Family

Demons past, present, and future

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Every couple of months my mom and I take the day off of work to spend the day together. This usually involves going out to eat for lunch and getting a massage. Last week we had our mother-daughter day. This time it included a back burner task. I decided that we needed to take in all of our old family videos to be saved onto a hard drive. Silly me, I thought that we could drop off the old VHS tapes and be out of there in a half an hour. We ended up being in the store over an hour talking about not only converting our old family videos but also eventually taking the old family photos in to preserve them.  I know that I have at least 3 large bins full of pictures to scan. This is going to be a big project.

It was at that point when it really hit me that my parents are getting old. It seems like yesterday that I was going through all of the old pictures with my grandma and great aunt Grace trying to put names to faces. All of my grandparents are gone now. I have only one great aunt left. My mom is the oldest living sibling. My parents are close to 70. Now is the time to work on this huge project with my mom.

It is also the reason that I don’t want my mom reading my blog. She is getting old. I don’t want this to be a reminder of the most difficult times in her life. She finally has a sense of freedom that she never had before. She doesn’t need to be reminded of the hard times. I don’t need to remind her of the day that she was trying to stop Matt from hurting himself during a meltdown. That was the day that she ended up with a black eye and bloody lip. It would be very painful for her to have to remember those days. It is very painful for me. Her life has been very difficult, I want her last years to be happy.

Matt also went to my daughter’s choir concert this past weekend. At one point he became separated from our mother. He became very anxious and agitated pushing through the crowd to find her. I calmly reassured him that he was alright, that mom was close by. But what happens when she is no longer with us? How will I not only get myself through it but help my brother through when he cannot process change? Every time I spend time with my mom I reassure her that I will help take care of Matt when she is gone. It will be alright, I can do this.

I decided that I will write a book about the journey of life with an autistic sibling. It will be hard. It will be painful. Next year I will dig out the old box of journals written during the darkest years. I will share it with you. I will start the process. Maybe I will even find out why I can’t relax. Why I always have to stay busy. Relaxing makes me nervous. Why does my skin crawl listening to relaxing piano music? Why does quiet meditation fill my soul with terror? Time to face my demons. I can do this.

Why do I torment myself with this? Do you know how easy it would be to delete this blog and walk away like none of this ever happened? But I can’t seem to let it go.

Disabled family cohesion

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Yesterday was my daughter’s last high school holiday choir concert. My mom went and some close friends. You can really tell how close your friends are if they offer to go to see your child perform. I really appreciate that. Our family is a little more sketchy. My mom makes it out to 99.9% of my kids events. My mother-in-law says she is going to 50% of things and usually would cancel out last minute and make it to 20% of things. I think that not showing up at all is better than saying you are going and not showing up or giving a lame excuse not to go. My dad and brothers are very sporadic about showing up to events.

My kids all have late spring/summer birthdays, so year after year I would throw a family party for them all at one time. A couple of years back I decided to cancel the family birthday party due to lack of interest. I felt very frustrated and angry about the whole thing.

Then a couple of days ago I really started to examine the reason why there is this lack of cohesion within my family. Then I remembered every time that we went on family vacations together, all of the times that we went out to eat as a family, the hugs, the laughter, the times that my whole family came out to see my concerts, my graduation. Then I realized that none of that happened. No family vacations, I can’t remember ever going out to eat as a family when I was young. Those things didn’t happen.

This is what REALLY happened. My mom had to find someone to take care of my brother Matt to come to my events. Lots of times my dad would stay home with him. Matt has autism and Tourettes. Taking him out in public to an event such as a concert or graduation was nearly impossible when he was younger. He would often have a melt down in public. He was hyper with a lot of anxiety that he would have a melt down. His anxiety caused his tics to be worse. Tics included hand flapping, eye twitching, and throat clearing. At the very worst, he would injure himself or others and had so much anxiety that after going to an event he would be nervous and throw up for two days afterwards. People were a lot less sympathetic towards those behaviors back when I was young.

