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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

I know that yesterday’s post was so not the typical Thanksgiving day post.  It was however, a honest look inside my head at my fears (real to me, not altogether unreasonable). Yesterday turned out to be much better than last year, and gives me hope that Christmas will be better too.

So, in the spirit of the holiday weekend, here is a list of things I am thankful for.

I am thankful I am poor house broke this weekend and Black Friday hold no appeal to me.  Besides the sales will  be the same or better the closer you get to Christmas.  Go then.

I am thankful that his mother and I had a talk about my Christmas gifts this year, and while to everyone else it looks insensitive and boring, it will be one of the best gifts under the tree for me this year (aside from Brian’s).

I am thankful that once a year, always this time of year, my father sends me a box of boxed/canned food and fills my cabinets with food to feed us for the next month or so.

I am thankful that with a whole lot of elbow grease too may pairs of latex gloves to count, a hazmet suit and a few small bombs, I have turned a old fixer upper into a relatively cute home where the girls aren’t afraid to touch things. Especially a bath tub (with no shower).

I am thankful that the girls’ dad let me have them for the entire weekend because it was my holiday, without a fight or an argument or even one 4 letter word thrown in there.

I am thankful that my brother is damn good at his job and knows what he’s doing. I am thankful that he is home for the holidays;  I am thankful that no matter how often he goes over to the sandbox, he always gets to come home and almost always is here for the holidays.

I am thankful that I still have a little time left before my oldest daughter is a teenager.  I am thankful I have a little more time before I become “That mom’”.

I am thankful for so many other things I have in my life,and thankful for the fact there are some things I don’t have in my life, like drama, and the urge to stand in like for 36 hours to get a $87 GPS.  Seriously?  I am thankful for a warm bed and a alarm I could ignore today.

It’s Thanksgiving (Hello Captain Obvious).  I don’t even know where to start.  I’m at Brian’s again with the family. For all intents and purposes on the outside it looks like I’m family.  Inside I want to believe it, more than anything.

But I can’t.

Not after last year.

I won’t show it.  They will never know.  Other than before I came to his house, I asked him, This year is going to be ok, when last  year sucked so bad.  He said “We’ll be fine, stop worying about crap in the past”.

But it’s always a fear that nags in the back of my mind.  A fear I try hard to hide, and even harder to ignore, and yet, it’s there.

I know how to get through today without being a part of the inevitable drama.   I know what to expect.  And yet, I don’t. I know what to expect from his mother, and some of the extended family.  I don’t know what to expect from him.

I hope this year is better than last year.  I hope this Thanksgiving wipes out the memories of spending the holiday alone last year.  I hope that this year, the fear is eased, and that I find something better to be thankful for.

The other night during the girls’ avoiding going to bed chit/chat the sentance was uttered, “[certain family member who shall remain nameless] told us we are oops babies.”

Oops Babies.

This is not the first time this [family memeber who shall remain nameless] has over stepped her their bounds.  It is not the first time they have opened their mouth and told my kids things they had no business telling my kids.  All because they felt my kids should know and didn’t agree with my parenting decisions.

But Oops Babies? Seriously?

I don’t care who you are, you don’t ever tell a child they are an Oops baby.  I know that it was said as a derogatory remark against me and/or their father (mostly me).  I mean, not every baby out there is planned for or at the right time.  And does it matter if we planned for them at that exact time? They are loved and wanted.

I had to explain to them that the comment wasn’t meant to hurt them, but was made in the hopes it would get back to me and hurt me.  (It pissed me off).  I had to explain to the girls that plans aren’t always written in stone.  The planning doesn’t matter, it’s the journey and the love and caring they’ve had along the way.

When it was said, my first instinct, as a mother, was to protect my girls and in protecting them, I wanted to attack the source of the stupidity that had put that hurtful idea in their heads.  I wanted to call [family member who shall remain nameless, unless you want to name her meddling, coniving hateful *ahem*] and give her them a piece of my mind.

Then I wanted to call a different familymember who is removed from the situation and get their take on it.

But I didn’t.  I walked away from it.  The remark was said in the hopes it would piss me off and stir up a whole lot of drama.  If I reacted, then it would be playing into her their hands. I didn’t need to make a big scene out of this. I needed to just blow it off and be the bigger person.

