I’Ve Got My Big Girl Panties On: One Foot at a Time

By Darla Marx

She was born in a foothill, along the banks of the Long Toe River, just ten miles south of the Hand-High Basin. At the tender age of sixteen she was sent to the deep piny woods of East Texas, to live among the natives. With humor, and southern jargon, Darla gives the accounts of her life events from infancy in Austin, Texas, to the maturity of adulthood in Panola County. Writing a book on the power of positive thinking, and believing in something bigger then your self, Darla answers the question that haunts millions of women in America, Is this as good as its ever going to get? Through her experiences in child rearing, divorce, obesity, addiction, death and the affairs of the heart, she empowers all women to sing, dance, and wear red lipstick. Her journey relates to real life and how it can make or break an intelligent woman. Her views on how to wear your big girl panties, will prove, If you cant lose it, you cant hide it, then dammit; decorate it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452089935

Darla Marx

Darla Marx is a printing specialist in The Woodlands Texas. She started her journalism career in Panola County as a photographer for the local newspaper. A poet at heart she wrote her first book ‘Rhythm’s Fate’ in the winter of 2009. Through her experiences and passion for writing she followed with her second book ‘I’ve Got My Big Girl Panties On’ in the fall of 2010. Darla is an avid supporter of the John Ritter Research Program in Aortic and Vascular Diseases. A collaboration between The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health preventing premature death due to acute aortic dissection by engaging in ongoing research on the genetic basis of aortic disease, raising public awareness. She believes in the power of positive thinking, engaging ideas and goals with unwavering determination. She quotes, “The secret to success starts with a dream.”

Book preview

Foreword

As I make the last few changes to Big Girl Panties, I reflect back to the people who have supported me in my endeavors to turn this dream into a reality—to all of the people who have given their time and talents to make sure that I am equipped with the tools I need to achieve success to the best of my ability and those whose vision at times even surpassed my own. It would not be right of me to write a book and not thank them. They are the reason I keep dreaming big, because if I dream big enough, that’s when magic happens.

To my dearest friend Okie Dokie. Don’t die on me, girl; you give me the majority of my material. I can’t write without you. To Val Toukatly from New York, your illustration for the evolution of the Darla’s is wonderful; I appreciate all of your hard work and tremendous talent. To one of the most amazing photographers I know, Randy Grissom—I don’t know how you did it, babe, but thank you for turning my cankles into ankles and your extraordinary eye for perfection. Liza, where do I start? I can’t thank you enough for the logo design. Through our efforts to enhance public awareness of cardiovascular disease and aortic dissection, my dream is to help save lives and make a difference. It starts with ordinary everyday folks like you and me, so thank you from the bottom of your little red heart. To my good bud Joe Holder. I know that you hate being in the limelight, but without you, Rhythm’s Fate and I’ve Got My Big Girl Panties On would still be only dreams. Love you, big guy. To Cynthia Brown, I hope to repay you one day for all of your prayers and everything else you’ve done for me. I know the people who truly love me, and I thank God that you are one of them. To my dinner companion, Liz, who gives me so much support and asks nothing of me in return. You are a good woman with high moral standards; this big city would have been very lonely without you. To Mark Cariker, who wrote me the beautiful poem that made me bawl like a baby before my morning coffee. Thank you, my dear kindred spirit. To my rock-and-roll sweetie, Jon Jon, I’m so proud of you—not only for being one heck of an artist on the stage but also for being a genuinely great guy whose feet are planted firmly on the ground. The stars are aligned, my friend, so let’s reach for the moon. I know that I’m leaving so many people out, and trust me, I know who you are, and I do know that without you all, I am nothing. There is one other person I mustn’t forget, because without his presence in my life, I don’t think that I could have gotten through the adjustment of single life again. He’s a man whose whispers I found hidden in the wind and attached their echo to my heart forever. Thank you, my dear Michael, for teaching me the true meaning of unconditional love. I will value its lesson for a lifetime.