So my brothers and I grew up living separate lives. We went to separate schools. We did not support each other. We never learned how. Luke didn’t go to my college graduation or party that followed it because he chose to be with his friends instead. When Luke graduated from college, I went but had my husband stay home to help take care of Matt. When Mark graduated from high school, I didn’t go and went to work that evening instead. Mark never went on to school and I missed his only graduation. It was only later that I learned that family events are important but I can’t go back.

But I can move forward. I can show my children how important it is to support their siblings. I can encourage them to attend their events. I tolerate them saying that they are bored. When is it going to be over? Is it almost done? I am trying to teach them this lesson now so they won’t have to learn it the hard way like I did.

It took me a long time to get over the hurt, depression, and worry involved in extended family events. I can finally say that I get along with my parent and brothers the best that I have ever gotten along with them. I do see my brothers, especially Luke, making more effort to have a relationship. Matt has an easier time going out to events. Things are finally coming together in my story.

 

 

The shy lie

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I am a complete and total liar. I will try to give you an honest explanation. I grew up in a house full of introverts with the exception of my youngest brother. Being an introvert, this was very pleasing to me. On the introversion scale of -10 being the most introverted and 10 being the most extroverted, as a youth I was at a -8. I didn’t start speaking in front of people until I was about 30. (There is hope for you). Then I got married and found myself in a house full of extroverts. This can drive the introvert in me a bit crazy at times always going somewhere always having people over. It did bring me out of my shell and I would say that on the introversion scale I am now about a -2 and so is my son. My husband and daughters are all rather extreme extroverts.

That being said, I had the unique experience of spending half of my life surrounded by introverts and the other half surrounded by extroverts. But I am a liar in an introverted way. If someone asks me if a dress makes them look fat and it does, the first thing I try to do is change the subject. If that doesn’t work, then I will indirectly answer the question by saying something related, but not the truth, like the dress is a good color on you. I want to scream out that the dress looks like crap on you but instead I sweetly say that it does not make you look fat. Instead, it looks good. Yes, it looks good. I lie when everything inside me screams to tell the truth. To make matters worse, I hate confrontation.

I think that blogging has given me an avenue to say what I really mean. Something I find difficult to do in everyday life. Since a majority of you don’t know me, what do you care? Everything within me is telling me that the truth should be told. I really don’t want to be silent anymore. I won’t sit silent and let others think I am an idiot, that I don’t have an opinion.

Yes, the dress makes you look fat! Okay, now can we change the subject?

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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I am thankful today for all of my wonderful family, friends, and WordPress followers. I am also thankful that we put the turkey on the bottom shelf in the fridge. This morning when we woke up there was turkey blood everywhere pooling in the veggie drawer. It looked like a murder happened here with blood trailing all over the floor.

Yesterday I took the day off to run errands and cook. I saw a pumpkin pie in the store for less than $5. Tempting, very tempting. But instead I spent hours baking. I made 3 Apple pies and 3 dozen deviled eggs. My grandma taught me how to make a pie crust and yesterday I showed Angel how to make pie.

So, gotta go finish cleaning and cooking. I have 18 people coming in less than 2 hours. Happy Thanksgiving!

The great parenting paradox

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This is something that I have thought about for a long time and it is still a mystery to me. When I was a child, it was such an emotionally crushing time of my life. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault and I am not trying to place blame. It was just the circumstances of my life and really Paul’s too. We both grew up in very difficult situations. So much so that we would do almost anything to give our children the “perfect” childhood. The childhood that we never had.

There were times that I didn’t think I was going to be strong enough to make it through my childhood. I emerged as a healthy adult, but not without battle scars and wounds. I don’t think that I will ever be able to outrun my demons. We have worked incredibly hard to provide an ideal childhood for our children.

However, surviving through difficult times has made me the strong person that I am today. It has given me the courage, the determination, and the grit. I am not a superficial person. I am raising children that I did everything I could to make their life like mine wasn’t. Parents always seem to want things for their children that they never had. I am raising children who have sharing a room with their sibling as their biggest hardship. I have no sympathy for that. I am happy that I feel successful in giving them a great childhood. Yet at the same time I feel resentful. Am I raising healthy kids or spoiled brats?

