Who the Hell Am I Now?

I spent so much of my life taking care of everyone else that I don't know if I ever stopped to figure out who I am.

I went from being a kid... to being a mom. Then a grandma. I've spent my whole life busting my ass, surviving, taking care of everyone, and now suddenly... we're empty nesters. 

And for the first time in my life, nobody needs me every second of the day.

So now what?

In this episode, I'm talking about what it feels like to be in that weird, messy, in-between space of trying to figure out who the hell you are now that the version of you everyone needed... isn't who you have to be anymore.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Who else is completely lost and what the fuck they're doing right now? Because same. Welcome back to Freckles and Chaos, where Freckles are real, chaos is messy, and apparently now we're all just trying to figure out who the hell we are. Um, so last week I talked about how I was gonna be back this week. We talk about season four, 'cause, you know, this is we'll call it the finale, but it's not really a finale. Uh anyways, ending season three tonight, taking a month off to get some shit done and ready for the summer for the club. Um so yeah. Anyways, last week I talked about how I was gonna come back for tonight, and I was gonna give you all the details on what's gonna go on next month for season four. And um yeah, no, it didn't happen. When I clocked out of work yesterday, I had 57 hours for the week. And I was fucking exhausted the entire weekend. Went to bed early Saturday, went to bed early. I think I went to bed early Friday evening, but I was up at 6 15 both days. But yeah, exhaustion kicked in, and Amy didn't have the opportunity to have anything planned out. So, with that being said, I'm just gonna be my blunt honest self and we're just gonna talk. Um, a lot of shit that I've been thinking about lately, I'm not I'm not kidding. I have so much shit going on. Um, so much shit that I'm trying to learn because I'm tired of living fucking paycheck to paycheck. That is like number one main thing. I am over living paycheck to paycheck. I'm done, I'm over it. So between work, this podcast, and trying to learn shit, I'm overly tired. Mark tells me I need to sleep for two days, that he wished I had an off button. Told him that off button doesn't exist. I have busted my ass my entire life. That is something I'm not fucking scared to do. And now I do it as uh in pain every fucking day because of this goddamn knee. And every fucking day somebody says, When are you gonna get your knee fixed? You need to go to the doctor. When are you gonna get your knee fixed? Well, for one, when I have fucking insurance, because I don't have that right now, and um two, when I lose weight and quit smoking. But the number one thing is insurance. So, and I work at a country club, our fucking prime golfing season is fixing to start in the next couple of weeks. Don't really have time to go get a new knee and just hang out at home. So there's that also. Yeah, I'm tired of people asking me. And it's not like I bitch about being in pain. People ask me, how's your knee? Well, it fucking hurts. It hurt yesterday, it hurts the day before, fucking hurts today. Dumb question, same answer. Okay, anyway. Um, aside from all of that, I have spent so much of my life taking care of other people that I don't even know if I ever stop to figure out who I am. And I say that because I went from being a kid to being a mom. I was 17 when I got pregnant. I had my daughter when I was 18 years old. I do not regret that. I'm not talking about regret. I don't want to pretend that there's a life that my kids didn't exist because I love my kids with everything inside of me. I love my stepkids with everything inside of me. And I don't even call them my stepkids, they're all my kids. Um, I don't regret anything. I don't I don't regret any of that. I don't want to take it back. I don't wish it wasn't true and it didn't exist. I'm just saying. I went from a kid to being a mom. And I was a mom for so long, and then I became a grandma. And somewhere in there, I spent years working, surviving, taking care of everyone, making sure everyone else was okay. And now the kids are grown, and we're MC masters. And for the first time in my life, I'm sitting here thinking, who the fuck am I now? Not as somebody's mom and not as somebody people need every second. Just me. And I know that being a mom never goes away. I'm always there for my kids, any of them, within reason. Um, I'm not a bank. I don't show I don't show out money, but mainly because I don't fucking have it to show out. Anyways, I always the one thing I looked forward to for the last five years was quiet and no more kids at home, right? And now the quiet is nice, but it's fucking weird. It really is. And I spend a lot of my time in the house doing my thing. Mark spends a lot of his time out in the man cave, which is cool. I mean, we fucking work together, we're married, we don't have to spend every fucking minute together. I am okay with him being out there, he's okay with me being in here. Um but it's just fucking weird. Quiet. It's nice some days, but some days I just sit there and I'm like, you know, what the fuck? What am I supposed to do? Sometimes you miss the chaos, even though you wanted a break. It's it's weird. I don't know if I can explain it the way it needs to be said. This is just gonna be a messy fucking episode. How about that? I've been trying to fill that space with content, my podcast, my workbook, my future, and how maybe this season has really been about finding myself again. And that is about as true