Love

I want to let the N-survivors know that you are part of my family of choice - honest communication, no strings to strangle on. Although I don't identify with mainstream religion, I find myself getting a bit maudlin around the edges this holiday season. If you were at the N-free holiday party in my mind, you would probably get pics of me that would vary from mildly embarrassing to career-changing, and I'd be good with that. Here's to another year of moving forward. Love ya :)

And It Continues in the Grand Tradition

Last night when I got home, I picked through my mail. One of the packages was a largeish priority mail, and I thought it was my shipment of tea, so I ripped into it. When I peeked inside, there was a package wrapped in gift wrap. Without taking the package out of the mailer, I flipped the mailer over and looked at the handwriting on the back. Fuck. That's mom's handwriting. Then I think, well, maybe she's sending an early Christmas present for my little one. So I pull the package out and find a "To Bessie, with Love, Mom" sticker on the side.

I'm not opening that shit for anything. It's going back to her unopened and with a note telling her that I don't want gifts, I want to be left alone. The more distance I get from her, the more keenly I feel the manipulation when it occurs. I haven't talked to her for months, since before the letter communications, and I haven't communicated anything to her between my post where she sent me the flowery/snide birthday card. Now she's sending me a gift-wrapped present by mail? So, I'm like a 4-year-old who she can lure back to her fold with some gift? Also, the passive-aggressiveness that goes along with this burns my ass. I haven't talked Christmas at all with her or my DS, so this lets me know she believes she won't see me at Christmas. If you're not going to see me at Christmas (which I know, and obviously she knows), send my kids something, asshole. Don't give me shit. I'm insulted, and I see how much she doesn't fucking know me at all.

Well-Written

Where were you when I was burned and broken
While the days slipped by from my window watching
Where were you when I was hurt and helpless
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun

Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of lifeand the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life

I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the waiting had begun
And headed straight..into the shining sun


-David Gilmour of Pink Floyd

F'n Grrrr

No response to my most recent letter to mother, but yesterday a birthday card...pink envelope with flower stickers all over it. Curiosity killed the cat. I opened it. The card was the usual flowery stuff, and on the inside she wrote, "No matter what you may think of me, please know I love you very much."

Why does this infuriate me so much?

I feel like this negates my emotions once again. She loves me even though I'm wrong? Gah. Your takes?

Striking a Balance - Not Always a Nice Thing

Over the past six months, I've been training in basic shamanism. (Could be the opening line of a joke, but it's not.) I put out an honest wish to figure out who I am, and this opportunity came along, and it's been very enlightening and not all that easy.

Part of the shamanic tradition (specifically Q'ero) makes you look at the parts of yourself that are not so pretty. You get to know the darkness in yourself and the things about you that you'd rather disown. The tradition also teaches to walk in light and love and to heal the world around you by healing yourself. I really struggle with the light and love approach; trying to see the light in everyone isn't easy, and I spent lots of time at the beginning clutching my "resistance" stone and blowing all my resistance to learning into it. I still couldn't see how to let go of my anger. Then, last week when I sat down and wrote mother the letter, it occurred to me that if I had to look at all the things I didn't like about myself and accept them, I couldn't still carry around my mother's burden because IT WASN'T MINE. In order to get to the love and light, I have to drop that burden like the useless shit it is, because it is diseasing me.

The only way I feel I can drop that burden is to directly hand it back to her. Serve it up on a cold plate with a side of brutal. I want to make her hate me for making her see herself through my eyes. I know this isn't nice, and it may not what the shamanic tradition has in mind, but I can't heal myself without unburdening my way. There is a balance to handing responsibility back to her that is bringing me to a place I've never been before. The potential for triumph and regret is mine, all mine. Euphoric or devastating, I'm taking back my power.