I sometimes wonder if I am like a parent who grew up hungry overindulging their children with food. Or a parent who grew up poor overindulging their children with vast material wealth without them having to work for it. Is too much of a good thing a bad thing? Will shielding my kids from stress and pain allow them to handle it better when they grow up?

So the question still remains in my mind. Am I doing the right thing? Would I be a better person if my childhood environment was ideal? Would I be able to appreciate the good things in life without experiencing the bad? Sometimes with parenting, there are more questions then answers..

Snow tires

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In our school district, we have a late bus that drops kids off at various locations after after school activities. The late bus has been a good experience, well except for that one time. What can I say? Snow tires!

When my son was in middle school, he took the late bus to the drop off spot after wrestling practice. One dark, cold, winter Friday night I went to pick him up and had a little adventure. I attempted to make a Y turn and slid on the ice into a snow bank. So here I was with the back end of my car hanging out sideways on the road. My headlights were buried in the snow and I was afraid that oncoming cars would not be able to see me. Yeah, right about that time I had the image in my mind of getting hit by the bus. I called my husband in freak out panic mode. He was in the middle of making supper and couldn’t get there right away. 

Right after I called home two men, that were strangers to me and each other, showed up and pushed my car out of the snow bank. I really appreciated their kindness. Immediately after that, my son showed up on the late bus. He got in the car and exclaimed that he forgot his homework and wrestling gear on the bus. Big problem because the wrestling meet was the next morning. So here I am trying to flag down a school bus in the dark. The first stop I tried to send my son to get his stuff but the driver didn’t see him and left. So here I am driving along side of the bus waving and honking trying not to hit kids wandering around in the dark. Finally my son got his things off the bus. 

In the meantime, my husband set aside supper to help get me out of the snow bank. Except, I was no longer there. He was getting really worried that perhaps by snow bank I meant ditch. Or something really bad happened, like the bus driving around with my car in its front grill. I tried calling him in the process, but he already left. Thankfully, we all made it home safely that night. This winter I will be sure to have good snow tires.  

Pierced with anxiety

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This morning started out really rough, as Monday mornings sometimes do. My son got up late and missed the bus. Which technically wasn’t a big deal because he rode to school with my oldest daughter Angelique who drives to school. Angelique refuses to take him to school due to his tardiness, so he has to take the bus. As a result, Angel got into the shower late which disrupted the whole schedule which trickled down into a bad Monday morning for me.

I went to Alex’s room and confronted him for getting up late and missing the bus, which happened despite all my nagging. Well, I should say that I only walked two feet into his room because after that is an abyss I might not escape from without twisted ankles and broken legs due to laundry piles and missing assignments. Probably a couple of rats and definitely spiders. Paul and I told him that he is going to have to go to bed at 9 PM all week as a consequence for missing the bus. This prompted the response of “I hate you” several times to spew out of his mouth. I know, we are the worst parents because you can’t get your butt out of bed.

Angel got into and out of the shower late. She ran out of time to get gas in the morning and needed to borrow my credit card all day since she didn’t have time to run it back home. Oh, and did I tell you that while she was running late, she lost the car keys?? Mad scramble around the house looking for keys. By the time they left, I was shaking!

I figured that it would be the perfect time to change my ear cartilage piercing for the first time in over a year. The last time I changed it, I put in a crappy nickel earring and then left for the overnight sail and ended up with a red, sore ear that doubled in size. This caused a lot of anxiety, so much anxiety that even the thought of changing it again caused some panic within me.

