Life

Widows weekend at home

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Is it sad that I would rather stay home and clean my house instead of going out with friends? Is something wrong with me? Or am I just getting old??

This is the traditional widows weekend in Wisconsin. Tomorrow is the opening day for deer hunting. Tonight is the night that the girls go out whether their husbands hunt or not.

Tonight I am staying home and cleaning my house.

Growing up I lived in isolation and most of the time I enjoyed that lifestyle. I grew up in a house filled with introverts.

Now I am surrounded by a family of extroverts. There are always people coming and going. My kids constantly ask if friends can come over for the weekend. It is busy, bustling, and loud.

Is it wrong to want silence??

The last couple of times out with friends, I was completely bored. I had to yell over the crappy music of an untalented band. People ran into me and spilled their drinks on me. I have a hard time dancing and having fun if the music sucks. I get hit on, grabbed, and groped by guys that I would have no interest in dating even if I was single.

Even the best of friends sober are annoying when they are drunk and the non-drinkers are a drag to hang out with.

Yesterday I ran into an old friend at the grocery store. I don’t know if she recognized me. I pretended that I didn’t know her. I was in a hurry and didn’t want to waste time talking about superficial things. I hate small talk.

If you are going to be my friend, you will be there in the good times and the bad times.

But frankly, I will probably push you away in the bad times because I don’t like to talk to anyone about my life. I am a very private person although you wouldn’t know it here. It seems safer talking to you folks, all complete strangers, that I have no chance of running into in real life.

Then during the good times, I will be upset that you weren’t there for me in the bad times even though I probably pushed you away.

It’s not that I have social anxiety or poor social skills. Sometimes I just want to be alone. Maybe I am not a good friend.

The nursery

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A few days ago, I posted about trees. Sounds boring, I know. Sometimes I have an idea that scratches around my mind that I want to write about that leads to more ideas, and yet more until it takes root.

Today I am going to write about trees again and family roots.

I just want to be upfront with you right away…I do not have a green thumb. I’ve killed every house plant that I’ve ever had. Once I got a chia pet for Christmas. I ended up regifting it because it was too much pressure.

My grandpa had a nursery located on the edge of my parents property when I was growing up. Most of the trees in the photos that I posted the other day were of trees that came from my grandpa’s nursery. My grandma came to my house and helped me plant those trees. My grandpa passed away the year we bought our house. Even my grandma has been gone for almost a decade now.

We are thinking about moving in the next year. It seems silly to say that one of the things I will miss the most is my trees. It is one of the last connections I have left to my grandparents now. I remember painstakingly deciding where to plant the trees with my grandma.

Thinking about the trees again made me think about growing up. Oftentimes my grandpa would remove the trees that weren’t thriving. He would put them on a pile to discard. When I was a young girl, I decided I would rescue one of the dead trees. It was a little pine tree with brown needles. I planted it in my parents backyard. I watered the tree everyday, but it still looked dead.

Then one morning I went outside to check on my tree and it was alive with leaves of brilliant green. I did it! I saved my tree. Things went downhill after that with my green thumb. I don’t know who replaced the tree. It probably was my grandma, but I will never know for sure..

Then my memories started taking me down a darker path.

Strangers stopping by to buy trees. Grandpa coming over in his truck. The smell of fresh dirt. Fertilizer. The musty smelling plastic bags the trees were sent home in.

Strangers in our yard. We must be alert. We worry. Are there children? Are there little girls? I give my mother a report. Keep an eye on Matt while I walk over. We could prevent Matt from going places where he could hurt someone, but we could never warn the strangers that came into our yard unaware.

I never felt safe. It would probably shock you if you knew how many times we had to worry about the safety of outsiders. My brother Matt is violently autistic/schizophrenic. We couldn’t control Matt but we did our best to push other people away to protect them.

Today I sit in public places with my back to the wall…always watching. I notice when patterns are off. I do everything I can to be a protector although I am never needed anymore.

It is strange how thinking about something neutral like trees could take me back.