Words flowed like magic

Cross the parchment page

Quill pen

Dipping in ink

Flowing beauty from its touch

Each letter perfect

Every word a portrait

Each line a work of art

Emotion and passion

Flowed onto the paper

Like blood

From her sacrificed soul

She laid bare for all

Its inner beauty

She weaved her magic

As the spider weaves her web

Delicate and beautiful

At last

Heart emptied

The masterpiece was complete

As her eyes recited the pages

On her face a frown was born

The paper crumpled in her hand

As she dropped it

To the floor

No one would ever see its beauty

Or feel it touch their heart

No critic would ever

Praise its worth

For its worst

Had destroyed

Lost Treasure

Never to be found again

                 Mark Cariker

Contents

Introduction

1. In the Beginning

2. Barbed Wire, the Devil’s Advocate

3. Oh, Hiney, You’re Not Dying.

4. The Big Move

5. Too Old to Cut the Mustard

6. The Good Years

7. It’s All Over But the Crying

8. Addiction of the Zingers

9. Sorry, I’ve Got the Wrong Pimple

10. It’s a Man’s World or Is It?

11. Don’t Look Up—It’s Raining Boulders

12. Thank You for Holding. Your Call Will Be Answered in the Order it was Received.

13. Secret Slut

14. Daddy Told Me There Would Be Days Like This

15. Find Something to Live For

16. My Dove

17. It’s Not Over Till the Fat Lady Sings

Author’s Note

Introduction

I’m a normal gal. I get up in the morning, take a shower, put on my make-up, and style my hair. I head out the door for work like so many women stuck in the everyday grind of this thing we call life. I could go to work without taking a shower; brushing my hair, or applying make-up, but that wouldn’t be a good thing for my co-workers. Speaking of make-up and co-workers, don’t you love words with hyphens? I like all words with hyphens; they make me feel like there’s more to come. I get excited when I see a hyphenated word, because I know that more words will follow. I know that’s silly writer’s block sad, but hyphens work when your mind has gone blank.

This book is for women just like me who are ordinary people with ordinary lives, but because of circumstances and situations beyond their control, they somehow find themselves wondering, Is this as good as it’s ever going to get? There’s an old saying that I’ve heard a million times, Live and learn. Well, let me tell you, girls—the learning part’s easy. It’s the living after what you’ve learned that’s so dang hard. It’s either that or Life’s fun when you’re having flies. I can’t keep those old sayings apart. I think it’s because they’re old, and old things scare me.

What I’m attempting to do by inviting you into my ordinary little world is to show and maybe even help some of you girls realize that trials and tribulations aren’t the end of the world—they’re just little setbacks. It doesn’t matter if you’re carrying baggage from divorce or a breakup, your job reeks of the nine-to-five blues, or you even feel like your life has left you suckin’ hind tit. I’m proof that, if life deals you a losing hand, all you have to do is find that ace up your sleeve. It’s there if you look hard enough. But whatever you do, under no circumstance let the dealer know that your hand bites the big one.

Now listen up, ladies. Go get you some coffee and your reading glasses, because I promise you that this little story of mine will at some point or another relate to what’s going on in your life at this very moment. Go find that favorite quiet place and tell the kids to go outside and play. Be sure and bring the Kleenex box, because you’ll be crying and laughing at the same time. My language and humor sometimes reflects the little guy with the pitchfork sitting on my left shoulder, so I apologize now to my family. I’m going to be telling you some things that I’m sure I’ll live to regret and in the end will be downright embarrassing. I have a tendency to tell off on myself, so enjoy the fact that I’m not scared of embarrassment now. Of course, if it’s old embarrassment, I’m petrified. Are you ready? Because this is real life, girls—the ups and downs, the highs and lows, and how this girl learned to wear her big girl panties.

CHAPTER 1

In the Beginning

Where do I start? I guess the beginning would be the place where most sagas breathe their first breath of life. The never-ending saga of Darla Marx. Any of you girls out there just hate your name? I never really cared for mine that much. Darla was okay, but the middle name—Dianne—is what never seemed to fit. It’s not even spelled correctly. It has two n’s and makes me wonder if Mom just can’t spell or if it was an omen for what was to come. History repeating itself over and over again. Since childhood, I’ve always felt different from everyone else. Not special, by any means—just a feeling that I was put on this earth for a purpose. Always looking for something but never really knowing what that something is. Kind of like when you lose your keys in the bottom of your purse—you search so long that you forget what you were looking for in the first place. That kind of feeling. See, ladies, we’re only into the first paragraph, and you’re already relating.

I was born in the foothills of Austin, Texas. It was the second or third foothill after you crossed through the Hand-High Basin and paddled down the Long Toe River; I’ve forgotten now which foothill it was. It was so far back in the cedar break that they had to pipe daylight in. This, if I might add, was very hard on the night crew who had to work double shifts, because there was never enough time in the day to lay all of that pipe. Finally, the daylight union workers got together and added three more hours of daylight, hence daylight saving time. Yes, you can thank those daylight pipe liners for the extra time we have now to mow our yards in the evening.

Actually, I was born in a hospital not far from the Colorado River in Austin, Texas, not in a foothill at all. I was transported by car to our small but comfortable home that my dad built with his own two hands. My grandfather and his parents arrived in the United States by way of Ellis Island. They were German immigrants seeking their fortune and the opportunity for a better life here in the States. They traveled to Arkansas first during the gold rush, thinking—as did so many others—that they would strike it rich. When that didn’t pan out (no pun intended), they set out for Texas. My great-grandmother couldn’t speak a word of English and refused to her entire life. She was a feisty woman, and she was deaf or so I’ve been told. My great-grandfather must have thought an awful lot of her, because he always told her that he would build her a mansion when they found a place to settle. My great-grandfather was a rock mason and acquired a job building the state capitol building when he arrived in Texas. They bought land outside of Austin, where he built her that mansion.