It’s not as if I didn’t end up in the ER before due to an ear piercing. I got my ears pierced at age 6, my ears double pierced at 30, my doubles pierced again in my upper 30’s (they tend to close up if I don’t wear earrings in them for over a week), and my cartilage piercing at 40. But I didn’t end up going to the ER, Arabella did. After having issues with caring for my piercings at age 6, I told my daughters they could have piercings at age 10. Arabella wore the same earrings for so long that the back of her earring ended up getting embedded in her ear. So off to the ER with her for that feeling like a bad parent. It wasn’t her first trip to the ER and it wasn’t the last. Now she doesn’t even wear earrings and her piercing probably closed up. Geez. That was one expensive piercing too with the ER trip.

This morning I scoured my hands with special care. I’m sure an obsessive compulsive hand washer would be proud. I won’t tell them that last night I volunteered to do a dirty cleaning project. At times while cleaning, I broke through my latex gloves without knowing it. I imagined deadly germs seeping under my fingernails just looking for an entry spot like a cartilage piercing perhaps. I cleaned my earrings. The first earring I tried went right in, but it did not fit right. Then I tried a hoop earring. I could not get it in for anything. I tried until my ear started bleeding and figured it wouldn’t work. Since I got it pierced with a stud, I think that maybe trying to get a hoop in is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Or maybe because my hands were still shaking.

Finally, I got the third earring in with no problem and all is well. But I thought it wouldn’t hurt to change my earring on a Monday, just in case I needed to go to the doctor with a deadly ear cartilage piercing infection. It is very practical to think that going to the doctor is a heck of a lot easier, not to mention more affordable, on a Monday morning than going to the ER on Friday night. Ah, life with an active imagination…

The wait, the news

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Last night we received the news of my mother-in-law’s biopsy. I feel relief that it turned out the way that it did. We have been anxiously waiting for the past two weeks, putting everything on hold. Waiting to get that punch in the face that never happened. Worry that had me in a pre-ulcerative state. Worry that had me grinding my teeth during the night. Worry that tightened every muscle bracing for the punch.

Telephone calls spewed misinformation like the game telephone. News of a football sized mass in the stomach and lungs turned out to be two small football shaped masses in the stomach and chest. Small slow growing malignant tumors that will be treated with oral chemotherapy. Chemo is not going to be a walk in the park, nor is she out of the woods by any means. But, the prognosis is good. So much better than what we originally thought.

When we heard the bad news 2 weeks ago, we turned to google. Google is the hypochondriacs best friend. Website after website fueling our anxieties into one big ball of flames of death and dying. We literally thought that she might only have a few months, weeks, maybe a few days left. I really hate it when I let myself be worried by google. Every scrape, bruise, and cut has at least one website devoted to the belief that we are going to die from it.

Seriously, lets face it, we are all going to die. If anything, this has been a wake up call to not believe everything that you read online AND to treat everyday like it could be the last day.

Hoarding, clutter, and cleaning freaks

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I am knee deep in fall cleaning right now. I thoroughly clean my house twice a year, once for spring and once for fall. Spring cleaning is the big event of the year where I scrub the whole house with a toothbrush. Fall cleaning is more of a hairbrush clean. I used to thoroughly clean my house after every season, but I really hate dusting. Talk about a useless task! I dust everything and within a half an hour new dust takes over. Then I sneeze for 3 days.

I threw out and donated many items to the point of guilt. I come from a very long line of hoarders. When we sold Aunt Grace’s house, we moved everything into my grandma’s house. When we sold grandma’s house, we moved stuff into my parent’s shed. Now their very large shed is full. Time to build another shed! We did get a large dumpster for my grandma’s house which was emptied 3 times. We made multiple trips to Goodwill to the point where they didn’t want any of our crap anymore. Did you ever hear of anyone getting turned away from Goodwill for over donating? Yeah, me neither.

Yesterday I went to my parents house and watched them struggle to maintain their property. There was a pipe that was leaking into the basement. Mom took me downstairs to look at the damage. There was some water that pooled around food items that expired in the 1990’s. I feel overwhelmed at the thought of cleaning it all out someday. My mom has always been a food hoarder which she attributes to growing up poor.  She has 4 freezers and 2 refrigerators. The cupboards are full of mostly expired food. There are grocery bags sitting on the floor with new food. Downstairs the situation is worse. Multiple peanut butter containers that expired in the 90’s, homemade canned food items from the 80’s, glass containers full of stale grains, corroded cans, juice separating in bottles.