What to expect when you’re not expecting…

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This weekend didn’t go the way I expected it would.

Arabella came home from school early on Friday sick. She had a fever all weekend and has one still. I ended up calling the doctor’s office Saturday night. By the time her Tylenol wore off in the evening, her temp was at 104.1. An hour after I gave her medicine, her temp was still rising and peaked at 104.5. The nurse said she probably has the flu. Thankfully, Paul and I got flu shots for our trip over a week ago. I am hoping that being coughed on, and taking care of a sick child in general, will have no effect on me.

The nurse told me that I should give Arabella a lukewarm bath. I prepared a bath for her and let her get in the tub herself. A 14 year old is too old to be bathed. I felt frustrated when I felt the water after she got out. The water that I added was too cold for her so she added hot water. Eventually her temperature decreased despite being in hot water. I finally felt like I could go to bed without worrying too much, but still got up during the night to check on her..

I am not surprised that Arabella got sick. She gets sick literally every time that she is planning on going somewhere, Paul and I are going away, or if we take a family vacation. This time she was planning on spending the weekend away on a church youth group trip.

My plans really didn’t change much because she was sick. I still blew off that party I wasn’t planning on going to. I finished my fall cleaning. I spent around 6 hours creating the perfect 2018 calendar of all my favorite photos and memories of 2017.

But that is not all that happened this past weekend. I noticed that Alex was acting a little strange. His patterns were off. I asked what his plans were with Baylee for Thanksgiving. He told me that they broke up. What??!??!? They were dating for almost a year and a half. They just went on the same college campus tour last week. I may have mentioned the word marriage last week. I even gave Baylee a fake name on my blog. We really liked her.

Alex seems to be doing well. So this holiday season, both Alex and Angel are single. It will make things a lot easier as far as holiday parties go. Last year they left our Thanksgiving party early to go to the family of their significant others. I could almost understand how the family of divorce feels. My kids shared how much fun they were having with the other family when I just wanted them to be home with me.

Then some other strange things happened. I found a permission slip on the table to join the math club. I automatically asked Arabella about her interest. She said that it wasn’t hers. What?? We both agreed that the Alex couldn’t be joining the math club. Could he??

Alex used to be the grade school math whiz. I had to ask his teachers for more challenging material. Then middle school hit and he barely passed math. The early high school years weren’t much better. My son fell into a rough crowd that was headed down a dark road until he met Baylee. Then he turned his life around, not without a few mistakes. His grades didn’t improve until this school year. Right now he has a B+ average up from a D average. He joined the chess club and now he is joining the math club. Wow! What??

Maybe he is finally growing up!

Then this past week I received a postcard in the mail from Arabella’s biology teacher. It read: Arabela *name misspelled* is putting little effort into biology class. With a bit more effort, she could be doing much, much better. Time management, writing down deadlines and studying outside of class will make all the difference in this class.

I felt rather irritated by the teacher’s form of communication. Seriously, a postcard?? Anyone could read that….her brother…For crying out loud, the postal carrier. Arabella is typically a high achiever. The postcard announced to everyone in bright colors that she was a slacker. How humiliating. She just told us a few days before that this teacher doesn’t like her. Should we be concerned? I wasn’t expecting this about her. She is getting a B in the class…so it must be frivolous??..Right?!??

Change is inevitable….what was I expecting??

 

A big problem

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My daughter was 12 when I received the first comment about getting reduction surgery for her. It was from a well meaning relative. That was still during the days that I could shop for her in regular department stores..

When she turned 13, I started taking her to specialty stores for plus size girls. While there she grew tired of trying on garments and threw a fit about wanting to go play. I got several looks. My 13 year old daughter looked like she was 20. She always looked older than her age. This always created harsh judgment when she acted her age.

Although Arabella is my youngest child, she is often mistaken as my oldest child. The first time visiting a new dentist, Angel who is 5 years older was taken into the pediatric section and Arabella was taken to the adult side. People commonly mistake Arabella for college aged instead of Angel which drives Angel crazy. Recently while visiting Angel on campus, a guy offered Arabella a drink thinking she was older. These things happen all of the time.