The Gasket is Leaking

I took the vicious thoughts out of my head and I put them on paper. I sent them to her. Now I can't pretend it's all alright, which is a relief of sorts. She gets to read my ugly (albeit true) thoughts. No reneging for me, no undoing. I know this won't really change anything, except give her more ammo, but I did this for me to lance the poisonous boil in my chest that wells hot and horrible over any mention of her. Now she gets to see how truly ungrateful I really am for all the things she believes she did well.

Mixed Emotions (What Did I Expect?)

Received a reply in the mail today from Mother. Some of it seemed rather sincere, like "I'm not angry, I'm hurt. Sometimes the truth hurts." peppered with "How did my friends hurt you" and "Of course I've told stuff about you to family. Like it or not they're family, too." Oh, and and adamant denial about her fuck-buddy... "No Way!" I'm confused. She admits what I say is the truth and then either denies it or justifies it. This is worse for me to process than either being lit up or cut out. I'm being manipulated, and I'm still confused. She ended the letter by asking me to come to her sister's surprise party again and promising not to pick a fight with me. I suppose this would be for her to pretend that I've "forgiven" her.

Ha! Found it!

I’m not going to be able to make it on [date I'm not going to]. I’ve enclosed a couple of [youngest DS]’s school pics for you.

I have some things I need to address. When you and [sis] disagree about something, please don’t let me know about it. That’s between you and her.

Earlier this year when we spoke on the phone and I told you I’ve had some anxiety and depression issues, I thought we could open the lines of communication – like a fresh start. It took a lot for me to tell you these things, because I really don’t trust that you won’t tell other people, but I said it anyway. After I say these things, you tell me I can always tell you things. Then you follow up with, “What took you so long to answer the phone?” Really.

I think you are unaware of how much like your mother you sound when you say those things. They sound petulant and passive-aggressive. I know you opened your whole life to your mother and you perceive that she wasn’t that bad. I am not willing to go through the things you went through for your mother’s sake.

I know you want to have your kids in your life. I am unwilling to submit to guilt trips, and I am unwilling to give you sympathy over any falling-out you and any other member of the family have. I know any time we have disagreed over anything (like the time I was angry you visited Dad when I asked you not to), you have dragged other family members into the mix (like Aunt []). I feel you are actively seeking sympathy when you do those things.

I have made myself scarce since May 2012 because I have been trying to decide if I can let go of a lot of personal problems I have with our communications. Since I was a child, I’ve been in the habit of defending you and allowing you to treat me as your best friend, letting you tell me all about the problems you have with people you have surrounded yourself with. From [creepy asshole #1], to [fuck-buddy #1], [creepy asshole #2] and his wife and his brother[fuck buddy #2], the crazy lady who used to live behind you at your old place in [her town] who you thought stole your rings, the crazy lady who you befriended who told you she had thoughts of harming [cousin's] baby and who came to my doorstep looking for you when you were at my house (and that woman’s father, too), the mentally-challenged lady who lives down the street from you who you expect to be on the same page as you. I believe you probably had something to do with [fuck-buddy #1] kidnapping his children, and you are very lucky you were not charged as an accessory. You and Dad chose your friends without regard to the safety and well-being of your own children when we were young. You allowed your mother to say cruel things to and about me, and all you could say was that she didn’t mean to be that way. At what point are people responsible for themselves? You have the right to surround yourself with the people of your choice, but I am not party to that anymore.

Perhaps you will be angry at me for telling the truth as I see it. So be it.

[Luckily, fuck-buddies #3 & #4 didn't play any real part in this chapter.]

I Knew This All Along

Today I realized something I have stuffed for a lot of years. Back in the day, when I was a teen, we had a neighbor who was going through a divorce who my mother befriended. She believed the sun rose and set on his ass. He ended up trying to illegally abscond with his children. Luckily, he was caught (dramatically, of course) at a rest stop about 2 miles away from the town we lived in. Gunpoint, all that jazz. My mother used to babysit the kids on occasion. I remember trying to tell her that I thought this guy was molesting his daughter because of some of the weird ways she would act, and she completely dismissed me. I also told her this guy gave me the creeps over him eyeballing me when mom sent me down to play with his kids at their backyard pool when I was 14 or 15. It occurred to me today that my mother most likely had something to do with the kidnapping plan, or at the very least had knowledge of it, because he was one of her fuck-buddies while my father was out of town. I was letting my latest angry pustule come to a head, and I was writing her another letter which I thought I probably wouldn't send (just like the other letters) when I let my fingers go and typed whatever. I re-read the letter and was surprised that I put that in there. And I thought about it, and I knew it was the Truth. And I finally got off my fence and put that motherfucking letter in the mailbox.