My people are thinkers and planners, so my great-grandfather just didn’t erect a simple one-room shanty. He’d promised his wife a mansion, and for that time period, it was massive. A horse and pulleys were used to hoist the huge rocks to the third floor. He built her house on the side of a small slope that bore a natural spring. They were the only people who had a cistern with fresh running water inside their home. The cellar was always cool from the natural spring, so they were able to store perishables there also. He had killed two birds with one stone—running water and a refrigerator. Shoot, they even had a swimming pool. We had to cross two pastures and an Indian burial ground to get to it, but it was the place all of us grandkids called the big swimming hole. It was a place in the creek that had a solid-rock bottom; there was a rock cliff on one side contoured from thousands of years of water erosion, so we used it for a diving board. It was twelve feet deep in the middle of that fresh water fest. Correct me if I’m wrong, cousins, but it seemed like it was twelve feet deep at the time. On a sunny day, the water was so clear that you could see the reflection from the back of an earring one of us girls had lost. You see, an earring is all that we wore sometimes. Yepper, we girls did a little skinny-dippin’ in the big swimming hole. Well … we couldn’t get our clothes wet, or our parents would know that we had wandered off somewhere we were forbidden to go alone.

Our family is comprised of worriers, and Grandma Marx would always remind us to watch for snakes whenever we left the house. I can hear her now. Don’t cross the creek if the water’s too swift. Cross in the shallow end. When someone was sick, it was like they were quarantined. No hugging or kissing because that would spread germs, and God forbid if you had a runny nose. When my grandma would love on you, it was a pat on the leg followed by a pinch between her four fingers and thumb. It didn’t hurt, and boy, do I wish that she were here patting on me right now. I loved Grandma Marx—all of her grandchildren did. Funny thing about Grandma—she made every one of her grandchildren feel like each was her favorite. We still argue today and say, Well, I beg to differ, and You know I was her favorite.

My grandma had eleven children back when you could die before you got to a doctor in town because it was too far. My father weighed three pounds when he was born, and Grandma’s milk never came in. She fed him the soup off pinto beans and the milk that my older cousins brought to her. My aunt was snake bitten, and Grandma nursed her through with a concoction she’d made from kerosene and tar. She chopped cedar and worked her butt off to feed her brood, and she never lost a child. Not one. Yeah, we Marxes are worriers, but no one dies on our shift.

My grandma loved family gatherings. She’s been dead for twenty-six years, but each year on her birthday, we send out invitations to Grandma’s birthday party. We make Grandma’s favorite dishes, and someone always tries his or her best to duplicate her homemade watermelon rind pickles. We bring the bench from the kitchen we all sat on as we warmed our backs on the wall behind the fireplace. We bring quilts that she’d let us help sew from scrap material leftover from a dress she’d made and a painting of her in a bluebonnet field with her hand on her hip—her natural pose, which is embedded in my memory for when I close my eyes and have happy thoughts. The glasses she wore to watch over us all sit in their holder in the middle of her shrine as we all stand one by one and tell stories of how each one of us was Grandma’s favorite. See, girls, just because people die, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t still a part of your life. My grandma is in each one of the children she helped raise. Don’t think for a minute that our influence as adults doesn’t mold our children into the adults that they will become. So the next time your kids drop a penny down the dashboard of your truck and it causes a rattle, don’t chew their butts out about it. Instead, you’d better be telling them to watch for snakes.

My people were very poor people, and my father always had a saying when I was young. On the rare occasion when my siblings or I would ask my parents for something, my dad would say, Now, kids, poor people have poor ways. Needless to say, a treat for us was stopping at the convenient store after church on Sunday and buying a Coke or a candy bar. One thing about being poor when you’re a kid—you really don’t know that you’re poor if everyone around you is in the same shape. Poor is a condition, girls; it has no bearing on how your life will turn out. My entire childhood was centered on money and talk of nothing but how poor we were. I was raised with a poor mouth, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep it shut and not try to better myself financially.

Everyone has his or her own standard of how much money is enough money. Some are happy with just enough money to pay the bills, buy a few groceries, and take a vacation once a year, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Others want enough to buy a yacht and live off the coast of Greece, and there’s nothing wrong with that, either. If you find yourself griping about how poor you are and how life isn’t fair—how, if you could only make just ten more grand a year, it would be enough to satisfy you and help make your life easier—don’t just gripe about it. There are lots of ways to make extra money. It’s just that sometimes we’d rather complain and wait for something to happen rather than get off our lazy butts and make it happen.

Now, I know that there are moms and dads out there who work two and three jobs trying to feed their children, and believe me, I respect that. But it’s a condition that will pass in time. When you’re complaining and fighting over money, stop and look into the faces of your children. All they see is their parents fighting; they have no concept of the almighty dollar. They just walked into the hornet’s nest from outside where they were having a good time playing in the dirt. I’m just saying, girls, that wouldn’t it give our children the mind-set of poor people have poor ways if all a kid hears out of you is What do think I’m made out of? Money? or No, we can’t afford that? Wouldn’t