Brawley's Beautiful Mess

Man, waking up and remembering your beloved Jayhawks are now in the Elite 8... AWESOME, but waking up without a hangover...BONUS! :)  Being it's March Madness I knew I wanted to try and catch at least one KU game with my dad, so I jumped on 81 South last night and headed to Wellington.  Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous towards the end, but KU pulled it out, somebody check Bill's Blood Pressure; and how about them Peacocks!  Nobody saw that one coming, well I didn't anyway, but hey, who doesn't love a Cinderella story!?  After the rents went to bed I started thinking about this past week, or months, and how crazy it's been.  I don't mean crazy in a "drama" sense but crazy in the way that life and things happen or fall in and out of place.   A couple weeks ago I ordered some takeout from Great Wall.  The fortune cookie is my second favorite aspect of Chinese food, Eggrolls, of course being the first, because fun fact...I crave condiments, and m...

It's the weekend, the sun is shining, but it's still slightly chilly, Big 12 tournament, gotta show love to my Jayhawks!  Perfect spring day for patio's, day-drinking, and of course, the yearly Pre-St. Patty's day festivities.  I have always been a "seasonal" person.  I love living in Kansas because I love that we get all four seasons, not always in the right order, but we get them; there is also a lot of beauty, calmness and kindness about Kansas, in my opinion.  I think sometimes we get a bad wrap but let's be honest, the people here are kind and helpful (most of the time), cost of living is a nice perk, we literally invented basketball, the best Ribs, IN THE WORLD, come newspaper-wrapped from Guy and Mae's in Williamsburg; the Flint Hills are incredibly amazing in their simplistic and natural beauty, especially when the sun rises or sets.  I love driving through that part of Kansas, oh, and let's not forget about Dorothy, and my favorite.....sun...

I can't imagine Mic Jagger ever NOT getting what he wants but, obviously, at some point in his life, I bet he had to settle for what he needed.  I keep having these flashbacks, I think it may be because 2022 is kind of a bittersweet year for me.  It marks 20 years out of high school, 20 years living outside of my hometown and with "The Brawleys", 20 years as an actual adult and a very short 2 years until my 40th birthday.  And all our parents are right, it goes really, really, fast.  What I thought I wanted when I was 18, headed to El Dorado to attend Bucco Jucco, was to figure out my major, meet new people, and have fun.  I definitely met lots of new people, awesome friends, I met one of my best friends, Ginger, and I always had a rockin' good time!  I went to class, but that was 100 percent not my main focus, in fact, I went to Butler for 2 years and still didn't manage to get my Associates, I mean, I got one in partying, but not in Liberal Arts, still so...

I keep thinking about how I am sitting here right now and I am okay.  I keep thinking of how much my life has changed, yet also, stayed the same, in such a short amount of time.  After I was sentenced to life in sobriety without the possibility of parole, also during Covid…JACKPOT!  Next thing I was most worried about was how I would ever be happy again.  Not like happy in the way that you are during the day or in your general mood, for instance, I feel like some people are "happy people".  You can feel it when you talk to them, and then you have people that are more quiet or keep to themselves, maybe you don't see that happiness right away because that's not their demeanor.  It's not good or bad, it's just how people come across and how others perceive them.  I am referring to that feeling of walking out of work on a Friday afternoon, jamming to Bill Wither's "Lovely Day", and headed to have an after work beverage, on a patio, with no worries or...

One of the most difficult and important things about life, I have recently learned, is you have to be able to forgive yourself, and like Jay Z said, you've gotta learn how to live with regrets... Let's talk about things that one might consider regretful or shameful.  I remember one Sunday, at the end of my drinking career, I didn't have any wine left, or airplane bottles in my freezer, cooking sherry, nothing!  Just kidding about the sherry, but I am sure someone, somewhere has tried it.  I was shaky, dizzy, anxious and was focused on only what would make me feel better; which was not open for another 3 hours.  The desperation led me to remember that my neighbors had told me if I ever needed anything to come on over, well I did.  I went over, in my pj's, not for sugar, but for alcohol, at like 9 in the morning, terrible!  I once went to the gas station to buy beer in the morning, not realizing what day it was, it was a Sunday, you can't buy beer until noon ...

This past week I have been going back and forth on how to approach this subject, but we're just gonna go for it.....and if you're still reading or a first time reader, welcome and thanks for the support always! I met my ex-husband at a Halloween party, dressed as a Bears Superfan from Chris Farley's time on SNL, he was Where's Waldo, lol, it was a great first impression and we hit it off!  We ended up dating and getting married when I was 27, he 26.  We got married after about a 3-4 month engagement, bought a house, got a basset hound named Wallace, whom I hope is still kickin' it, and started our Marriage Journey.  When we were first married it was good, we had a lot of fun together, we worked hard, and we normally didn't drink much, if at all, during the week.  Sometimes on Thursday's but hey, that's Friday Eve!  Not too long after we got married I started a new job at a 3rd party logistics company, I loved that job.  This is also where I met Jay, he h...

I have always admired Tom Petty, big shout out to the rents on that one, and basically all my favorite artists, but I love Tom.  I love how he always put on a great show, I love how much he genuinely appreciated music and I love his lyrics, I could always relate to to them it seemed like.  My favorite Tom lyrics are "most things I worry about never happen anyway" which being the anxious, sometimes impatient and over-thinker that I am; I would worry about the littlest things to things I absolutely could not and cannot control.  So I decided that I would get that tattoo and every time I found myself worrying I would look down and read it, most of the time it worked and was right, until it wasn't.... I remember it like it was yesterday, it was probably early March of 2021, I can't remember the exact date because turns out, when I drank too much, I couldn't remember what week it was, shocker!  Anyway, I had also just split from my boyfriend right as we were going to a...