About 9 months after our first visit to the specialty store, we had to visit again. Arabella said that her undergarments no longer fit. It has been impossible to buy clothing. Arabella wears the smallest plus size pants. She cannot buy fitted shirts because they don’t fit. She has to wear baggy shirts that make her look like she is wearing a mu mu. What teen would like that?

Swimming suits are impossible too. Arabella has been too embarrassed to wear a swimming suit without a shirt over it. Formal clothes are next to impossible. Finding a prom dress will be difficult. Arabella’s body is too disproportionate. She is all tummy and chest.

I get a lot of looks when I take her shopping. Am I really her mother…they must wonder. She doesn’t look anything like me or my side of the family. The largest women in my family have C cups, until now that is.

I think people stereotype me to be like the mom from the movie Spanglish…You know the type..the runner, thin, athletic, blonde always harping at her daughter to lose weight. I try to not be like that. I just have so much knowledge to share. Sometimes when she asks, I offer her advice which doesn’t end well for me. I just can’t win. Sometimes my daughter hates me. We are opposites. We clash. We don’t even look alike.

To make things worse, Arabella’s older sister Angel is just like me. When she was younger, people called her my clone. She looks exactly like me, has my mannerisms, has a similar personality, and we get along really great. This has been a struggle. I don’t want to play the favorites game. I don’t think parents ever what it to happen, but it does…

Last week Arabella told me that she will have to go back to the specialty store. Her undergarments no longer fit. I took her in for measurements again. She now fits into the largest size they have available. I’ve run out of options. This is the only store I know of in the area that has the larger sizes…I might have to start buying online if she continues growing. She is only 14.

I asked the clerk what would happen if she loses weight…That might not change her size. Plus Arabella told me she is having trouble in gym class…when she moves, she falls out. She can’t even exercise without issues. Plus she is terribly self conscience because there are hot guys in gym class.

If she loses weight, but not chest size, that would be just as horrible. Then my daughter would have the body of a porn star.

What am I supposed to do??

Apparently I haven’t even been washing the garments correctly. I am supposed to wash them in a garment bag and then hang them up to dry. What do I know? I have no guidance here.

Oh, and did I mention cost?? One garment costs $50.

I had to special order her garments. They don’t have any that they think is her size in stock.

What am I to do?? What am I to do?? I asked the store clerk. She suggested I make an appointment with Arabella’s pediatrician.

I refuse to let my daughter get reduction surgery until she is an adult. It just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. She doesn’t want surgery.

It is a big problem.

Notes on music

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Things went well this past weekend with my daughter Angel’s singing competition. She made it to the semi-finals. Although she didn’t make it to the final round, she was satisfied with her performance. Being satisfied with her performance was big. She is like her mother and tends to cut herself down if she makes mistakes. Plus earlier in the week she told me that she wasn’t doing it. She had tonsillitis and was not able to practice much.

We didn’t run into any of her previous stalkers on campus which was a plus. The biggest problem she encountered was on her way there. Her map wasn’t working on her phone and she got lost. I had to find her on my phone’s map and give her directions from where I thought she was which was no easy task in the dark in a strange town.

I checked into the hotel a long time before she arrived. I checked in at the same time as her singing professor whom I greeted in a very friendly manner. He didn’t recognize me and I was hoping that he didn’t think I was a lady of the night.

 

We ended up eating supper after 9 PM. It was great watching Angel perform. I think the visit will tide her over until she comes home at Thanksgiving. This is the longest she has been away from home and she was starting to feel homesick.

Then Paul and I returned back to the same college yesterday with Alex for a campus tour. His girlfriend also attended the tour. Alex and Baylee have been dating for almost a year and a half. They have been talking about going to the same college. We think that if they go to the same school they might get married someday.. Time will tell. I thought that Angel and Mitch would marry, but they broke up this year.