And I need to remind the girls that what [family member who shall remain nameless, but not absent from their life] said it doesn’t make it true and it doesn’t change what truly matters.

Planned or not, they are loved.

Halloween is sneaking up on us. Ok, more like rush at us like a freight train.  Well, maybe not that fast.  Whatever.  It’s coming.

This was our last weekend to have the kids before the big wear-funky-clothes-and-go-door-to-door-begging-for-candy-from-strangers night.  We spend months if not years teaching our children ‘don’t take candy from strangers’ and then one night a year we dress them up and send them out to do exactly what we’ve taught them not to do.

The kids won’t be with us this year, and since it was cold and wet and raining and the weekend before Halloween we thought it was the perfect day to take them to the pumpkin patch because we’re good parents like that.

There happen to be a corn maze there. Of course that’s where the kids wanted to go. Pumpkins? What pumpkins?

Don’t you want pumpkins for Halloween?

Yeah, sure whatever. Can we go in the corn maze?

ADD much?

We let them go to the corn maze.  We sent a 14-year-old boy, followed by his 12, 10, and 7-year-old sisters.  The male had the map.

Three guesses as to what happened?

They got lost.

In a 10 acre corn maze.

In the cold damp weather.

Did I mention it was raining?

Did I mention there was mud?  A lot of it.

They found every bit of it.

They didn’t however find their way of the maze.

Over an hour later, Brian asked for a map and went in to find them.  It wasn’t hard if you followed the map, watched the checkpoints and listened for them. (They are LOUD with a capital L-O-U-D)

Brian came out of the maze followed by three cold wet very muddy children who were bubbling over with tales of their adventure. They would have stayed another hour if we let them. They probably wouldn’t have found their way out be then either.

Where was the map?

Funny you should ask.

It was in Scooter’s pocket, because ‘it was getting wet’ besides he’s a boy, and we all know men don’t read maps.

We got them all in the car, and headed home to a hot home cooked meal. When from the back seat we hear…

“But I didn’t get my pumpkin!’

I’m not sure the new dosage of medicine is working, or if people are just annoying as shit and I notice it more.  I have to wonder if I am over reacting to things, to people, to situations.

I don’t know if I’m in a manic phase or if I’m just cranky.  Although I’d put my  money on manic because I have this need to clean everything (even the stove top and under the hood.)  I love my girls and on any other night their goofing around and playing, joking and laughter would be welcome noise of my kids.  Tonight, I just want them to go to their room, watch TV and be quiet.

I have spent the day wanting nothing more than to curl up in Brian’s arms. Wrap my arms around him, feel his wrapped around me and feel safe and loved.  And at the same time I want to shut him out, push him away, act like I don’t care.

The girls were supposed to help me do dinner dishes and I couldn’t stand for them to be in the kitchen with me.  I sent them to watch TV not because I didn’t need the help, I didn’t want it.  I just want to be alone.

Except that when I’m left alone, I get stuck in my head.  I go back and relive some of the worst times of my life, wishing I would have done things differently.  I go back and rerun the scenes through my head, feeling the fear, the anger, the tears whatever, all over again.

I love my girls.  I love Brian. I want them around, I need them to understand it’s not them at all.  I want them to hold on to me and bring me back to life, and yet, I can’t be around them.  Their noise grates on my nerves.  Their inability to give me what I want due to my inablity to ask for it makes me want to shut them out, push them away.

I have to call the doctor on Monday and report in as to how I feel.  Is wanting to push the pedal to the floor and run over (and by run over I mean floor it and don’t let up) all the idiots on the road a bad thing?  Then yeah, we need to make more changes.

I find myself not wanting to be alone, wanting the stimulation of human interaction and  yet, the very interacation I want pisses me off and I push it away.  Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Tomorrow Brian’s kids will be here so it will be a full house with everyone home.  I had better get it together by then or it’s going to be a really long rough weekend.

Today is my son’s 16th birthday.

I haven’t seen him since before Thanksgiving.

I don’t even know why exactly.

