I have to dye my hair back to brown for medical school. It makes sense, considering I have to be versatile when it comes to interviewing for a job.

I want to seem like I’m a good fit, no matter where I interview.

But I really, really don’t want to go back to being a brunette. It sounds silly, and it’s 100% psychological, but I don’t like the me that had brown hair. I don’t like all of the stuff I went through.
The red hair was kind of like a rebirth.

My dad is…living with one of the women he cheated on my mother with. Again.

And he’s using her. He is very obviously using her for a place to live; he’s in a relationship with someone else. The woman he is living with thinks that he and the other lady are just friends.

I don’t understand how he can keep doing this.
I don’t understand how he can keep lying to people.

Mike tells me he has nightmares, of his old life, of the bad things he’s done…

It’s not like it is a hard thing to miss when I have a sweating, trembling body next to me in bed that twitches when I touch him, or gruffly asks me if I’m alright when it’s really ME worried for him.

But it’s really apparent on nights like this where his body sandwiches mine, curls over mine but not like someone who is hogging the bed.

It’s like he is putting himself between me and his nightmares.

I think I’m starting to fall back a little…

I keep thinking about the things my ex did to me, said to me. I can’t sleep.

I hate myself. I feel sick.

What’s wrong with me.

Dear divine being, Please let this Christmas go smoothly. As you now, I haven’t had a decent Christmas (or holiday in general) in the entirety of my life. Love, Me

No, Michael, I don’t want you to accept a job that has you go away for 8 months out of the year. No, that’s not okay with me.

Sometimes, I get what my friends and I call “the baby feels”…which always ends with a swift, metaphorical kick to the ovaries.

But people are not helping today, flaunting their cute little babies all over the place.

Make it stoppp

I have a manager at work who, to me, is an incredibly strong woman. I’ve seen her stand her ground against the most intolerable of customers (and believe me, male contractors that are hell bent on getting their way are not always the nicest to females of any age), defend her employees against other managers, and she has quite honestly given me some of the best emotional support ever. In the form of incredibly tough love.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been incredibly stressed out, especially last week, and it’s been so noticeable to my co-workers that I was asked “What the hell is wrong with you?”  more times in a day than I can count. 
Little things were beginning to bug me at home; people talking during my telephone shows would make my skin crawl, Mike asking if he had any pants clean or to grab him a snack would send me off the deep end…

So, I sat with my manager, Kelly, in the money room the other night at work, and she finally asked me what was wrong with me, and I flipped out. I spilled my guts and vented and ranted and it felt so good, until she said:

“Amanda, men like when women take care of them. So, if Mike wants you to do his laundry, or make him something to eat, just do it. And do it with a smile.”

…um.

“Sometimes you have to play the role of the stupid girl.”
“But, Kelly…I can’t.”
“Well, you have to learn to.”

My brain literally fizzled. I tried to shrug it off, but I couldn’t help but lie in bed when I got home that night and try to wrap my brain around that concept. And I couldn’t.

Is there something wrong with me? Is that idea seriously that hard to grasp?

No? Maybe? Yes? I don’t know.

I can’t even believe that she seriously thinks that way. I just can’t. 

The one thing that I absolutely hate about being in a relationship, is that I can’t say that I don’t feel well, or that my stomach hurts without someone asking me if I need a pregnancy test. 

It’s like I can’t be sick unless I am sick with a baby.

And it absolutely enrages me.