Life

12. A typical day

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Day 12: Describe a typical day in your current life.

ATTENTION ALL INSOMNIACS!! This one is for you!

Today is a typical Monday.

I awoke a few minutes before the alarm went off after getting exactly 8 hours of sleep. I need no more or no less..

The first thing I do after visiting the bathroom is check my phone. I may have missed something important that happened in the world in the exactly 8 hours I was sleeping.

I take my Prilosec and start a load of laundry. I do exactly 2 loads of laundry every day unless I am gone or I am doing a load of towels. Towels can be a one load day.

Then I try to coax my kids out of bed for school. My alarms get louder if I think they will be late or will miss the bus.

Then I sit on the couch and drink exactly one and a half cups of coffee while trying to  have a conversation with my husband who is playing chess online. I scrounge up something to eat, then take my daily vitamins. On Monday, I floss my teeth.

I chase the kids off to school and start another load of laundry.

Then I go for a 6 mile run on the exact same route I always take. I listen to music and sometimes sing along loudly. I get mad at the idiots who almost hit me. I wave at my fans or people that follow my road rules exactly (the ones that slow down and move over). Afterwards, I take a shower. If it is nice out, I will hang my 2 loads of laundry on the line. Then I go to work.

Around lunchtime, I put the Monday chemicals in my hot tub then write a rough draft for my blog.

Then I go back to work until the work is done or I need to take my kids to after school activities. Somewhere in there, I edit my blog post and publish it.

Then I take another Prilosec exactly one half hour before eating supper. Sometimes I make supper. We always eat supper together as a family and talk about each others day. I always clean the kitchen afterwards. Then I fold my 2 loads of laundry and put them into piles for each family member. If I have some free time in the evening, I will sit in the hot tub. If my kids aren’t home, I stalk them on my phone to find out when they will be home. If they are home, I try to talk to them. Or maybe I’ll watch some favorite shows on Netflix with Paul.

Then I say my prayers and go to bed…and start things all over again the next day..

I am all for structure, schedules, and routine…but this will be the last time I bore you with all the details of a typical day…

Are you sleeping yet??

11. Ten pet peeves

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Day 11: Describe 10 pet peeves that you have.

1. It drives me crazy when people don’t use their blinkers. 

2. Laziness is a big pet peeve of mine. Especially when people spend a lot of time making up lame excuses for it when it would’ve taken less time to do the work.

3. Being late.

4. Chewing food loudly and not closing their mouth. 

5. Lights left on in an empty room. 

6. People that don’t move over when I am on the road biking or running and almost hit me. 

7. I hate it when someone tries to change the music in my car while I am driving or tries to control MY environment. I don’t care what you do in your house, just don’t tell me what to do in mine.

8. It drives me nuts when people tell me they are going to do something and don’t do it.

9. I hate it when people give me unsolicited advice when they have no idea what they are talking about.  To add to that, I hate it when people tell me what to do in general. What makes you the expert on my life?

10. I hate it when people ask others for help, then complain about what they receive. 

10. My most embarrassing moment

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Day 10: Describe your most embarrassing moment

Back when I was in college, I took a class called Deviant Behavior. One of our assignments was to do something embarrassing, or simply not socially acceptable, in public to see how other people would respond.

While some students did embarrassing things like farting in public or picking their noses, I kind of cheated on this one… I went back to my repertoire of embarrassing moments in my life.

Maybe it was the time that my 350 lb dad decided to mow the lawn up north in nothing but a Speedo. His stomach hung over his underwear so that from the front it looked like he was mowing in the nude. What can I say? It was hot out that day. We gasped in disbelief as the neighbors tried not to stare.

Having my dad walk around in his underwear was nothing new. He used to do that when I had friends over and sometimes he does that when we visit today. He has no problem walking to the end of the driveway to get the mail in his underwear. Let me correct that statement…He does have problems walking to the end of the driveway, so he starts up his lawnmower and rides it to his mailbox in his underwear. He answers the door in his underwear if someone comes a knocking. He pees with the bathroom door open. He will dress up in pajama bottoms to go out to eat, but he only showers once a month. He wipes his teeth on the bathroom hand towel, but doesn’t brush them…There are some things that I am too embarrassed to even tell you about..