Alex wants to go to school for saxophone performance or possibly jazz studies. My oldest two children want to or are going to school for music performance and don’t want to be educators.. There will always be a spot open for them in my basement.. Although very talented, the likelihood of them both having a successful career as performers is slim. I always like it when people ask me what their backup plan is…My basement, that is their backup plan.

I remember when I bought Alex his saxophone. I bought the instrument used for half the price of a new one. New saxophones are pricey and I didn’t want it to end up collecting dust on the shelf after high school ended.

I went to a stranger’s house to purchase the instrument. She kept all of the receipts. She told me that her son lost interest in band. A few months after I purchased the instrument for my son, her son committed suicide. It was a strange feeling. Was the selling of his instrument a warning sign that he was losing interest in his hobbies? It was very sad. My son asked me afterwards if I bought the instrument from the boy that died. I did not lie.

I was afraid that my son would find playing the instrument distasteful after that, but he brought the instrument to life. Many years later, my son wants to take this instrument with him far into his future. I want the previous owners to know that this instrument that once belonged to their only son did not end up on a shelf somewhere. But maybe through it a small piece of his life is carrying on…

 

What lies behind closed doors

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What lies behind the door for us? Do we ever truly know? I thought about these things while going with my son today on his first college tour.

I think that as we near the completion of high school, we are faced with a lot of choices…paths…doors perhaps..Some of the doors seem obvious to open..They might have our name written all over it. Other doors are there, but we think some of those doors are locked because we have been told that they are so we never try to open them.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to listen to some of the best college level vocalists in our state. A few were so talented they almost brought ME to tears. As I was watching my daughter and other singers perform, I could no longer tell what the judges of the competition were looking for. I couldn’t find any fault with the performers…maybe a few little mistakes were made that I noticed from some of the freshman.

At college level, they are so far beyond the middle school and high school solo and ensemble level. In high school, and middle school especially, I could hear every missed beat and note that was slightly off. Back in those days, my daughter asked me for singing advice. I have had no professional singing training, just raw talent. Now I ask my daughter for singing advice. I can no longer tell when she makes a mistake. It was like listening to a language that I no longer recognize as my own.

Then I realized with regret that the singing path door was always there for me to choose. I was just told that the door was locked, so I never tried opening it.

When I was a child, I always loved water. I begged to take swimming lessons beyond the few months of basic lessons. But I got piano lessons instead and hated it because I didn’t have a passion for it. This year I competed in my first Half Ironman. I really struggled with the swimming because of my basic skill level. It was frustrating for me to try hard but not be able to compete against someone who has been swimming 30 years longer than I have at a proficient or experienced level.

Maybe if I was allowed to take lessons when I was young…I have this strong desire to be the first person to cross the finish line. I wanted to be the person that qualified for the Boston marathon on my first marathon. I long for it, but it will never be. I wish I was satisfied being the small percentage of the population that completed a marathon. I have to fight against the urge to berate myself for not being that great. Perhaps I opened the door too late.

Some doors are there all along, but we never open them. Some doors remain hidden in plain sight. Some doors we open and squeeze into before they are locked. Some doors simply no matter how hard we try to open them will remain locked.

Then there was a beautiful ornate door that once was hidden behind the roses and thorns. It was the writing door. I should have seen it all along…there were many years of scribbles in journals. There was a book written in grade school about a house full of troubled girls that were saved, torn up and thrown away.. There was this girl that wanted to share the story of her life..

That door has been opened and can no longer be kept shut.

 

Journal 5, part 3

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It has been a rough week of posts here, hasn’t it?? Here is the funny post that I promised…It is akin to my parents stories of walking uphill to school both ways.

10/10/1990

I am feeling tired today. Last night I watched a movie at my friend’s house. Her mom rented a VCR and we had to take it back to the rental place by 10 PM. We left her house at ten to ten. On the way there, the car broke down. We knocked on a couple doors, but no one answered. We walked back to her house which took almost an hour. By the time I got home, it was 11 PM. That sure didn’t help my cold any..

