Category: Working Mom

We’re just trying to survive

Loss makes you look at things in a different light. I thought of my parents like every one does, as parents. I didn’t see them as people. Now that they are gone, I have the ability to really see who they were. I wish I had seen them as they were before they died. I wish I could have seen them the way they saw each other. It might have given me some insight to myself. When I was 15 my mother asked me who I would live with if they divorced. I knew she was not happy, I heard them argue. I was invisible. However, she didn’t leave. It was just 3 more years of not being a family. Three years of trying to figure out what to do after I turned 18. I didn’t let my friends know. They thought my parents were cool. They didn’t know. Hell, I thought it was normal. I was so wrong.

It wasn’t until I was grown and had 3 kids that my mother had an affair. A chance to have happiness. I wasn’t surprised. I was angry with her for not ending it with my dad. I was angry for her betrayal. I didn’t see why you would hurt someone intentionally. I didn’t see her as a person , I was still seeing her as my mother. Regardless, of how my father made her feel or treated her, I didn’t understand. I couldn’t process the situation. I couldn’t agree or make it okay in my own head.

I have reached a point that I can see them as people who were making decisions trying to navigate life while trying to their best to raise kids and do right. I’m sure that decisions that they made were as difficult as some that I have made. I am sure that mine are not always perfect , right, or even proper. One thing is certain. I hope that I am not dead before my kids realize I am a person just trying to navigate water and some days, just trying to survive.

Hindsight 2020

When the going gets rough the tough get going. Does that mean we run away? Because that sounds like a great idea these days. It sounds like I have universal permission to get in the car and drive as far from reality as I would like. Just not to Canada, they are on lock-down from this beer virus that has turned this entire world upside down!

I may have mentioned a time or two that I am actually in healthcare so I am mostly brainwashed to understand why the rules are the rules. However, this week I am a daughter and the rules fucking suck . The world fucking sucks and 2020 can go to hell!

Let me see how I can roll this out. Since July of last year I have been looking forward to 2020 being a fabulous better year. And so far, my Cherrios are full of excrement that comes with a side of urine all stirred together and served hot. It was suppose to be my graduation , my daughters graduation, my daughter in laws graduation, my son’s wedding. Instead, it has been  my grandmothers cancer, my dads cancer, my aunts funeral, my brother in laws brain abscess, my mothers open heart, my dogs death, covid 19, my cousins death, my other cousins new semi and trailer stolen, cancelled school, cancelled graduation, maybe cancelled wedding, post-poned graduation, and my mother coding 4 times on monday. I don’t know what else could be possible at this point and I sure don’t want to ask the universe for fear it is a Billy Blank commercial from heaven saying “but wait there’s more!”

If there is one thing that I have learned, it’s don’t tempt fate. So I am officially selling shirts that say #hindsight 2020 if anyone is interested! I am thinking that I will only sell them in shades of diarrhea or poop since that seems to be this years theme. The back will read, ” never saw that shit coming”.

 

Is it ever too late?

I think of all the things that I have put off over time.I can’t help but wonder is it ever too late? I sit here writing this and all I can think about is all the homework I should be doing for my master’s class. Come Wednesday, I will be in complete panic mode and by Sunday, unbearable. This is just what I do. I think that I have just adjusted my life to this pattern and I hate it! I absolutely hate it! I just get so overwhelmed that I feel stuck. It truly is a sick feeling that sits in your soul like bad Chinese food on Christmas.

I don’t know why I chose that analogy, I’ve never had Chinese on Christmas, but a lot of people do so I hope they can relate. Recently, my grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer and she is now going through chemo and radiation. It sucks, cancer sucks, asking yourself, ” is it ever too late” sucks. The answer is YES. Yes, it can be too late.  She was a 1/2 pack a day smoker for 45 years, quit in 1990. For her, it was too late to quit. The damage was done. She was having chest and back pain for the last year and getting short of breath. The doctors never saw the mass hidden behind her heart thriving in her lung. They were too late finding her deck of cards sitting in her lung, too late to simply remove it and be done. I just hope that this chemo and radiation are not too late. That is what it all boils down to now. Will this treatment be too late?

 

Oh the things I’ve seen (2)

Friday night arrived and it was time to go out. He arrived in a silver jaguar wearing a gold tone paisley shirt with the sleeves rolled up to three-quarter. His golden blond hair parted down the middle feathered with his sunglasses atop his head. He came to the door and my mother seemed to appear less than impressed. As usual my father was off with his friends spending money that we didn’t have to support a hobby no one cared about. This object of attraction was courteous to my mother as she told me to be home by curfew. Out the door we left.

I can’t tell you much detail about the movie I was a bundle of nerves. I had many thoughts in my head. I didn’t really know this guy and what if something went wrong? When does the gut get a say in what happens? When would have been a good time to listen? I can honestly say, I wish more than anything I had listened. But I was so smitten with his interest in me and his kindness and good looks, that I was deaf to my own intuition.

After the movie, he needed to run by his house to pick something up. So we went. He was ” living with room-mates” in a nice upscale neighborhood. We arrived and entered into the foyer where just to our right was a dining room where three adults older than my parents sat playing cards and smoking cigarettes. In the living room was a large grand piano just past the sofa. He introduced me proudly to his two room-mates and their friend, an older gentleman in his 50’s.  They seemed nice. I just didn’t look at the scene in my head through their eyes. I really wish I had.

