Feeling the Feels

Getting personal on the blog is not something I’m in the habit of doing. I don’t tend to get to personal in real life, either. I’ve shared a couple personal posts with you guys; one of them was my testimony and the other one I’m not going to link here because so many people unsubscribed right after it went out.

Most of the readers that swing through here are simply looking for some DIY goodness, which I try to deliver on a semi-regular basis; but in the last week or so I think I’ve grown some feelings. I’m feeling all the feels, as the kids say. I’ve found myself wondering about some of my regular readers (Hong, Chris, I’m looking at you guys) and what they’re up to on any given day. After reading a personal post of Brynne’s recently, I was inspired to share some of my personal life with you, just in case you might be wondering who the heck the poop-joke-puppet-master behind the shart blog is…  So, I thought I’d take a real, actual minute to get serious with y’all….which is hard.

That’s what she said.

Dang.

See? That’s what happens when I try to get serious.

Take #2.

(insert poop joke)

So, just in case you’re wondering who I am beyond my about me page, here are some things you might not know about me.

I have a long-lost sister.

It’s a very long story. Probably enough for a post of it’s own but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. My mom got pregnant under circumstances that my grandmother wasn’t happy with so, under the cover or darkness, my grandmother took my mom to live in a home for pregnant girls. This was a place that many birth mothers have since written about; how they felt forced to give up their children for adoption, not knowing that, as mothers, they had actual rights. The details are heart-wrenching. I remember my mom telling me that when my grandmother dropped her off, she never looked back. She didn’t even look back. My grandmother and I had a very special relationship and she spoiled me like crazy. I’ve only realized recently that it was likely all out of guilt for not supporting her own daughter in her time of need and for not loving her unconditionally. After my mom gave birth, she felt coerced to sign adoption papers. Her parents, the nurses; all pushing her to do something she didn’t want to do. She signed the papers and went to meet my grandmother in the chapel. My grandmother said to her “We’ve decided you can keep the baby.” But the papers had been signed and by all accounts there was no going back. I swear my grandmother just said this to twist the knife. I found out about my sister when I was in high school, around 1997. Mom had never been in contact with her, she was not able to access any of the adoptive parents info and the only way contact could be made was if my sister made the first move. A short time after my grandmother passed away in 2002, my sister mailed a letter to mom. We had recently moved and mom happened to be passing by our old house. It had been purchased but it still looked empty after a several weeks so she thought she’d check the mailbox. She found tons of our mail, including a letter from my sister. I have mixed feelings about how this went down with my grandmother. I am insanely mad at her for acting the way that she did; had I known all the details while she was alive, we would have had a knock-down drag out fight. Looking back, it seems like our whole relationship was fake, which is sad. I feel like I don’t even know her. Mom and I met my sister not long after she sent the letter. I wasn’t sure how to act and, in true Dena fashion, bolted after only thirty minutes, which I still regret. We chat every once in a while now, though. Mom passed away in a car accident in 2012 so unfortunately my sister and mom don’t get to know each other’s awesomeness. My sister did come to our wedding, though, which was so special.

Have you ever noticed that when there are two siblings, one of them will look more like the mother and the other will look more like the father? Growing up, people would always tell my Mom that we looked alike and she would always say “No way. She looks just like her Dad.” I always thought I looked like Mom, too. But then I met my sister, and dang, y’all, she looks just like Mom. Looking at both of us next to each other, I can finally see that I do look just like my Dad. She looks so much like Mom that since Mom has passed away, it’s almost hard to look at her without getting upset…

So many other things to say here, but this is obvs a post for another time….

I have actually slipped on a banana peel.

It happened in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I didn’t actually fall but just kind of skid across the peel on the heel of my foot. I think I pee’d myself I was laughing so hard.

I gag at everything.

Everything. Just thinking about gagging makes me gag. I can’t clean out hairbrushes or drains and I sometimes gag when I’m washing my own hair. My own hair. Sometimes I gag when I’m brushing my teeth, or after I’ve had too much coffee, and I obviously can’t watch any kind of surgery shows on TV; seeing bare pregnant bellies puts me over the top. One of my friends gets super tickled at my gagging weakness and takes advantage of it by meticulously describing the 2 girls, 1 cup video. Do not Google that. Every time I gag, I think of him and how it makes him laugh super hard. Gagging also makes me think of my Dad, who is way worse than me. When I start to gag, I picture my Dad and how he would be heaving so much harder than me and it makes me gag even more and then I think of my friend laughing super hard which then makes me laugh. So most gag-fits end in cry-laughing with little dry heave to top it off. It’s kind of a mess. But it is super funny.

I’m gonna be in a magazine!

So, this is unreal to me, but it’s also been on my list of things I wanted to accomplish by the end of 2015. The magazine won’t be out by the end of 2015, but the photo shoot is coming up in a few weeks and I’m freaking out. It’s a Better Homes and Gardens publication; one of their decorating magazines. They have like, 30 magazines under the BHG name, so it’s not THE BHG, but I still think it’s a huge accomplishment and I’m super pumped for everyone in high school to see how fat I’ve gotten and how dirty my baseboards are. Kidding. Kinda. This has taken a huge amount of patience on my end, which is not something I’m good at. Most bloggers do home tours and stuff but I’ve heard magazine editors speak and they typically don’t want anything that has been previously published online or in print. So I had to avoid doing the typical blogger thing by giving you a full tour of my home. But it’s paid off and I am so excited!

I think God has his hands in every tiny little thing.

I’m not sure what other people think about this, and I should because sharing my personal relationship with God is important and I should definitely be doing that more often….   I’m talkin’ butterfly effect kind of stuff. Like, every single, tiny thing – with the exception of our own decisions, obviously. I was headed to a place the other day on Hogan road and I was flipping out about the insane Atlanta traffic and right when I was about to explode, a semi truck whizzed by me with the word HOGAN on the side. I feel like I get little signs like that on a daily basis that tell me that God is with me and I’m right where I need to be at that very moment. In that particular case, surely He was telling me to calm the heck down, which I did. If you want to hear how God majorly came into my life and changed it drastically, you can read that here. I’m completely certain that God is rewarding me with the magazine feature for doing good work for others on behalf of Dwell with Dignity and for giving Him all the credit for all the things. He’s the greatest and I literally owe Him everything.

I hate airplanes.

If you ever see me on airplane I’m either two cocktails in or I’ve just had a long cry-talk with God in which I’ve convinced myself that I’m comfortable with it being “my time”. Flying is always so emotional and I just can’t understand how some people fly for a living or fly constantly for work. But mostly I think it’s because I can’t understand the black magic that keeps planes in the air.

I drink pickle juice like it’s Gatorade.

It’s actually better than Gatorade on a hot day. No joke. Sometimes I’ll mix it up and just do white vinegar with water and salt. Even had pickle juice at our wedding. I think my brother and I are the only ones who drank it. Fine with me, more for us. The event planners made a hideous label to go on this decanter that just said “PICKLES”, which I photo-shopped out because it still annoys me that they did that. Also, why do we need to label it? There are clearly pickles in this dang jar.

I’m Daddy’s girl.

I can’t say much here because I get crazy emotional. He’s so far away and I miss him so much. He’s just the best. And the sound of his laugh is my favorite noise. It’ll brighten the darkest day.

Okay. That’s enough of that.

I’ve gotta get up and shake it to Nicki Minaj to get these serious feels offa me.

So, there ya go. Hi, I’m Dena, nice to meetcha.

Feel free to tell me a random story or fact about yourself, I’d actually love to hear from you guys.