Chaos, Then & Now

If you met me twenty years ago, I pray the resemblance to present-day Sarah would be vastly different. A few things would be similar. My entire life was shrouded in chaos, so that hasn't changed. My hair was red. That's about it.

In the last two decades, I have gained enough weight to create a whole other person. In fairness, I was anorexic back then, so I needed to gain at least a young child. Not the medium-sized adolescent that seems to have attached itself to my hind end, mind you, but at LEAST an eight or nine-year-old. My swearing has vastly improved. Not that I've gotten better at it (although...well, never mind), but I don't do it as often. I no longer hit movies on opening night with my girls, but I'm older, and therefore pretty tired. Friday night movies are a thing of the past. I no longer smoke a pack and a half a day. I can't tell you there aren't days when I miss that, though, if we're being one hundred percent honest.

I was reminiscing (or what's the word when you're recalling the past, but not looking over it fondly and with longing, because trust me when I tell you, twenty-something Sarah can stay in the nineties, people. She doesn't need to be popping back up into this century) and giggling a little about the absurd things that was just my normal.

My ex-husband was a piece of work. That is so beyond-the-pale polite, I can't even tell you. I was specifically recalling a time when I was working a mid-shift in the exciting world of telecom, and he was planning to attend a bachelor party. Now we had already argued quite a bit about said party, because you know, he wasn't a bachelor. My twenty-something self wasn't thrilled that my husband was going to be doing all manner of depraved things with this particular group of "friends," but he had babbled incessently about how he was just going because he was a DJ, and he would just be handling the music. Let's keep it real folks, I wasn't his mama, so I could only put up so much of a fight. I was even less entranced at the notion that he would be gone before I returned from work, and wouldn't be home until two or three the following morning.

We only had one vehicle at the time: a shortbed Ford Ranger. This meant my mom had to come pick me up from work so that he could use the truck to haul the stereo equipment. She also had to watch our daughter until my shift ended. Accomodations were made, and he went to participate in his stupid party.

I clocked out at 8:00 P.M, hopped in my mom's car with her and my girl, and headed home. I had an exciting evening of TV viewing to get to. I'm giggling thinking of that, too... because this was back before the cable box came with a remote. It was a little sliding thing on a box with three rows. Remember those things? No? Just me? Fine.

When we got to my apartment, I grabbed the diaper bag and my purse while my mom got the baby out of her carseat. I ran up our stairs, dropped the diaper bag, headed to the television, and tossed my purse behind me onto the couch. Instead of the silent landing you would have expected from a small purse landing on a large, overstuffed sofa, I instead heard the loud thump of my purse hitting the wall, and then a screechy noise as it slid all the way down to the floor. I was confused. What was happening? I turned in circles. Where is my couch? I walked into the kitchen. Where are our kitchen chairs? Why is there no furniture in my house except a television and a king-sized waterbed in the bedroom? Why is our balcony door wide open? Remember that cursing I mentioned in the second paragraph? I was using that skill set like a BOSS. My mom came in, and decided that she'd just take the girl back to her house. There wasn't really anywhere to put her anyway, SINCE OUR FURNITURE WAS GONE.

Keep in mind that this was pre-cell phone days. I'm pretty sure I had a pager back then (a little tiny purple one, if memory serves), but the dingbat I was married to did not. I didn't know for sure where the party was, and even if I did, I had no car to get there anyway.

About one in the morning, the phone finally rang. Dum-dum wanted me to know he'd probably be a few more hours.

"Um, where is my couch?"

"I have it. Where did you think it would be?"

"Well, I really didn't know, bleep bleep bleep. I guess I thought it would be in my living room. Because who in their right mind goes to a party, and thinks, you know what? I'm going to bring my COUCH."

"They needed extra seating. I was HELPING."

"When people ask for extra seating, I think they may expect, you know... folding chairs. NOT. A. SOFA."

There were several more exchanges containing quite a few more bleeps. It ended with me telling him in no uncertain terms that he better be home toot sweet with all of my furniture in tow.

Did I mention this was in the spring of 1993? Do you remember what happened in 1993? Perhaps hearing about a major flood in our neck of the woods? Knowing the cause of floods, you should also realize that we didn't have a tarp. I tell you that point, so you'll understand what happened when his drunk (so drunk) self showed up two hours later with my brand new fabric-covered sofa in the bed of the trunk while it was pouring rain.

Imagine my surprise (not really) when the front door was flung open and above the thunder claps and lightening strikes, the man I used to be married to bellowed for me to get my bleep outside and help him get the couch inside.

"Did I take the couch outside"?

"Sarah, I don't have time for this. It's pouring. Get down here and help me"!

"How'd you get the couch outside?"

"Richard helped me."

"Well, you'd better go get Richard to help you get it back inside."

"He's drunk."

"Then you'd better go get Richard's drunk bleep to help you, because I didn't take it out of the house, and I'm not carrying it back in."

Inevitably, I ended up carrying that ridiculously heavy thing into our apartment. I also nearly pulled my shoulder out of my socket when Drunky-Drunk dropped the top end while going up the stairs. While I haven't spoken to that man in years, I would lay money down (you know, if I weren't a good Baptist girl who doesn't ever gamble) that to this day, he would tell you that I completely overreacted, and that he still doesn't understand "what the big deal was?" I do NOT miss those days, even if they did provide for some pretty entertaining stories.

I'll take the chaos of two littles running around and exhausting their forty-something Mommy. The complete pandemonium of my man's spinal cord injury, the teenagers, the soon-to-be-graduate, the idea that I'm a Gigi. The peri-menopausal, un-medicated, ADD mess that I now embody on a daily basis is leaps and bounds ahead of where I was twenty years ago. There's been a lot of growing up, and lot of patience added (okay, well at least a little), and a whole lotta Jesus. Make no mistake, I'm still a hotbed of bedlum. Funny stories and hysterical children are absolutely an every day occurrence at the the Bye house, and I see no end in sight. In the end, though, I'll take the extra weight (to an extent, let's not get carried away...), the non-smoking, the lack of late Friday nights, because this crazy comes with Happy, Contentment, and Joy, Joy, Joy).