We grabbed the things he was after and he drove me home. As he dropped me off, he asked if we could have another date. Clearly, I said yes.

It’s been a minute

It’s been a minute since my whole world was upside down. Like the house in Pigeon Forge , Tennessee, sitting right on its roof. It’s an attraction that many pay to see. Well sister, I wouldn’t have paid to see my house turned upside down. In fact, I would have paid anyone any amount to set it right!

Sometimes the mess is there and we just don’t see it until it’s too late. We trust people and they use it to gain power over our well-being. Then one day you are sitting outside and see that the house is now upside down and things are just spinning like a top at Christmas. BAM! it’s just too late.

I know because that is where I was, but I’m not anymore. I have found peace finally and it feels wonderful. Like the first day of fall when you open all the windows and that crisp fresh breeze blows in, causing the curtains to nearly rise to the ceiling. That kind of amazing.

The sadness now comes, not for me, but for them. Those who didn’t want to understand where the hurt grew from, what the cause of the festering blister may have been. It wasn’t the thorn that was stuck in the paw, it was the walking away and leaving it there to grow that hurt.

They are so far removed from the source of the pain, that they don’t realize I have moved on. I did pick myself up, dust myself off and I am happy. My happiness doesn’t depend on whether or not they approve of my life plan, whether they call me or rather not call me. My happiness comes from within. Knowing that I am achieving my life goals and that my kids and my husband are celebrating these moments and these wins with me. Isn’t that what it’s about?

What do you do?

It is so hard as a parent watching your kid struggle at life. You internalize and battle with what you missed as a parent. What could you have done differently? What would have made a difference? you start to second guess every decision, every let it go, every time you didn’t just let it go. It is so hard. Then poof, they are grown and you watch from afar.

It hurts, it hurts deeply. You told them all the time you love them, supported them, went to every parent teacher meeting, got learning help, put them in sports and attended the games, whatever was needed. What didn’t you do? Why can’t  this person that you raised accept love, give love, or love themselves?

I wish I had the answer. I wish someone could tell me, because it is painful to see them post on their facebook how sad they are that life never works out. But when you reach out to them they shut you down.

The reality is they are grown and I can no longer affect the happiness they feel or rather don’t feel. The things that make their life difficult are results of repeated behaviors that he doesn’t want to change. It is hard. Because you just want your kids to be happy and be positive people and productive.

What do you do?

Fireworks

Being a mom of four, I tend to get teary at the craziest stuff. When I see my kids watching or doing anything amazing it makes me automatically tear up. It can be riding a carousel or baiting a fishing hook, it doesn’t really matter. Last night we went to the neighbors and did fireworks with him and his kids and grand kids.  I think it was the first time that I didn’t tear up. My youngest is now 9 and a half and I suddenly feel the burn of this era of my life ending. That should be enough to make anyone tear up!

I am at that awkward stage in life. I have 4 kids and I spaced them too far apart. I am still a mother to young kids and now beginning the grand parent stage. It is incredibly awkward. I am sad this morning when I think of not having that joyful tearful reaction that I have become as accustomed to as peeing when I laugh or sneeze. It has been a part of me for 22 years and it feels weird to not have that reaction.

There were a lot of kids and people and our dogs were moving all around. I did spend most of the time making sure that everyone was clear of the multiple tiny explosions and sparklers happening all at once. Maybe I was just to busy and preoccupied to take in the joy of the moment. And it was a beautiful moment…

I hope everyone enjoyed the night and was grateful for our freedom.

Everything is black

For two nights now I have had crazy dreams. They were very vivid and I remembered them clearly. There was one common factor or theme. Everything was black. Black panther, black stones, even black train tracks. Time was current and time was past.

I looked up what these things mean online. It was clear, black means strength. In my first dream I had my bunny, puppy, my sons grey cat and a black panther all playing together. No one was getting eaten or fighting. In my second dream, a truck load of black river rocks (smooth stones) were dropped off in my aunts old driveway. I asked if we should call my sister and see if she wants some. Currently we are not speaking because she is always right and stubborn and interferes. The stones were not being thrown which to me is a good sign. I was offering a thing of beauty to her.

If I were to interpret these I would say that I am strong and want to get along in order to have the past be as beautiful and relationship as smooth as it was. However, walking along train tracks means there is still a long way to go. Just maybe the kid that I was carrying around on my hip represents a burden that is not mine that I am carrying!

Until I see what comes of these dreams, I am going to take this interpretation as gospel and run with it. Seems reasonable to me.

The Rainbow ends here!

It was reported to me today by my husband that a rainbow terminated just off the side of my driveway. How amazing! He said in all his 54 years he had never seen the end of a rainbow. He asked me if I had in my …hmmm  years? I replied,” no I hadn’t either”. Shortly after I regretted saying that, as I am sure I just lied. I had seen the beginning and the end of a rainbow many many times. In the sprinkler as a kid, in science class with the prisms, and even in parades. I didn’t set out to lie, it just happened. In honesty though, I did kind of answer truthfully. I had never seen a rainbow from actual rain end in front of me. I am sure that is what he was implying with his question.

Does that make me a liar? I mean, I answered the question for what I thought he was implying. Clinton did that with the whole “did you have sexual relations” question. Oh I know, I threw a politician in there. I know but it was a good example of how it can be an honest lie right?