Young folks, times were hard growing up. Watching a movie wasn’t as easy as perusing Netflix for the perfect show. From this journal entry, I am going to assume that the VCR rental was for my friend’s birthday which was a few days before the journal entry date. We watched Gone with the Wind and Adventures in Babysitting (great old movie BTW). I had no recollection of this event before reading about it…the previous day’s journal entry mentioned the movies that we were going to watch. I vaguely remember walking back to her house on quiet country roads late at night.

You were pretty much screwed if your car broke down in the middle of nowhere at night if no one answered the door. Forget Uber. Of course, sometimes you were screwed if someone answered the door. As a teenage girl, it was creepy going into a stranger’s house to use their rotary phone. It was also creepy allowing strangers into the house to use the phone. I think it is something the kids of today are told not to do…allow strangers in your house or go into a strangers house.. Of course, kids of today don’t need to worry about taking rented VCR’s back or leaving the house without someone having a cell phone.

Even going to the movies was complicated. We had to watch the newspaper for the new listings. Or sometimes we would call on a Friday night to listen to a long automated message stating the new showings. Sometimes the phone was busy.

Remember having to rewind the VHS tape after viewing? That took almost as long as the movie. The rental tapes would be plastered with stickers that said ‘Be kind, rewind’ and other obnoxious things. Then upon returning the movie to the store, the clerk would always pop open the tape case while glaring at you with an eyebrow raised prejudging if you were an evil offender that didn’t rewind. If you were a few minutes late (probably due to rewinding) with the rental drop off, you would be fined a couple bucks.

I can almost imagine the fines my friend received for returning the VCR the next day. Maybe the cops were called. Uh huh, car trouble you say…I bet your dog ate your homework too..

I never had to worry about renting a VCR at our house. We always had at least 10 VCR’s in our house at all times. Unfortunately, none of them worked or they ate tapes. My dad repaired them as a living and was always doing favors for neighbors on the side. People would literally stop by with their junk…broken VCR’s, stereos, TV’s…Discombobulated machines laid on our table and were strewn all over our house for months. My dad was a procrastinator. By the time he fixed the broken machines, the people forgot about them or were on their third one. But he charged them next to nothing.

I wonder how much time we wasted on video tapes?? Almost as much time as we spent waiting by the phone…

How did we ever survive???

 

 

The sign

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A couple of weeks back the doubting Thomas in me asked for a sign…and God delivered..

The story really starts a few days after my doubting post. Paul flew out of a small town airport after visiting with our daughter Angel. He had two connecting flights from there to get to his destination. Each layover was an hour long. He almost missed his second flight. The third flight was considerably delayed due to bad weather from a hurricane.

Paul was in much thought and prayer about this trip. He was going to a business meeting that would require making a decision that he was unsure about…one that could have a big impact on our future. After the third flight was delayed, Paul sat down at the airport bar and struck a conversation with the man sitting next to him. The man started talking about recently being faced with the same decision that Paul was contemplating. Unbeknownst to the stranger, he was an answer to prayer.

Paul did not think that the meeting with the stranger in the airport was a coincidence. He decided to take the fork in the road. I really can’t go into the details at this point…but I can say that having an answer has been freeing…a burden lifted.

The following day, I spoke with my mom on the phone. She told me that my brother Luke wanted to step up as the future guardian of my brother Matt. I instantly felt free. A lifetime of being my brother’s keeper…gone. The chains of being my brother’s lifelong caregiver…broken. The weight of a heavy burden…lifted.

I only have 3 1/2 years of parenting left. Then I only have to be responsible for me.

I feel like a caged bird that has been set free. It’s not that I will leave my cage, but that I can. I will no longer be trapped. For the first time I feel like I can fly unfettered. I never thought that this would be possible.

I kept thinking over the past few weeks that if God can take care of the birds, why can’t He take care of me??

Maybe I am asking too much, but please give me a sign…I’m worried that I have to do this whole life thing alone..