I'm not sorry.

...Don't Hold On but Don't Let Go...

Isn't very difficult to see whyYou are the way you areDoesn't take a genius to realizeThat sometimes life is hard
It's gonna take timeBut you'll just have to waitYou're gonna be fineBut in the meantime
Come over here, ladyLet me wipe your tears awayCome a little nearer, baby'Cause you'll heal overHeal over, heal over someday
And I don't wanna hear you tell yourselfThat these feelings are in the pastYou know it doesn't mean they're off the shelfBecause pain is built to last
Everybody sails aloneOh, but we can travel side by sideEven if you failYou know that no one really minds
Come over here, ladyLet me wipe your tears awayCome a little nearer, baby'Cause you'll heal overHeal over, heal over someday
Then don't hold on but don't let goI know it's so hardYou've got to try to trust yourselfI know it's so hard, so hard, yeah
Come over here, ladyLet me wipe your tears awayCome a little nearer, baby, yeah'Cause you'll heal overHeal over, heal over someday
Yeah you're gonna heal over

- KT Tunstall

Gah! Friggin' Numbnuts.

My bullshit meter is broken. It's been abused. I know ya'll won't know the person to whom I address this, but here goes:

Hey, you. Yeah, asshat, you. I know you thought I was stupid, and I know you know better now. I know pills aren't your only habit. I know you aren't running errands out of the kindness of your heart. I know you're not telling anyone the whole truth. I've got your number, dick. I want you to know that every time I hear your goddamn name, your number comes up and it flashes red. Every dog has its day and yours is coming on. Don't underestimate your karmic load, and don't overestimate your own intelligence. Boo-yah, dawg. Now, fuck off, preferably in another state.

A Year of...What?

It's been almost a year since I started this blog. Got to thinking about it because Mother's Day is rolling around and that's when I started looking for means of support to get through the dysfunction last year.

I can only forgive NM if I don't have to see her. That's my stance now. If I don't have to see her and talk to her and put up with her bullshit, I can at least pretend to let go of the fact that I'll never get closure from her under any circumstances. I can at least not send her vicious thoughts from inside my head on a daily basis.

Every time I've seen or talked to her in the last year (which I can easily count on both hands), it's been exactly like ripping off a bandage stuck to an old, crusty wound, and making it bleed again, and then pouring rubbing alcohol on it.

Some months ago, I started telling the abbreviated story of my life. Feels like it's time for more to be added.

I got laid off from my job during the time my parents were separating for the final time. I didn't make much money, but it was the first full-time job I'd ever had, and I was doing something I liked to do, although the job was a den of hate and mismanagement. I took advantage of a misplaced worker's program our state offered, and three months later I started college full-time.

During this first semester, I felt so much better about school than I ever had as a teenager. I was learning shit. I landed a job as a part-timer at a law office and felt like I was heading in the right direction. I never had to share any of my personal problems with the people at the place I worked at. I didn't know them and they didn't know me and I discovered I was great with starting with a blank slate.

Several months later, Mom and Dad's divorce became final within the same month my sister's apartment house burned down, Dad had a significant truck accident, and Mom had her major stroke that led to open heart surgery. This was the last week of my first semester of college.

During the time Mom was in the hospital, which was most of that summer, I only went to visit her a few times. I know this earned the ire of certain family members who couldn't possibly understand the family dynamic. I was working two part-time jobs and going to college full-time and trying to figure out what was going on with my little boy.