as I can speak and as real as I can be. I've been doing so much. I mean things the things I've been doing I needed to do. Like I never I left my piece of shit abusive fucking ex a very long time ago. But I never got to heal from that because I was a mom. I didn't get to stop and have a fucking breakdown. I just had to keep going. And I did that. I rocked it out. I continued to do my job as mom, be a mom. I did it. It's not like I've had a fucking breakdown recently, but I figured out that I'm still trying to heal from that. And when I say heal from that, I'm talk I'm not talking about thinking and sitting and thinking about the shit that he did to me or the shit that he said to me. I'm talking about me mentally. Because here's the deal. If you haven't lived through um a narcissistic relationship or um the mental abuse, I mean, I had all of it with him, but fuck when I sit back and think about it, I would much rather have him hit me versus the mental fucked up shit that he did because I'm still trying to work my way through that. Like they're still I'm fixing to be 47 years old, and I am not I'm not pretending in the least little bit that if Mark is not out in the man cave when it's late at night, you know, if I'm sitting in the living room watching TV and it's 11 30, 12 o'clock at night, and Mark is in bed. We live in a I'm gonna say a quiet neighborhood, and I could literally walk out my door and I can take about five steps and I'm to the man cave. And I can go in there and smoke a cigarette or I can stand by my back door. I would rather stand by my back door because it's pitch black and I am terrified of what might be there because I have no idea. Like my my head is still is still so fucked up that I I mean like loud noises freak me out. There was one night I was out in the man cave, I had the door shut, and it was late, it was like one in the morning. And I was out in the man cave, I was on my phone, I was checking messages and rolling through TikTok and Instagram, Facebook, and I heard I heard noise. I was terrified to open the fucking door because I didn't know what was gonna be on the other side. So that when I say I'm working through some shit, that's a shit I'm working through still to this day. And I'm not I mean, like you I always see on um those platforms when you see a domestic violence post and it's if you have ever stood toe-to-toe with a man that sounds like this and it's a man fucking yelling and screaming, yes, I have. I have, but it still fucks with my head. And I don't know if it's ever gonna be fixed. I would like to think it's gonna be fixed, but like even if Mark raises his voice and it's not even at me because he's mad at me, if he raises his voice like he's talking about his dad, and he gets loud because you know he's going through some shit with his dad, and he gets loud, like if he gets loud, it startles me. Like I still freeze, and I'm sure there are a bunch of women that live that way. And I would like to think that it will end. I know that every day it gets better, and I know that my ex isn't out to get me. I'm not fucking crazy. I don't even know if he's still breathing, I can give two fucks less, to be honest. But it's just some shit that I'm working through. So I got onto a ramble. So yeah, I'm uh trying to find myself again, and who knows what she looks like. She's gonna be blunt and outspoken and honest, like she's always been. Maybe that's what season four is gonna be. Not me having it figured out, but me figuring it out. Figuring out who I am now, what I want, what I deserve, what I want the rest of my life to look like. And honestly, I think I'm finally ready to find out. Yeah, so earlier today, Chloe and the kids were over because we had to work yesterday for Easter. So she brought the kids over, we gave them their Easter baskets, we took Xander his Easter basket when he got home from school, and we stopped and got subway. I ate dinner, Mark's out in the man cave. And for the first time in my life, nobody needs me every second of the day. And I'm trying to figure out who the fuck I am now. I just I'm still my blunt non-a self. I'm still here, I'm just a little louder now. Um, I will say this, I did tell you guys that I was I was adding another video to my daily videos, so I was doing four videos a day, and I added a fifth one. And it's for the men offended by my videos. I don't know if anybody remembers me talking about that, but they're doing really good. I think I think a lot of people like my short punch in the chest button honest fucking videos because they do really well. Last night's um for the men offended by my videos. I I don't even remember what it said. I could look it up on my phone, but I'm not going to. Uh, anyways, I will say this. This morning it had 1.2k views, and somebody had shared it. I think I gained a couple followers off of it, and I had some men comment. So when men comment on my other four videos, I delete them because it's not the place for them to run their mouth and be fucking men. It's a safe space for women, right? This fifth video that I made, I let them comment on those. So normally it's some asshat that usually makes some fat comment or tries to make some fat joke. Bitch, please, if that's all you can fucking come at me with is my weight, you're gonna it's gonna take a lot for you to get to me because I I know I'm a big girl, I'm still beautiful, and I'm pretty sure I can be a bigger dick than you. So come at me with my weight. I don't fucking care. Anyways, today, on last night's video, this dude in New York, we went back and forth. There's like eight comments between the two of us because feed it, motherfucker. You