When I can talk to him, and getting him to answer text messages, phone calls, emails, if like moving a mountain one stone at a time, all he says is “I don’t want to.”

I blame his father.  110% I blame his father.

His father has a difficult (read impossible) time with reality.  As in they are not aquainted.  Haven’t even been introduced.  He is trying to relive his life vicariously through my son.  Except he has some seriously fucked up issues with his mother that stem from his parents’ divorce when he was 16.  It’s not much of a stretch for him to alienate my son from me.

We have a court order, he is to be here every other weekend.  I have told them I will pick him up on Friday for his weekend only to have him tell me “I’m not going” and when I get there, nobody is there to meet me.

And they both avoid me.

Yes, it’s contempt of court.  When I bring that up, his father instantly agrees to let him come see me, and yet, it never happens.

My family lives in the same town my son does, and they are not allowed to see him either.  They barely get to talk to him on the phone or even chat with him online.  His father is shutting us all out of his life and there is precious little I can do about it without dragging everyone through a long lengthy court battle.

And I fear that making him come here for a weekend, to see me, and his sisters would just make him hate me even more than his father has already convinced him to do.

So, how do I win?

How long does my heart have to break and hurt and mourn the loss of my son, who is alive and well 2 hours away from me.  But who has cut me completely out of his life, thanks to his manipulative arrogant douchebag father?

It’s his 16th birthday today.

I called…no answer.

My daughters (his sisters) called… no answer.

I sent a text message….no answer

I sent an email….again, no answer.

If I drive to his house tonight, he won’t be there.

His 16th birthday and I’ve been cut out of his life, and not allowed to celebrate one of his biggest birthdays with me.

And I gave birth to him.

He lays on the bed beside his daughter watching some movie with her.  I’m willing to bet it’s one he’s seen a bazillion times, and yet he will watch it a bazillion + 1 just for her. My heart smiles at his patience and willing to suffer through a children’s movie because Princess asked him to.

He sits in his room playing video games with his son for hours because it’s raining outside and they can’t work on Scooter’s motocross track.  Nothing else got done around the house today because he spent time with his kids.

He went birthday shopping for his daughter yesterday and took my daughters with him.  Just the three of them out for the afternoon.  The line between my kids and your kids is blurring more and more every day.

Watching him be with the kids weighs my heart with emotions almost too big to be contained.  He’s being the everyday father their real father isn’t.

It hasn’t always been this way.  There have been times I couldn’t see a tomorrow with him let alone anything further down the road.  There have been times when he has said he wanted anyone else but me.  There have been times when I let him go find out just how untrue that was.

I look at him now, and know if I said “I love you” to him, it would no longer be met with silence or worse “I know”.  Now, I love you too is returned to me.  And the knowing that is enough.

The house was quiet, as it was still early in the morning.  The sun was not yet visible in the sky.  She had gotten up to see him off to work.  He had left her with a hug, a kiss, and “Go back to bed”.  She had tried, but couldn’t sleep.  Besides, right now it was quiet, she could get a few moments to herself, for herself.  Soon enough it would be impossible to just go to the bathroom alone.

Her life was full of noise and laughter most days.  Lots of laughter, much more noise.  Kids in and out of the house, upstairs and down. Playing together most of the time, fighting some of the time, as kids are wont to do.  Some days the noise made her want to pull her hair out.  Some days she sent them outside to play just so she could regain some semblence of sanity.  Regaurdless, the noise, both good and bad, reminded her that she was not alone.  She had a family.

She had the life she had wanted, and tried to create, but had failed so many times before.  She finally had a man she loved and who loved her in return.  She had children who brought her much  joy and laughter.  They  had a beautiful house, and thanks to her, a warm loving home.

She didn’t get moments to herself often.  When she did, she treasured them like gold.  And always remembered to be thankful for the noise.  Quiet may be nice now and then, but noise was always better,  because to her, noise meant family and love.

Happy Birthday to you

You live in a zoo

You look like a monkey

and you smell like one too.

The kids were practicing singing to me.  B’s mom asked then “Are you really going to sing that to your mom for her birthday?”

I answered, uh, have you seen the four I live with?  I might as well be in a zoo.