My parents also hoard other things like cars, magazines, paper, newspapers, clothing, blankets, wood, books, movies, old toys, candles, soap, empty jars, tools, and parts. My dad collects electronics, broken parts to fix other broken parts. The floor and chairs are stacked with papers. The dining room table is never clutter free and neither is the kitchen counter. Nothing is thrown out even if it is expired, broken, or useless. Paul’s mom and step-dad are hoarders too. They have 2 refrigerators in their small kitchen. One doesn’t work and is used for storage. Both of our parents have given us some of their junk which we throw out for them. Thankfully Paul and I share the same motto of when in doubt throw it out. Looking at my kids rooms, I think we may have a few future hoarders on our hands. 

As a clean freak, the clutter overwhelms me. I can’t breathe. I feel a lonely emptiness in a room stacked full of clutter. It rises within me a feeling of absolute despair which I cannot explain. It feels hopeless. I want to throw everything away. I want my house to be clean, but no matter what I do it still feels dirty and messy.

A few years back, my brother Luke and his wife brought her sister to my parents house with them for the weekend. Luke’s sister-in-law told my brother that my parents house was so messy that she would never stay there again. Luke told my mom. This started a big fight with a lot of tears and stress from my mom. Luke was hoping that my mom would throw things out like he does, but instead they built another shed. My mom gets very attached to items and needed a lot of moral support to throw out my brother’s baby blanket a few years ago when he was well into his 30’s. We also did not want our old baby clothes for our children. Why do items attach so much hurt for the people who don’t want to part with them and the people that don’t want to keep them?

I have helped my parents countless times in the past. It is so overwhelming to me. It is like emptying a lake with a cup. I feel guilty for not helping them more. I’ll be totally honest, I can’t handle it. It elicits such a strong negative response within me that is unbearable. So I scour every corner of my house. After cleaning I still see all of the streaks in the windows, all the stains on the carpeting, the little yellow rings that don’t come out of my sink and bath tubs, the grease that lingers around the oven, the little spots on the walls, and the cracks in the linoleum. Will we ever be free from cleaning or hoarding? Will we be forever haunted by earthly treasure or trash?

Get a clue

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image

As a runner, I cringe every time I see this picture. In my former life, I was an actress. Ok, I had several lead parts in community theater to be more accurate. I wore these shoes when I played the part of Ms. Scarlett in Clue. It was my favorite part. I loved the character, I loved the music. It was one of the best times in my life. I walked in those shoes for 8 shows. I even dyed my hair dark brown. I got to make out on stage with Mr. Green, played by my husband. People asked us after the show if we were married to each other because if we weren’t we wouldn’t be married much longer. We had the chemistry. It was wonderful. 

But things weren’t always wonderful. Sometimes there was more drama back stage than on. Like that time that my husband was cast as “the husband” and I was the maid. I hated the part of having to be a servant of my husband and his new “wife”. The new wife was my age, beautiful, and outgoing. She demanded attention when I did not. The first time she met my husband she said to me, “your husband is so hot that I could do a little lap dance for him.” Needless to say an instant friendship wasn’t struck. That was the first time that my husband and I stepped down from a role. About a year later, his “wife” left her husband for another guy that she had a part with. 

I had a few other great roles; Cinderella, Glinda the Good, and the Sour Kangeroo (Seussical). We also had our whole family involved, it was great. My husband played the part of Scrooge and my son was Tiny Tim. Those were the days. 

Last night I watched my daughter perform as Alice in Alice in Wonderland. She is now filling out college applications for musical theater. She started at age 8 as a dwarf in the performance Snow White. Since then she has been in 30+ shows. There is nothing in the world like watching your daughter perform. It makes me miss the stage. I will be back. But I will not be wearing 3 inch heels. I wonder if I can perform in running shoes?