keep running your mouth, you keep leaving comment after comment. I'm gonna answer because you commenting on my video is making the fucking algorithm push it out even more. So please keep running your fucking mouth. I'm enjoying it. Please run your mouth. I can handle it. So, my video from last night um for the men offended by my videos video. The caption reads People love to say women have changed. They're right. Women changed when they realize loyalty should not mean sacrificing themselves when they realize love is not supposed to hurt, when they realize being quiet, smaller, and easier to control was never the same thing as being a good woman. We did change. We finally learned better. So that's what the caption is. And of course, I'm talking through the video. His initial comment, y'all love to say you refuse to settle, but never have it cross the minds of your gender that men settle for you. And then I said, Then they're free to leave. Funny how the men who settled never seem to want to. And he said, You really believe that, huh? With a meme, look at you, all stupid and shit. Then I said, enough to know men who are truly happy don't spend their day arguing with women on Facebook. And then he said, by your same logic, you're less happy because if you were this video wouldn't exist. And then another meme that says, I don't understand your sp your specific kind of stupid, but I do admire your total commitment to it. And which I came back to him. The video exists because women finally started saying out loud what used to stay quiet. Your car your comments are just proving the point. And then he said, That's what you tell yourself, started saying out loud, y'all barely quiet, but I'm glad you think you're right. Might be the only keeping you warm. So he doesn't use English very well. Um, in which I responded, funny, for someone who thinks women talk too much, you sure have a lot to say about it. And he hasn't responded. I also had another dickweed that said delusional, in which I said, funny. Women said the same thing when we thought bare minimum was enough. So my for men offended by my videos is um doing really well. Bring it on, all of you. Please comment. It's good for me. It's pushing the algorithm right along. Anyways, that's that video is uh up to 1.3 thousand views. So that's really good. I mean, I am a small content creator, I uh don't have a huge following, and that's okay. But in the last seven days from last Sunday to yesterday, and I've gained a couple um since yesterday. Uh I think it was over 40 overall on all three platforms. So I'm rolling right along. I think I had like 25 new followers on Facebook, 20 on 20 or 22 on TikTok and Instagram. I finally got I'm finally over 160 on Instagram. It's insane. I would think I'm at 161, maybe 163. I don't know. But yeah, it's interesting to see how well my videos do. Mark told me a long time ago that I needed to um be mean be mean to men for money. And you know, if I would have been able to figure out a way to do that, I would take phone calls all day fucking long. And I would be bean I would be mean to men. They would make it really easy. But I can't figure I, you know, I don't want seven different phones, I guess. Uh and no, I don't hate men for anybody that's listening to this that might think, oh my god, she hates men. No, I don't. I hate fucking cowards that treat women like shit and then want to get pissed off and mad when women fucking stand up for themselves and decide that they're not gonna live that life anymore, and they're abusive pieces of shit. Those are the men I hate, and not enough people talk about it. I saw a girl, I can't even remember what platform it was on, the other day, just a couple days ago, I saw a video, and it was a young girl, she was probably in her 20s, if that she was standing there, and on her picture it said, um, basically, it said that she had never spoken up about this abusive relationship, that she was ashamed, she was too ashamed to nobody knew, nobody knew about this abusive relationship. Her parents didn't know, her friends didn't know, nobody knew because she was so ashamed of what that fucker did to her, and that now she's finally speaking out, and just you know, she was ready for all the comments of people talking shit of people who don't believe her. And I'm telling you guys, it is fucking accurate to a T. The amount of people that don't believe that shit happened when somebody says, I was in an abusive relationship, the motherfucker hit me, he verbally abused me, he mentally fucking abused me, he was a goddamn narcissist. When people say, Oh, I don't I don't believe that, he was such a nice guy. Well, yeah, he's a fucking nice guy in public because he wants to fool everybody. He puts on a fucking show for anybody and everybody, and behind closed doors it's completely fucking different. And there's so many people that s talk about how, well, you know, you should have left. It isn't that fucking easy. So, that poor girl on her video, I commented, first of all, I am so proud of you for leaving. Second of all, do not be ashamed of what that fucker put you through. It is not your fault, first and foremost, not your fault. There's nothing wrong with trusting a man for what he says and how he treats you in the beginning, and it's not your fucking fault when his fucking switch flips and he turns it in into an abusive fucking prick. It isn't her fault, it isn't anybody's fault. And I know that there's abusive women. This isn't I'm speaking from my past, so I use him a lot because that's my past. I know there's abusive women out there, I get it. But I told that girl, the number one thing was you