‘nough said

Once upon a time this blog was funny witty brilliant.  There of course have been the break ups and reconciliations with Batman peppered along the way.  There was a time when this blog didn’t even mention BPD, when it didn’t consume my life, or at least my thoughts.

I miss those days.

I miss the days when I didn’t think about what kind of mood I was in. I miss the days when I didn’t measure my reaction to every situation against everyone else’s.  Is my reaction reasonable?  Is it sign of the beginning of an episode?  I miss the days when I was more than my disease.

And here I am, once again, writing about BPD.

Exactly what I wish I wasn’t doing.

Summer is here. The girls are out of school. They start summer school on Monday. Summer school is a great babysitter for a month.  They have fun; they are entertained for the whole day. And they get paid.

Life with Batman is good. Very good.  Shy of a ring on my finger, it’s everything I wanted all along.  He says he loves me and he’s here for the long haul.  Things are even really good with his mother, and that’s saying something.  I won’t bore you with details or gag you with how sickening sweet it can be.  Just know it’s good.

Next week would have been my 10-year wedding anniversary with Slug.  There is a post about that coming up (maybe. I may change my mind).  It has taken him 5 years to finally come to terms with the fact we are divorced (that anniversary is next month).  I came to terms (sort of) with is a while back.  At this point in the game I no longer care who he dates, lives with or marries. It’s his life to live however he wants.  All I ask is that 2 things be understood.  1. I am the girls’ mother and therefore will be a part of his life for the rest of their lives.  2. They don’t stand a chance against me if they are not good to the girls. I will do everything I can to get that person out of their lives if the girls are in any danger or mistreated in any way.  Beyond that, it’s his life. Period.

In the past I have spent way too much time and way too much energy fighting with him over really stupid things, which in the grand scheme of life, don’t really matter.  I have obsessed over the stupid things he’s done. I have stooped to his level and been sucked into arguments with him over things that never really mattered.  It has taken me a long time to learn that the only way to win those arguments is to not even get into them.  I can’t change who or what he is. I cannot make him parent the girls the way I would. I have to let him be their father however he chooses to, as long as they are not in any danger.

I know in the past 5 years the girls have been exposed to many things no child should ever be exposed to.  Their mother has been in jail.  The police have been called to Slug’s house on more than one occasion. At 9 and 12 they know more about police, lawyers, jail, divorce, and drama than any child should ever know. The guilt I feel for putting them through all of that and exposing them to so many things they should never know, eats me up inside some days.  But only when I think about it.  I look at them today and the tweens they are becoming and see that at least on the surface, they are fine.  They don’t think about those days, or if they do, they don’t tell me.  But sill, I wonder what they will be like when they get older. How many years of therapy have I caused them in the future?

Tate is at that age where she’s really coming into her own.  At this age we have an open relationship and she knows (and often does) she can tell me anything.  Like the boy she has a crush on. Or the fact that she’s confused as to why her best friend won’t talk to her.  She has boundless energy, and not a care in the world.  She is not afraid to make a fool out of herself around people she knows, as long as she gets a laugh.  She could easily become my best friend if I would let her, but that would blur the lines between mother and daughter.  I am proud of her beyond measure.  The words here don’t begin to do her personality justice.  She is everything I wanted to be at that age, and wasn’t.

Newt believes she stands in her sister’s shadow, and doesn’t realize she shines in her own way.  She still has that little girl voice when she calls me on the phone, but to look at her, you can see the tween she will become in a year or two.  She is the mother hen of the house, even at Bat manor, she is always in the kitchen helping cook. She hasn’t found that carefree spirit her sister has, even though she tries.  Whatever Tate does, Newt follows suit just like little sisters should.

On the surface they are well adjusted normal girls.  To look at them you would never know the drama they have been witness to, and the horrible experiences they have lived through.  Maybe they don’t think about those days, because now, their lives are happy, stable and safe. Maybe every day things are ok is another day between now and then and fades those memories a little more.  I hope so.

This truly isn’t where I thought this post would wind around to.  But to be honest, I had no idea what I was going to write about when I started it other than I am tired of being my disease, and being focused on it, and making it such a big part of my life. Like the old cliché says, I have it but it doesn’t have me.