Mother was released from the hospital and slowly recovered, and Dad continued to try to manipulate my favor as the best parent of the two. They both phone-bombed me, usually within a couple of minutes of each other. It was fucking eerie. I hated talking to them but felt guilty about not answering, so I always gave into my guilt.

Time goes on, and I graduate from college a couple of years down the road - a modest AAS degree, but a milestone nonetheless. During this time, the father of my oldest son was recovering from his meth addiction in a controlled living situation and I kept bending over backward to get him to come see his son on his weekend furloughs, which seldom happened. He completed the drug program and got clean, then knocked up his 19 year old girlfriend. Then he moved a couple of states away, presumably to get away from the same drug culture and friends who helped him get into the drug culture before, and he was an ass to his girlfriend who moved back to the state with their kid. God, I was pissed. This was the 3rd child he had created (one before me, one after me) with a girlfriend that he fucked off after making a kid, and then irresponsibly put his needs before any of his kids.

Then he died. He was in a motorcycle accident that rendered him brain-dead, and, thankfully, his family decided to donate his usable organs. That was, bar none, the most noble thing that had come from his life. But he died happy, doing what he wanted to do. I had to tell my 15 year old his dad was dead and watch the ex's family put him on a pedestal. I had done my best over the years to stay in close contact with his family so my boy would know them. After he passed, I couldn't go visit without seeing altars to the ex and conversations about what a wonderful man he was, a HERO. I get it. They loved him. They didn't see the consequences of his actions on his kids. Still makes me want to bring him back to life and fucking smack him. And hug him. I didn't hate him, except for when he hurt my son's feelings. I just didn't understand him much at all.

At the time he died, I was married to my husband and had my little boy. My husband never really bonded with my oldest son because he never understood him, either. He loved him but couldn't relate to him on any level. It's been a long few years. I helped my dad through his final stage of living as much as he would allow it while trying to keep my protective boundaries in place. My mother had it in her head that she had to come see him and bug him, I think to make herself feel better about having affairs while married to him. She became a martyr to her cause, refusing to remember the hell he put us all through.

When I told her not to go see him, she did anyway, behind my back, and then pretended she was his current wife when she snuck into the nursing home and held his hand, then requested to talk to the nurse. They caught on and called me. I wanted to KILL her. She apologized that I was upset. So, non-apology. Dad was pretty close to gone then and I think he thought she was me since he told a nurse his daughter had just been to visit him. He still HATED her and talked shit about her to me every chance he got. But then he talked shit about me to to anyone who would listen, so whatever. All I can think is she wanted what she wanted, consequences be damned, like this was some fucking Lifetime movie where everyone kisses and makes up and she feels better about being a whore instead of being a strong woman. If he had freaked out on her, she would have come bawling to me and he would have come bitching to me, and who would have had to clean up their goddamned mess? Yeah.

As it was, she went bawling to my father's sister, the only family member I am fond of, because I yelled at her. I knew she would do it, too. I found out about that some months later while talking to this aunt. I'm sure mother thought this would get her some sympathy and have dad's family down on me for yelling at her poor, fragile self. Fucking bitch. Like this time wasn't difficult enough. She got her divorce, she got the fuck away from him, and I was left doing all the dirty work (that she wouldn't have been strong enough to handle anyway, so it was coming to this). Her getting away is not what I begrudge her. I was the one he hated for three years for having to put him in assisted living and take him to doctor's appointments and take his truck away from him. She wanted to be his warm-fuzzy there at the end after not being there for the worst of it, after all the shit both of them had put us through over the years.

Yep. Don't want to see her any more. Will I? Yes, if only to keep my relationship with my sister, whose husband thinks we are "ridiculous" and should just "let it go" as regards our feelings with Mom. I know he doesn't understand. But we weren't all brought up in loving, enlightened families, now were we?

With Friends Like These...

Hmm. Just got a text message from someone who was a close friend of mine quite a few years ago. She wanted my husband's cell number because she has a question for him.

