WhatTheHell?

Do you have those moments when you hear something or you are listening to someone and suddenly you are stricken with WhatTheHell face? And WhatTheHell has a few different tones to it like WhatTheHell are you doing, which is a quick knee jerk reaction because you just cannot believe they are even doing it. Then there is that WhatTheHell look that gradually travels across your face as you are listening to someone explain what they did and how shocked they were at the reaction/response and the whole time in your mind you are thinking they should have expected exactly what you got. Or how about the WhatTheHell are you saying because it is making absolutely no sense and you wish that you simply shake the shit out of them and then maybe they might make sense. The most common one stuck on my face is the WhatTheHell is wrong with you look as if the other person hit me with a level of ignorance, stupidity or absolute selfishness. I bet you can relate to one, some or all of these that I mentioned, can’t you?

With each one of these experiences I found myself feeling overwhelmed to HELP these individuals because you just cannot continue on like this or you will forever be lost in frustration and aggravation and worst of all DRAMA! And most of the time all of these WhatTheHell moments were during the process of sharing the requested advice or input into their situation which simply made matters worse in my mind. How can you continuously ask for help to change or eliminate a situation that has you ridiculously unhappy and turn around to do the exact opposite (better described as what they really wanted to do in the first place) and then come back to me to explain the outcome that DID NOT work in your favor and you simply cannot understand WHY. This is when WhatTheHell hits the scene and is now approaching dangerously high levels of frustration topped off with a pinch of anger that I now have to control. It is a vicious circle that can engulf you, blind you and have you operating as their full time therapist for free! Yep, that thought will pop in your head over time, regardless if the WHO involved is close to you. It is easier to walk away from someone who is not in your top ten unless you work with them, and even then you could still remove yourself, you would just have to deal with that awkward thick air as you pass each other day in and day out. But when they are close, it is not so easy to do and will require far more strategy to maneuver around.

At least that is how I was thinking at that time in my life, around age 14 to age 38 where everything began to change. Before the age of 14 I had no problem being organically truthful and shared how I felt at that very moment. I didn’t do it with words that would tear anyone down either, just compassionate truth and it was seldom met with an adverse reaction (at least in my eyes). However, I was raised by humans born in the mid to late 50s’(should say enough) and it was being ingrained in me (subconciously&consciously) that children were seen not heard, were not allowed to have a choice in many aspects of their lives, the girls would be beautiful models or mothers and some teachers (if you were smart enough) which I was told wasn’t quite possible for me. From about age 5 to age 14 I remember there being PLENTY of those moments when I looked at the adults surrounding me with various WhatTheHell looks and said nothing out loud (in fear of the consequences of course) but went straight to my room to act out what I really wanted to say. Did you ever do that? I know I can’t be alone in this. LOL

Adolescents SUCKS!!!!! I remember it and it was awful!!! I cannot even begin to count the amount of WhatTheHell experiences I had. Adults made absolutely NO sense when speaking to me, as if they had completely forgotten how it felt to be here. Which half the time, I sat there looking at them with WhatTheHell are you saying to me? Do you really not remember how awkward you felt? EVER? It was completely frustrating to me then and now. Then you throw the opposite sex into the mix and WhatTheHell is now a common look because they have no clue WhatTheHell they are doing and if they “act” like they do, it is all just what they do infront of the “crowd”. My experience was that the moment I was ever with them, not in the “crowd” they were completely different and I was always thinking WhatTheHell is wrong with you that you can’t act like this when you ARE around the “crowd”. You are probably letting your mind wander to the land of sex with this but that is farthest from the truth because they were clueless just like me. Instead they were shy, nerdy, actually intelectual, less emptied headed and actually nice which threw me off every time. However, it also gave me the opportunity to have them more as a friend, sort of because when it was time to return to the Middle School environment again, I was invisible or I was ugly and once again I was also WhatTheHell is wrong with you? This is simple to explain now because it's called social conditioning, societal settings of who with who and what looks best ruled every human mind, then and now.

