Month: December 2017

Thanksgiving leftovers

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The day before Thanksgiving, I spoke to my mom on the phone. She told me that my dad was going to drive 8 hours round trip to drop something off at my brother Mark’s house, but he wasn’t going to come over to my house for Thanksgiving.

I said, “Let me get this straight, dad is going to drive 4 hours to see Mark but he won’t drive 20 minutes to come over and eat a meal that he doesn’t have to prepare?”

My dad showed up for Thanksgiving. Then after the meal, he left without saying good-bye.

Later in the day, we were playing Loaded Questions and everyone had to guess my response to the question asking who I always wondered if they liked me or not. Some people said Aunt Grace or my sister-in-laws. No one guessed that I put my dad down as my answer. It’s sad that I feel unsure if my dad likes me.

It seems ironic that Paul never had a dad and I always wondered if my dad likes me while we were surrounded this Thanksgiving with men that had estranged relationships with their children.

Paul’s step-dad Darryl and my Uncle Rick were guests in our house this Thanksgiving. They weren’t invited anywhere else. Their stories are similar.

Darryl was previously married to a woman that he had two children with. When his children were little, his wife left and took the boys with her several states away. Ever since I’ve known Darryl, he has wanted a relationship with his sons that was not reciprocated. The only time that they called him regularly was when they were incarcerated. Darryl was the man that stood patiently by his wife’s side as she was dying of cancer. Darryl loves to spend time with his step-grandchildren, my kids. Darryl married my mother-in-law when Paul was in his upper 20’s, so he never thought of Darryl as a dad.

My Uncle Rick has a similar story. He is recently divorced not of his choosing. His adult children all decided to side with their mother instead of him. They also cut themselves off from all of his family. My Uncle Rick is one of those nice guys that women seem to walk over. He wears his heart on his sleeve but would give the shirt off of his back. He brought a ‘F off’ letter that his daughter wrote to him for us to read at our house.

 

Paul and I would’ve given anything to have a dad like Darryl or Rick, yet their kids want nothing to do with them. They are wonderful men. I’ve known them long enough to know that. I just don’t get it.

I find it heartbreaking when kids feel like they have to pick sides when their parents divorce. Why can’t they have both parents in their lives??

Maybe someday their kids will come around.

Until then, we are thankful for your broken, discarded, leftover dads.

 

Grandma’s rocking chair

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My eye hurts really bad. It feels like it is on fire as the tears roll down my face.

Matt is screaming again. He poked me in the eye on purpose. We are both screaming now.

I told Grandma that I hate Matt.

She didn’t tell me that I should feel lucky that I am normal. Nor did she say that I shouldn’t be upset since Matt can’t help it. She didn’t tell me that Matt has it harder either. Those were the things that Mommy and Aunt Grace said.

She didn’t push me away to comfort Matt.

Instead, Grandma picked me up and rocked me in her gentle arms. She sang me beautiful songs until my tears dried and I fell asleep.

Run off

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Today I had my first run after taking a week off. I ran 5 miles wearing an ankle brace. It wasn’t totally pain free, but it was feeling better than before. At this time, I decided to keep my leg in watch mode. I hate being in watch and see what happens mode. I want answers. I want solutions. I hate uncertainty.

I was doing some reading online about stress fractures. It said that women in their 40’s were more likely to get stress fractures from running due to brittle bones. Milk was a rarity in our house growing up, so I do worry about it.

Over the week I’ve had off of running, I could feel my mood plummet. There was one morning I woke up crying. I’ve wanted to withdraw from people and write my stories. I seem to feel the need to tell you the dreary and sad stories. But I don’t want to make you feel sad when reading them. It is a conundrum.

I’ve also felt edgy and irritable at times. I have to work extra hard to make sure my filter is on before I speak.

I got into arguments with my kids this morning which is unusual. I think it was justified.

I got into Arabella’s case for getting up 5 minutes before the bus came to pick her up. She didn’t even have time to take a shower.

I got into an argument with Alex too. Arabella and Alex are staying after school for after school activities. I asked Alex to bring Arabella home. He said that he didn’t want to wait for her since his activity let out before hers did. Now I have to pick her up.

I don’t ask a lot from my kids. But when I do ask, I expect them to do it. I usually don’t give them chores over the school year like I do in the summer. I feel very conflicted about this.

As children, my brothers and I had a long list of chores. At first, I worked outside with my brothers until I almost hurt myself carrying a really huge log to impress my parents. After that, I was no longer allowed to do outdoor work. As soon as I was tall enough to reach the clothes line, I was in charge of the family laundry. I also had to help my mother make meals…grating carrots, washing and cutting vegetables..simple boring stuff, and I was in charge of cleaning the kitchen.

There is a part of me that wants my kids to be children. I want them to have something I didn’t have, a childhood. There will be enough to do around the house when they are adults. They will figure it out.

Plus I am always fighting myself with wanting things to be done right. No one else knows how to do things right like I do. I really don’t know why I need to feel some sort of control over things that probably don’t matter. Who cares if the towels are folded wrong?? Or if the Teflon pan ends up in the dishwasher?? Apparently I do!