leaving. You left. That's the hardest part. Now you get to heal. Now you get to heal, you get to work on yourself. Is it easy? No, it's not, but you have the ability to heal, and you can, and you're gonna do great. But I just felt so bad because she looked so young, and you know, that is why I started. My content has changed. My content has changed so much, it's fucking ridiculous. My podcast, when I very first originally started my podcast, it was blunt and honest, and it was just a venting um place for me. We had a lot of fucking people living in our house, and it was a small ass house, and I needed a venting space. All of our kids were younger because I mean, like, Courtney was out of the house already, Chloe wasn't there, Jacob wasn't there, Eric wasn't graduated from high school yet, so this is before I became a grandma, I think. Maybe I was a grandma, anyways. Regardless, um, I interviewed all my kids. And um, so each one of each I had an episode for each one of my kids. I started my podcast, it was a venting space, and then I quit doing my podcast. Um, and then I started it back up, and when I started back up, I was interviewing women. I interviewed uh my cousin who lost her son. I interviewed a friend of mine who went through drug addiction. Um, she'd been in prison, she was in, you know, she was rehabilitating, and I had a whole list of people I wanted to interview. And then something one of a piece of my equipment broke. I didn't have the fucking money to fix it. So it was on pause, and then we got squatted, swatted, not squatted, we got swatted, and then it was go time to find a house and move. So I did that, and now I've started back up, and I know I need an audience for my podcast, and that's why I got on social media. So when I got on social media, you need a niche, and my niche, it has to be something I know. I I didn't fucking go to college, I did go to nursing school, but I don't use it. I never took my skateboards, so it has to be something I have knowledge about. This is what I have knowledge about living with living with an abusive piece of fucking shit and trying to fucking live after being abused and rebuilding your life and being a mom and living paycheck to paycheck. This is the shit that I know. So this, you know, that was my content. And when I started my content on social media, it was about the abuse part of it and helping women realize that, you know. It's okay to stop shrinking for somebody. It's okay to take time for yourself before you take time, before you spend your day taking care of everybody else. Take a minute for yourself. And now it has shifted because although I did get followers for the stuff that I did, I had a choose you video. I had a made by my mistakes video. I had a break the pattern video, and I had an evening choose you video. Something to help relax in the evening, a motivational kind of maybe take you know take a minute for yourself in the morning. And then this is what I did. Try not to do it. Um and break the pattern because there's always a pattern that she had that needs to be fucking broken. But it shifted again. So when I added the fifth video, which is for the men who are offended videos, I noticed when I started doing those that my choose you videos didn't do very well. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So I've kind of blended videos together how I word things. So it's kind of like a choose you and a break the pattern. It's kind of a hey, here's a soft line with a gut punch that you need to hear. And that most women are probably thinking in their head, but they're too fucking scared to say it out loud. That is where I come in because I don't have a fucking problem saying it. I've never had a problem saying anything to anybody. That's definitely not ever gonna change. But, um, so yeah, my content just kind of keeps shifting because I keep changing. I'm trying to figure out who the fuck I am, so I think my content's gonna change right along with me. Does that make any sense? And does anybody give a shit? I'm telling you, if I come back in a month and I know what I'm doing and I'm focused on one thing, it'll be a fucking miracle. But I don't foresee that happening because this is real life. I have a full-time job, I have podcasts, I make social media content, I am learning how to do digital and affiliate marketing. UGC, you know, like I don't think that my brain will be um steady and ready for the next season. So it's probably gonna be a messy clusterfuck just like this season was. So, with that being said, I hope that um people come back for next season. You know me, I'm gonna send out a teaser trailer, maybe a couple teasers. Um, I will probably be out for a month. Uh, let's see when that is. One, two, three, four. So I'm gonna shoot for starting my podcast or um season four up. May 11th is the day that I'm planning and taking a screenshot of that and circled the 11th, so I remember. Okay, that gives me five weeks. Um, we have a wedding at work in June. Tournaments start up. I always have I do my episodes on Monday night, and Memorial Day and Labor Day are on Mondays. There's tournaments those days at the club. It's gonna be a busy fucking summer, so there might be two episodes in one week instead of every Monday, you know. Like, I'm just gonna have to fucking squeeze shit in. And I hope that doesn't bother anybody. I mean, if it does, you don't have to stick around and listen, I guess. Anyways, so yes, if you've been here since the beginning, thank you. And if you're just finding me now, buckle up because next next season I'm not holding back. If this resonated, take what you need and leave the rest. I'll see you soon.