I suspect you may not have one, otherwise you might have laughed at that post instead of being filled with the kind of rage you obviously were.

I'm sorry for whatever you have going on in your life today that has led you to spreading hateful, hurtful words. While I don't think I've done anything to deserve this, I sure hope mine is the only blog you've trolled with your anger and unkindness. While I'm sure your words were supposed to hurt me, they didn't. Jokes on you, I guess.

Now, before I go on any further I'd like to offer you a very sincere invitation to introduce yourself to me. If you're so convinced of your words, how about say them to my face? Better yet, why don't you come and stay with F and I for a few days and then tell me that I'm a terrible parent? I'd love to host you, and let you get up at 5:15 am and join me in making breakfast for F and I, cleaning our home and then getting everything ready for another long day. I invite you to stay up until 10 pm getting the cleaning done.

While you're calling me a terrible parent, I'd like you to consider that I do this every day by myself. I put myself through school last year so that I could give the kid I "don't deserve" and "don't take care of right" a better life - one where college can be in his future. I bust my ass every week so that we can live in a safe neighbourhood, keep our car on the road, eat healthy foods and enjoy some of the finer things in life. Am I perfect? No. I sincerely hope I never am. Do I screw up? Yep. It's called being human.

I'd like to invite you to work 40 hours a week in-office, taking your work laptop home many evenings and weekends to get stuff done. I invite you to spend your "down time" exercising, so that you can be healthy and strong to support your family. I invite you to try to find time to write because you're trying to show your child the importance of practice, following your passions and pushing yourself. And then, I invite you to call me a terrible parent again.

After you've spent a few days with F and I, I invite you to look me in the eye and tell me that I don't love my child and that I don't take care of him. While you're here, you'll see that I occasionally raise my voice, lose my patience and that I often remain calm and logical while he's completely losing his shit. You'll see that the occasional swear word slips, and that I tell him how special he is and how much I love him approximately 4.3 times per hour. You'll also see that he kicks me, tells me he doesn't love me, throws stuff on the floor and occasionally kicks the cat. It's called toddlerdom, and while it's been known to drive me crazy, I wouldn't trade a minute of it.

Finally, I ask you to do me just one little favour. Go look in the mirror. Now, go look outside. Go to a public place, and watch strangers go by. Do you know their stories? Nope. I don't either. I don't know yours, and you only know a little bit of mine. You don't know the stories of the people in my life or the people who come by my blog every day. For that reason, your comment which was aimed to hurt me could have hurt hundreds of other people and you were too careless or too callous to even consider that.

Did you know that about 1 in 5 women suffer a miscarriage in their first trimester? How about that one woman in 100 will experience a "late miscarriage", one after 14 weeks? Did you know that I had an appointment to have an abortion? Nope, I bet you didn't. I bet you also didn't know that the woman who raised me suffered miscarriages, and that I lost my own son's twin during my first trimester, or that I refused the D&C offered by multiple doctors when I landed in the ER for the second time in as many weeks with serious complications. I loved my baby from the moment I knew I had one, and I have cherished him every minute of every day since I was blessed to have him. Does he drive me crazy? Yup, but that doesn't mean I don't love him or that I neglect him.

 If you want to attack me for being a shitty parent who doesn't give a damn, you go right ahead but check your facts first, and don't you dare tell me that I should have had a miscarriage or abortion. You know that line "walk a mile in someone's shoes"? You wouldn't make it out of the parking lot.

I know you won't identify yourself, and I'm equally as confident that you won't comment on this post, but I hope that you do know that I'm not angry or hurt by your comment, and I invite you to comment again. If you want to troll around the world spreading anger and hate, I suggest you prepare for a very sad, lonely existence. Let it go. Life is too short.

Sincerely,

Ashley

#EyeTwitch

I do my best to be a positive person.

Lately, it's been hard. The stress of being away from F has been greater than I could have ever imagined and the lack of sleep is starting to make me a little crazy. After spending most of the last year alone, I've overcompensated by filling my days with people and I haven't taken a quarter of the alone time that I really need.

Enter the eyetwitch.

It takes a lot to really grate my nerves, and yet for the past two weeks everything has been abrasive and irritating. Little comments and actions seem huge, bad drivers seem to have multiplied and all of the stupid people in the world seem to be out in full-force when I'm in a rush to get somewhere or get something done.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Negativity spreads like wildfire. Little irritations snowball into massive pet peeves, bad days spiral into bad weeks and the next thing you know you've become that douchebag you can't stand. You're irritated just listening to yourself be irritated, you're pissed off by your own bad mood and yet you feel powerless to stop it.

Once it begins, it's almost impossible to stop it. I'm exhausted by my own exhaustion, and annoyed by my own annoyance. It's tiring and it's unfulfilling. It sucks the joy out of everything, and I've decided to put my foot down.

I can't change the past two months. I can't undo all the crap that happened, and I certainly can't go back and adjust my attitude but I can look forward. I can make sure it doesn't happen again. My patience my wear thin from time to time, but I don't have to let it get the better of me. In fact, I won't.

I've decided to implement a 10-minute rule.

I can bitch and complain for 10-minutes every day, and then put it all away. Whether it's a person at work, the ass who cut me off in rush hour traffic or the neighbours who play their music too loud, I can complain for 10 minutes. I can be angry, sad, annoyed, frustrated, WHATEVER for 10 minutes and then I have to let it fly.

I can't take on the frustrations of others. I'm too empathetic. I will tune out the "Debbie Downers" and I'll ignore the gloomy moods that I run into in class or the office. I'll be the irritating, cheerful person that all the cranky people can't stand.

And they can bitch about me all they want.

#EyeTwitch

#EndRant

Hanging On

How do you let go?

I struggle with letting things go. I always have, and I probably always will. I struggle with letting go of hair or body products I don't use, clothes that don't fit and emotions and memories that bring me down. In the end, it leaves me with clutter and baggage.

 I try my best to let things go, from the clothes that no longer fit to the emotions that are eating me alive. I try to push forward and press on but it's hard sometimes. Sometimes, I just give in. Give up. I go back to my habit of holding on, clinging to the things that weigh me down and suck the light out of my life. I let these painful memories and aching emotions drain the happiness from my new life, and it's slowly going to drain my spark from me.

When the realtor called to say there was an offer on my house - the house my parents inherited and helped me fix up - I felt an odd mixture of joy and fear. When my parents came back from their meeting and said they'd made their counter-offer, I selfishly hoped the other person would turn it down. He didn't. Within minutes, the phone was ringing with the good news. I stood in the kitchen shocked, a wave of cold fear washing over me. It's really good that it's selling. It means my parents will be able to do the things they've wanted to do. It means I won't need to take out the second instalment of my loan, and that my baby brother will have his car on the road soon. It means my parents no longer have the burden of a second home, but it also means that someone else is going to live in the home that I worked so hard to create. They will sit in the living room I painted, cook on the stove I cooked on and their child will sleep in F's bedroom and it hurts.

I sit here staring through watery eyes as I imagine this young family living out my dream in my home and it's all I can do to not cry out. I sit here, my face awash with silent tears knowing that I need to just let it go, that I need to start over. I shouldn't be sad, but I am. I should be leaping for joy but I'm not. I'm hanging on to something that isn't even there any more.

 

I'm hanging on to the memory of a dream I didn't get to hold.