It's true she was friends with the hubby before I ever knew her. But they haven't been close friends longer than I haven't been close to her.

There are no trust issues for me regarding my husband, so I told him she was asking for his number and asked him if he wanted me to give it to her. He made a snorty noise and sighed, then said he could imagine what she wants.

See, a good pal of hubby's recently (like in the last couple of weeks) just broke up with his girlfriend of more than five years. Part of why I am not close to this friend anymore is that she had expressed a desire to interfere with hubby's friend's relationship, and I liked and respected his girlfriend at that point more than I liked and respected my former friend. Hubby figures this woman heard about the breaking-up and wants to step in and "comfort" his friend.

Niiice. And I can't imagine texting a friend, close or former, and just asking for her husband's phone number. This kind of hot mess used to be my best pal. But, I hadn't got the memo on narcissism then, either.

When My Weakness is Protecting my Strength

As so many bloggers have posted before about how the death of a family member means the N's expect you to draw together, no matter what, I do not consider my case to be anything special. One of NM's brothers passed away this week, and I got the first call from Nmom since...hmmm. It's been awhile.

I didn't answer her call since it was in the middle of the workday and my phone was in a drawer and I didn't hear it. When work was over, I checked the phone to see a text from my sis who asked if NM had called me. Frankly, until I double-checked all my little phone icons, I didn't know she had. So I sucked it up and listened to her message, the first time in about 9 months I have. She told me her brother had passed away and rambled a little about other things that were unclear, then she threw in that she was letting me know in case I was "interested." Also, she left some sort of snark about gee whiz, sorry I didn't get you guys valentines, I haven't been out of the house in a while. The message was left the day before valentine's day, and frankly, I'm a little beyond waiting for valentines in the mail.

Her brother is someone I've seen fewer than 10 times in my life. I didn't hate him, but I didn't love him, because I didn't know him. He and his wife got the hell out of Dodge to get away from his evil mother. This is the only thing I know about him, and I do like that he did that.

After I listened to NM's message, I immediately dialed her number, but she didn't answer. She was probably with other family members, and I left a very brief message that I was truly sorry about her brother and I hoped she was doing okay. I said I'd call her back, but I didn't. I popped a note in the mail instead.

The note didn't hit any of the heavy shit that's been sitting on my chest. I know she's suffering, and grinding my heel in her wounds isn't something I wanted to do. The letter was brief and honest and expressed how sorry I was for her loss and for my uncle's wife's loss. I also wrote that I was writing because it was the healthiest way for me to communicate right now, but I left it at that.

So she tries to call me today. Even though I told her I only felt comfortable communicating in writing right now. I knew her ring the minute the home phone started bleating. It's no surprise that she only wants what she wants and that she blasted past a boundary I tried to be honest about. Kinda drove it home, though, that everything I've known to be true is right.

I know from messages from my sister the family is not doing a memorial service right now. I know NM wanted me to drive several hours and bring my kids so she could show them off like zoo animals in front of her siblings, none of whom I know very well. I don't think any of them could give a fig less if I showed up or not. But I know if I'd talked to her, she would've whined and needled and made it apparent that I was taking a chunk out of her soul by not doing what she wants me to do. I know by not coming up today, there will probably be a big show sometime this afternoon wherein she breaks into tears and makes it all about her that I am not there to support her in her time of need.

I really hate her right now. I feel downright nauseous and dirty, and I didn't even talk to her. Mindfuck, indeed.

It's been a long couple of months since I posted last. I'm a real delayed reaction sort of person, and I'm trying to adjust to my big kid's new living situation and stupid hormonal shit that makes me want to rip my ovaries out and stomp on them. Hot flashes, night sweats, pms that lasts two weeks, nightmares that peel wallpaper off the walls, the whole nine yards. Perimenopause can kiss my ever-broadening ass. I must have been a man in most of my past lives, because my tolerance for this nonsense is veddy, veddy low.