What Two Fights in Twenty Years Taught Me...

I spent my day today in various stages of boredom. Read for a while, then floated around in the pool for a while. Took a shower. Watched When In Rome again. Popped onto Twitter for a bit. Ate a couple of slices of pizza. Listened to my parents argue and watched as my Mom put a few things in her car and leave. My strong, outgoing, lives by her own rules Mom had finally had enough of the man who was constantly trying to get her to live by his.

As I was floating in the pool, I reminded myself of the one person that has been a constant presence in my life. Even though we had lost touch for 15 years, she was always with me. It also brought to mind, that in the 20+ years we've known each other we have only been in 2 fights. They were both in this last year, and they both lasted less than 15 minutes before they were over and done. lol

Here is the story of those two fights.

Fight #1.......Downtown Chicago.....last year for Rock the Block 2....

Mel and I were in Chicago last year for Rock the Block 2. We were downtown with our friends Tracy and Dawn L and I had just finished taking a huge step in facing my fear of heights. I'm still terrified of being high up in open spaces but my indoor fear is conquered. Go me! We were down in the gift shop of the building formerly known as the Sears tower. I had made the mistake of not letting my bank know that I was going to be out of town and consequently had been having problems using my bank card all weekend. I don't use credit cards and who the hell carries cash anymore?

I had picked out a couple of things for my kids, went to pay and it wouldn't take my card. Which was weird since I had just bought my ticket to the skydeck upstairs. Whatever. I decided to leave the trinkets for my kids, when Mel decides to get them for me. I have a slight issue with feeling like a charity case. Of course that was just in my head, but I'm a stubborn one. I immediately began protesting when she shoves the bag at me and says, "You are not going home without gifts for those kids, now just take the fuckin bag and be happy about it."

I snapped. In my head, I heard my ex barking orders at me. I turned around and said, "Don't ever fuckin tell me what to do. Ever." Then I turned around and stormed out of the store with tears streaming down my face and began pacing the sidewalk. Not only did I just stun my best friend, but I'm pretty sure Tracy and Dawn L. were quite taken aback as well. Not a good moment for a bad memory to sneak up and bite me in the ass. Ten deep breaths later and I went to her, put my arms around her and told her exactly what was going through my mind the second I snapped at her. We stood there on the sidewalk, in the middle of downtown Chicago, each of us crying, and we hugged it out. That was it. Fight over.

Fight number 2.......NKOTB Cruise 2011...The Libido deck.....Pink Night.

Mel and I were up in VIP. That wasn't said to brag. I don't do that shit. I say it, for those that were on the boat to picture where we were when the fight occured. At the beginning of the the festivities I was making a valiant effort to get close to one of the railings in order to see what was going on. She decided to fall back, fighting her claustrophobia. I stood, looking through people's heads at nothing. Literally, nothing. All of a sudden this really freakin hot guy passes in front of me. I kinda sorta froze. Avoiding eye contact and trying to catch my breath. Seriously if you could've seen this guy. Made my heart stop. I could feel him look at me as he stopped to talk to a few people as he passed through. Dude probably thought I was ignoring him. He would have thought wrong of course, but how was he to know. It's totally fine, cause apparently I had another chance to see him a few minutes later. I had just discovered that one of my dearest friends, was also up in VIP and when I saw her, I called out, "Jenn! Where the fuck you goin?!" I then walked over to her and squeezed the shit out of her.

Of course, it was later when Mel told me that the fine man that had passed me mere moments ago, was comin right at me and I walked right by him to get to Jenn. I had NO clue. Oblivious. Again, the dude probably thought I was blowin him off. Nope, I was just blind. Sad sorry state of affairs. *heavy sigh* I lost track of him after that.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Mel and I ended up sitting back in the same spot we had the night before. We had fun people watching, especially the people who were on the boat docked next to ours. The night got rougher the more people had to drink. The more they got drunk, the stupider they got and the more my patience wore thin. At one point Mel got up to go talk to a friend. A long overdue conversation that I am SO happy she got to have. I sat for a while alone, and then made my way downstairs to the bathroom. I think Donnie and Jordan were down on the platforms entertaining the masses, but I can't remember. I was too focused on not falling down the stairs.

I came back up. There was someone behind me and someone else I knew behind her. The person directly behind me decided to stop at the top of the stairs and block traffic nearly knocking the person I knew back down the stairs. At this point my shoulders were tight and my claws were out. I asked the girl to move so others could get up the stairs and her drunk ass lurched forward spilling her drink on my shoe and then dug the heel of her shoe onto my foot as she pivoted around to find a better spot, shooting me a dirty look as if I was commiting a crime by trying to create a safe passage for people to get back up the friggin stairs.

I found Mel back at our spot talking to our now favorite Rose Tours security guy. I was frustrated about what just happened and simply said that I wanted to throat punch a chick and chuck her overboard. Our new friend told me to settle down and before I could even tell them what had happend, Mel hands me my sail and sign card and says, "Here. I gotta go. You're crabby and I need some air." I looked at her, ex in my head and snapped. "I'm not fuckin crabby! Some drunk ass chick just spilled her drink on me, stepped on my foot and almost knocked someone down the stairs!"

Mel shoots back, "I gotta go." She then turns on her heel and walks away. So I'm left standing there going, "What the fuck just happened?" I ended up talking to Jon's body guard, Todd, for a bit, who said I'd been walking around like a wet tiger for the last thirty minutes, and said I needed some "tea and crampets". The dude made me laugh. Claws retracted. Mel came back upstairs, I immediately wrapped my arms around her and apologized for my behavior. Told her how frustrated I had been, and that me snapping at her had more to do with me being "told" how I was feeling. We stood there and hugged it out. Fight over.

I'd say 2 fights in over 20 years is pretty frakkin good. I have discovered that the trigger for me to snap, is someone telling me how I feel or telling me what to do. Today's meditation while floating in the pool, brought these memories back for a reason. It made me realize that someone else who is important to me, has the same triggers. I'm learning kids. The day you stop is the well, never.