All I ask of my children is to keep a clean room and pick up after themselves a little. This is certainly not done up to my standards.

When I do ask for help, I expect a gracious response. Of course, I will help you mother. After all, I pay for my son’s gas for the car I bought for him to use. Although that may be coming to an end soon.

I tried to give my children everything I didn’t have and probably ended up spoiling them.

My son also said unkind words about his sister. He is now going out with a popular girl. He does not want to be seen with his unpopular sister. He said that he didn’t want to do her any favors, but I told him that it would be me he was helping. I have no sympathy for his embarrassment.

When I was his age, my brother was exposing himself to my friends. He also attacked my best friend which basically resulted in the end of our friendship.

What did you say about being embarrassed by your sister again?? Maybe I’ll throw that one in his face during our next argument.

I really need to get back into running hard core. I am starting to feel the bat $#!+ crazy coming on….!

 

 

Who I was..who I am..

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Is distrust bad? Why does it have such a negative connotation?

When I was about 12, I went on a trip to South Dakota with my Aunt Grace, mom, dad, and one of my brothers. Aunt Grace wanted to go there for a church conference. Although she didn’t have hotel reservations, she had my dad as a driver. We loaded all 5 of us into her little 2 door Cutlass and we were on our way.

There wasn’t a hotel room to be found in the city of the conference. But I don’t think it mattered as Grace only stayed long enough to pick up her registration bag from what I remember.

I saw an ad for an indoor water park. I begged my Aunt Grace to allow us to go. I’d never been to a water park before. Aunt Grace said ‘yes’. So once again we loaded up the car and my dad drove 2 hours to get to the water park. I could barely contain my excitement as I grabbed my swimming suit and ran indoors. We took a tour of the water park. I saw kids climbing on ropes, going down slides, and swimming in the water. I couldn’t wait to get in the water.

After the tour, Aunt Grace said that it was time to go. Wait! What??

There was restaurant across the street from the water park that she wanted to go to. I refused to eat. I wanted to go to the water park!  I begged my mom to convince Aunt Grace, but she refused. Aunt Grace is paying for the trip so we will do what she wants. I was angry, frustrated, and started to cry. Aunt Grace yelled at me for being an ungrateful child. She wouldn’t stop so I told her to shut up which to her was like screaming obscenities. She never liked me after that day..

I don’t look back on this in anger. I really don’t think that Aunt Grace even intended to be cruel. In her mind, I think she believed that she was gracious enough to take me to the water park.

I learned a few valuable lessons on that day..

First, never trust anything that anybody says. Second, don’t trust anyone until they prove to be trustworthy. Third, don’t get too excited about things that might never happen.

If I trust you, it is the highest honor I could give you.

Do you think that distrust is a negative quality to have?

I would argue that someone needs to question, doubt, test, discern, and protect oneself and others from blindly trusting. I am that person.

My childhood was difficult…and my adult years have been easy in comparison. There is a part of me that feels if I let go of my past, then I will give up my grit and toughness that came from it which makes me who I am. I am afraid of that..I am afraid of losing who I was..who I am..

 

Getting malled

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This morning…like really early this morning before I woke up…I received 2 emails from a large online company saying that they had a technical error and couldn’t send me an item I ordered on cyber Monday. I try to avoid the mall if at all possible. I’ve never even been black Friday shopping. Maybe I should go next year if I can’t run a marathon…it might give me the same feeling…waiting in line and then running as fast as you can towards the prize. Although I probably wouldn’t get the ‘free’ banana. I’ll have to rethink that..

Anyway…as I was saying, this company couldn’t complete my order but they didn’t tell me what item(s) out of the 25,000 that I ordered they weren’t sending…I tried to contact customer service, but didn’t see the option to choose that I received an email saying they couldn’t fulfill my order. I got a reply right away when I emailed them under the category of fraudulent email. It didn’t seem legit to me anyway. Two emails sent in the middle of the night with an order number and no product description. They sent a quick reply stating that they couldn’t send me an immersible blender. (Although I do still see it for sale on their website at 4 times the price I paid).

The immersible blender is the one item that my mom said that she wanted from me for Christmas. An immersible blender?? What??

This weekend I will be heading to the mall with half the population of Wisconsin to try to find an immersible blender. Did I mention that I HATE SHOPPING!! But before you start to picture me in your mind limping around…there is hope. I will go to the mall during the Packer game. Hopefully the mall will be packed only with pissed off sales clerks that will be missing the game. Fingers crossed on that one!

I feel really blessed to live around a large population of Packer fans when I don’t care about football. Please don’t let the word get out…I get a little nervous if I accidentally wear the opposing team’s colors to church as I am surround by people in Packer jerseys. It is almost like a cult.

Wish me luck on finding an immersible blender without getting mauled by a zillion Christmas shopping mall goers this weekend..

Yeah, good luck with that! I’ll let you know how it goes..