When 16 and 17 rolled around for me WhatTheHell came with some fiery rage that had me tense 100% of the time. A lot of shit went sideways for me, from friends to boyfriends to grades to parents to siblings to WhatTheHell am I doing?! Most of the time I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. Dreams were crushed by education institutions, finances and societal judgement. The biggest WhatTheHell was when I realized that my only option was to do as I was conditioned to do and be a wife. I know that I can do ANYTHING I set my mind to and I did. It wasn’t a fairytale magical thing, in fact it was quite boring and ordinary because I had NO clue how to do any of this so it was ALL trial and error. The failures were as big as the wins but without understanding WHO I was I brought little to nothing in aid. I kept quiet when I really wanted to say WhatTheHell are you thinking? WhatTheHell are you doing?! Instead I did the opposite. In silence I prayed that he would figure it out and then everything would be perfectly fine. There were so many similar moments in our life together for 20years. The times I did attempt to sweetly bring it to his attention, ended in arguments that had no substance, no validity, just awful damaging words on both ends. Quite honestly I feel we both knew we weren’t the couple of the year and it was definitely best that he was away often for work. However, at the ages of 26 and 27, we had three children we were raising and my WhatTheHell moments were being seasoned with more rage as time passed and when I reached 38years of age I had an epic meltdown that landed me in the bathtub almost drowning out of sheer stupidity because all of this chaos had my mind consumed in the drama which had me in internal turmoil and could not think logically. It was my time in the hospital that night that gave me the wake up call I needed at that moment and I packed up the kids and left. It was the bravest thing I had ever done in my entire life (up to that point)and I did not have ONE WhatTheHell moment doing it.

Of course it wouldn’t be my exciting and challenging life if it didn’t have a little twist. I didn’t just take off on my own with them because my mother (who rarely talks to me let alone ask for anything) had asked me to please go and take care of my father who was battling COPD as a side effect from his chemo. That my brother and sister had just given up on trying to do it because my father was an angry prideful man and had drained the two of them (as the story is told by them). Now, I have zero relationship with my father, zero. In fact it was a truly love hate relationship with us, for what reason, I haven't a clue. Yet I packed up two of the three and headed to Texas to take care of him. Yes I said two of the three because there are a few WhatTheHell moments that occurred with my oldest that is a whole other story. I already had two WhatTheHell moments being rectified at the moment and hers was not that serious. I always prioritize, even chaos or moments such as these. I wanted to leave him and now I had an out. My #2 baby was in her adolescent stage that was far worse from mine and it was tearing her apart and I needed to find a new environment for her. So I had everything worked out until during our family meeting(we had these all the time over serious decisions) my oldest says to me “well I talked to dad and he said I could move in with my Baba (his mother) because I just don’t feel like you are being a good parent” YEP you guessed it, WhatTheHEll. I had already dealt with tracking her down when she was MIA from an academic program of success SHE chose because she let that opposite sex get in her head. Well I had already warned her and she fell for it and now she was suffering the consequences of her decisions. That is called LIFE!

Our stay in Texas allowed me a lot of time to myself because they lived in the middle of nowhere. WE had to give my brothers home address so that they could attend the school closer to us and that was not an academic disaster like they wanted them to attend based on LOCATION. Yet another WhatTheHell which led to so many more in this area. Texas was good for all of us in many ways yet I am happy that it was not a forever location. After my father passed we packed up at the end of the school year and relocated back to California where most of my family and friends reside. The amount of WhatTheHells that went down during those four years was astronomical! The chaos grew and continued to grow and I unknowingly began to deteriorate emotionally and physically to the point of emergency surgery so that I could live to see another day with my kids and my life. That was a WhatTheHell it's just a flu! No, no it was not just the flu, in fact it was a dieing gallbladder that now gotten so sick it was literally killing me. Say it with me, WhatTheHell!!! No time to contact anyone, it was happening now. Luckily my middle daughter was as composed as I am in moments of crisis (for other people because she wasn’t so good with her own) and was able to reach my friend who came and gave me some moral support. Even with that incident it was only a mild wake up call because there were PLENTY of WhatTheHell episodes in my life leading up to age 50 where it took a cataclysmic event that shook the very depths of my being to wake my ass up! Now don't get me wrong, there are still WhatTheHell episodes but they are far inbetween and they are rarely with anyone orbiting me closely. Now my WhatTheHell is a brief thought followed by words or actions that cause either myself or the other to reflect quickly and respond. At that point I have either had a positive effect on them OR they lose their mind and then I decide chaos of that degree has no room in my vicinity and I graciously exit. No matter where I am I make it a point not to hold those moments of silence because I have hope that what I say may not have a positive effect on all but it will affect at least some. My philosophy of life is that I will be what I want to see, I will live a life of kindness at all times, compassion, empathy, sympathy and most of all love because that is how I want to be treated as well. WE accomplish nothing through any negatively charged emotion or thought except destruction and it all starts with a discussion that causes the other to think WhatTheHell.

This is the beginning of a series that I would like to share with you just in case you are anything like me, stuck anywhere in the same situation and often think why. Maybe, just maybe what I share with you here, will help you in some positive way and you start to guide your life to a happier position by not feeling like you are the ONLY person who thinks this way or feels this way. I will never apologize for speaking the truth because the truth is always found in the facts and cannot be argued. The truth I share is MY raw truth for you to take or leave. You do not have to agree with me and you certainly do not have to feel like you HAVE to use the tools I built. This is my life story and you are writing your own. Create tools that will work for you while giving you the results you read here. Tools are never the wrong tools when they are your tools.