Welcome to my Life

Posts Tagged ‘life’

Wouldn’t it be nice if at birth we were all given a manual, a how to manual, and when we came up against something we weren’t sure how to handle, we could just look it up in the manual.

Like how exactly do you deal with moving out of your boyfriend’s house because you found your own?  I mean, that was the deal. I move in here until I could find a place I could afford.  I found my new house this week.  I’ve got a week to 10 days before it’s ready for me to move in.  So where is the chapter in that book that tells me how to transition from living with him to living alone?  Where’s the chapter that tells me he will still love me even when I’m not sleeping next to him every night?  Where to find the answers to questions such as “What’s for dinner? Where are my jeans? Can you help me with my homework?” when someone else has answered those questions for 2 months?  Where do I find the reasuring words “It’s all going to be ok. Nothing’s going to change?”

I told you this would happen.  It was my biggest fear when I allowed my son to live with you.  You assured me it wouldn’t happen, and yet here we are.  Just like your teen years all over again. 

You have been trying to relive your life through him since the day he was born.  So, you made sure we would be here at this point in his life.  I remember the stories you would tell, the tears you shed over the fact that your parents divorced when you were 16 and your mother moved away and didn’t take you.  You felt abandoned, unloved and unwanted.She lived less than an hour away and you could drive to see her whenever you wanted to. 

He is neither abandoned, unwanted, forgotten or unloved.  What he has become is you.  He now believes I don’t want him (I wonder where he got that idea) when that is the furthest from the truth.  Now, for whatever reason, and I can only imagine what you have told him about me, he refuses to come here.  His best reason to date?  I’m school shopping.  Great, send his list and we’ll go shopping here. 

The courts granted me visitation every other weekend.  You have managed to keep him away from me for 10 months now.  That’s pretty blatant contempt of court.  Add to that the violation of the court order when you moved without telling me, and you’re not as innocent as you want him to believe you are.  And I’m not the monster you say that I am. 

See, that’s the thing, you refuse to communicate with me about his life, about anything at all.  You say that all the information I need is on the school website and you don’t need to inform me of anything.  The courts say otherwise.  You don’t know anything about me or my life.  So what ever information you are feeding him may or may not be true.  I know which one I’m betting on. 

I am sorry, truly sorry you felt your mother abandoned you when in fact she didn’t.  It appears you have quite the problem with reality.  But whatever you believe about you mother, and whatever sins you still hold her accountable for and make her atone for, are not mine.  I am not your mother and he is not you.  I have every right to be his mother and you have every right to allow that.  In fact there is a court order that states I am allowed to see him every other weekend, and for 10 months you have violated that. 

I am trying to reconstruct the relationship with my son that you have worked so hard to destroy.  I will not give up trying to reach him and show him that I am not the monster you have made him believe I am.  I will not lose my son forever to satisfy your need to punish me for sins you believe your mother and I have committed.

I am telling you now.  I will not stop loving him, and I will not disappear from his life. I will be there for every football, basketball, baseball game he plays. I will be at every choir concert he has. I will be there for every birthday, for Winter Sports, for Homecoming and Prom.  And I will be there every other weekend to pick him up to spend the weekend with him.  And he will see that he is loved and wanted and not abandoned, unwanted or unloved.  No matter what you tell him.  After all actions speak much louder than words.

I have rules that I live by.  Not the obvious rules, ya know don’t kill people, don’t take other people’s shit.  Those are sort of obvious. I mean to most homo sapiens.  Aside from those rules, we all have certain rules we live by, a certain code if you will.  And so, you know, since this is my blog, I thought I would spew my witt and wisdom list my rules to live my life by.  You know, because you’re dying to know.  You just didn’t know it.  Besides, Meghan wrote hers over at Aiming Low and made me think, what are my life rules.

1. When you fill your gas tank at the gas station, buy a scratchers ticket.  It must be scratched with a state quarter, not one of the old quarters.
2. Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches should always be eaten with a cold glass of  milk.
3. I won’t eat at any sub shop that does not offer BLT’s .
4. Toilet paper always goes over.  That is when it happens to make it to the holder.
5. Anything with cream cheese is good.
6. Jeans don’t go in the drier.
7. Bras and panties should always match and should be color coordinated with your outfit if at all possible.
8. Jeans should always come down over the top of your shoes.
9. Cheesecake is the best when it’s plain NY style.
10. Clothes need only be ironed right before you wear them.
11. Wash top to bottom in the shower.  Conditioner in hair while shaving your legs.
12. Dry off from top to bottom, using 2 towels. Wrap your hair in one, dry off with the other.
13. Coffee must have milk and sugar.
14. Margaritas must have an extra shot of tequila and a orange slice along with lime.
15. Sometimes it’s ok (and fun) to say Yes.
16. You have to at least eat the meat. (That sounds soooo dirty)
17. Tomatoes and lettuce belong in the middle of the sandwich (Between the meat) so the bread does not get soggy,
18. A very good steak does not need any side dishes. It’s a complete meal alone.
19. I never drink AB products (Bud Light, Mich Ultra)
20. I believe in Google for everything.
21. Store brand cereal is ok, store brand spaghetti sauce is not.

Do you have rules you live by?

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.

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.

In my feed reader I often times get blog posts that Britt shares with other readers.

So today I was reading this blog post shared by Britt.  Have you hugged a blogger today?  I read lots of blog posts, in my feed reader.  Since my laptop died, I don’t have internet at home, so I am limited to sneaking around at work.  I happen to be one of the lucky few that has almost total access to the web.  Other people have so many restrictions on their terminals they can barely search Google let alone read a blog.

Such as it is, I still am limited to my internet usage in that I can’t very well get caught surfing blogs on company time.  Since I work in Admin, well, I’ve got a lot of muckity mucks mucking around my desk.

To make a long boring blog post even more boring and pointless, let’s sum it up with this.  I read blogs, as many as I can in a day.  I don’t always get to comment on them because of my limitations.  Thanks to Britt’s most awesome blogging tools ever (you’ll have to search her archives for that post… don’t have time to link to it here) I can ‘preview’ the blog posts I want to comment on and leave comments from my feed reader.

I used to write for readers.  I used to be obsessed with the number of visitors I had in a day.  I used to stress and worry that I barely broke the double digit barrier let alone make it anywhere near the triple digit readers.  But now, I write for myself again.  Yes I censor a lot of what I write because I know The Enemy is reading.  While I used to write to an audience, now I write as a way to remember where I was at this point in my life.  J-Lo had an album out titled This is me…Then.  It was an album about where she was in her life at the time it was written.  She wanted it to mark a time in her life, and years from now, she could listen to it, and go back to the memories of that time.

So it is with my blog.  I still to this day, go back in my archives and see how far I’ve come in my personal growth, in my relationship with Batman, in my life as a mother and in my struggle with my mental illness.  I look back at my archives and my sister’s and cringe at how clueless I was, and just how I thought I knew it all, and had a clue, when in hindsight I was a blithering idiot.

Welcome to my life. It used to be “Welcome to my life, sorry about the mess.”  This is the landmarks of my life.  My journeys my progress, my hopes and dreams my heartaches and joys.  This is me….then, now.  I’m not what I used to be, and not yet what I’m going to be.  I am a work in progress.