In church on Sunday, a duet sang His Eye is on the Sparrow…The lyrics of the hymn echoed through my mind…I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me..

But I still didn’t get the message until I turned to the last few pages of the bulletin. There was a picture of a bird with a message that said something like…listen and you will hear God speaking..

Matthew 6:26-27 If I just remember this, I feel better.

I finally saw the sign…God does care about me. I might not know where He is leading, but I know that I won’t be traveling alone.

 

 

One step at a time…

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When I first met my future husband, I had a jar full of pills on my dresser.

It contained the remnants of unused anti-depressants…Zoloft…Prozac the pill that made me crazy…Anafranil the pill that made me sleep more than I was awake…Paxil, Pemelor…the list goes on…Dexedrine I couldn’t focus at school…Lithium…I remember getting my blood drawn. Weight gain, weight loss, a pill that I needed to eat extra salt…I had round red pills, small white pills, and capsules…even at the highest doses, none of them helped.

Apparently a pill couldn’t cure a crappy childhood.

Paul wanted me to throw the jar out.

I said a lot of negative self talk out loud. I am so stupid. I am so dumb. I am a klutz. I am unlovable. I echoed the words that my daddy said to me. Paul said for every negative thing I said about myself, I had to say 3 nice things about myself. I broke that habit with his help.

I had a tendency to self-destruct. I gravitated towards pain and denied myself joy. I was a harsh taskmaster. I was angry. I was depressed. I am still like that but I express it in healthier ways…like running.

I saw therapists. To be honest, some of them were a joke. How would you feel if you didn’t have an autistic, schizophrenic brother that liked to hurt you? Geez, I wouldn’t know…What would you do if you had a magic wand?…Is that a realistic therapy goal? Maybe I could get a fairy godmother too…Oh, don’t forget the frog that turns into a prince. With me, reality has always been the best approach.

I had one therapist that was really great. She made me talk about feelings..What feelings? I don’t have feelings. I feel nothing…not happiness nor sorrow. I am completely numb. When the memories and feelings came back I was completely devastated by the mess I found.

I went to college with the intentions of becoming a therapist. I wanted to fix my family. I wanted to help others like me. I am 43 years old and have not found one single person in this world that grew up with an autistic/schizophrenic violent brother to help by my experiences.

One day I got rid of the jar of pills on my dresser. My brother asked what I was on because I seemed normal. I was on my own…No more therapy, no more pills…just the love of a person that cared enough to listen.

I slowly started the healing process of recovering from a difficult childhood. It has made me a stronger person. I am no longer outrunning my demons…I am facing them…slowly at my pace…one step at a time…

Since those first few unsteady steps, I must’ve ran a million miles.

 

Who am I?

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Who am I?

Sometimes I wonder who you think I am.

Have the things I told you painted a picture in your mind?

Do you know the kind of person I am by the words I write?

I sometimes think about this in the dead of night…or the early morning light..

Who am I?

Sometimes I don’t even know.

This past week I finished reading journal 4. Last year I started the project of slowly going through all of my old childhood and early adulthood journals. It has been a healing process for me…to finally come to grips with my life…my demons..

My oldest daughter has been begging to read my journals for the past year now. I now am also tasked with the duty of reading my journals with the thought that someday they will belong to my children. I want them to have a certain image of me in their minds, even after I am dead.

Journal 4 was difficult. I was angry. I could feel the rage coursing through my words. I tore out half the pages of my journal, ripped them up, and threw them out (recycling). I crossed out some of the writings with a black pen. I never destroyed a part of my life’s writings before.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t recognize myself. It was like I was reading about another girl.

Maybe I don’t really want to know myself??

I just don’t want my kids to see my darkest days. I am describing a girl that is gone now..

I just started reading journal 5 which was written before journal 4. I will probably be sharing some stories with you…

But how will you know me if I don’t recognize the old me in me anymore??

Do you really want to know the real me anyway??

Or do you think of me as a character in a book with a twisted plot?