Or maybe it was all of the times that Aunt Grace, who had enough money to treat everyone to the meal, would shove everything from the table into her big purse or leftovers container. She would take the little butter dishes, silverware, cloth napkins, centerpieces, creamers, or practically anything they didn’t clear off of the table. She used to grab matches back in the day, but didn’t smoke or a handful of mints on her way out the door. She always insisted these items were hers since she paid for the meal. Or maybe it was her fondness of slapping the butts of my friends that she liked.

Or maybe it was all of the times that I saw my autistic brother expose himself to friends and neighbors. He used to stand at the end of the driveway at my grandma’s house and pull down his pants every time a car drove by. He walked around the house in stained underwear whether people were over or not. Sometimes he wore my mother’s dresses. He would stand out at the end of the dock up north with his pants dropped and pee into the water. Then he would stand there shaking it for awhile as the boaters going by would stare or laugh. Or maybe it was when he would fart, attack people, or swear in public. Hard to say..

Or maybe it was just simply bringing a friend or potential boyfriend back home to a house where there was always dirty dishes with rotten food on the counter and pee on the bathroom floor. I brought them home to a hoarder’s paradise where things don’t get thrown away. Funny thing is…I always preferred the clean freaks…Ha ha ha ha…Sometimes unwanted items would be given away to my brothers or I, but usually it just meant that it was time to build another shed.

Let’s just say that I don’t get embarrassed much by anything anymore…

But as for the most embarrassing thing that I ever did…Back when I was in 2nd grade, I peed my pants in front of the whole class. I couldn’t get the teacher’s attention and couldn’t hold it anymore. Urine leaked down my green tights and puddled into my shoes. I had to walk around all day in a short little dress with nothing underneath..

Now you can probably understand why I skipped the assignment of doing something embarrassing in public…been there, done that, and don’t want to do it anymore..The hardest part was narrowing down my topic of embarrassment.

7. What is your dream job?

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7. What is your dream job, and why?

When I was younger, quite a bit younger, I wanted to be a counselor. I earned a Bachelor’s degree with a counseling emphasis. I had every expectation to get my Master’s degree and become a licensed counselor, but didn’t.

To tell you the truth, I wanted to fix broken people. I wanted to change them. I wanted to take their weaknesses and make them strengths. I wanted to make flowers grow in a patch of weeds.

I never told you this before, when I was younger my mom would pair me up with younger girls that also had difficult sibling situations. Sometimes I would visit for a few hours or a weekend. I think that the purpose was to counsel and console them like I did with my mom. There was no doubt I would be a counselor.

Then my last year of college happened. We had a professor that was a counselor. She made me doubt my career ambitions. She took away my unrealistic expectations and told us what it really was like being a counselor.  She told us how her holidays were interrupted because she had a take calls from suicidal clients. She told us of the times she lost clients to suicide and spoke of how difficult it was to handle. I questioned my ability to change people. I mean, I couldn’t even change myself or my loved ones who were struggling.

Really, who did I think I was? God?? To think that I could save people?

I thought about going back to school to be a counselor off and on over the last couple of decades, but no longer have the interest to do so. I don’t think I could listen to people talk about their problems and not do anything to fix them. I really lack compassion for those who are unwilling to change and just want someone to complain to. I think it would be incredibly hard to watch someone spiral down into mental illness and not be able to pull them back out. I would take every suicide personally as a failure on my part.

I also dreamed of being a librarian..surrounded by books in quiet serenity…organizing books..

I dreamed of being a lead singer in a band…exciting weekends being a star.

I even dreamed of working alone in a lab analyzing samples…checking for little details that might be off…water samples…pap smears…biopsies…DNA testing…being away from people using my analytical skills.

But right now, more than anything, my dream job is to be a writer.. I have been considering leaving my job of nine years and going back to get my Master’s degree in writing…The first thing that I would do is write my story…growing up with an autistic sibling… I would make it my life work… I would tell my mom…receive her blessing…get all of her journals that she used to write in to compile with mine… then write…offer hope to (without trying to fix)  people who are struggling…it has been something I have always felt compelled to do… then I would be free from it and spend the rest of my life being a freelance travel writer…travel the world off the beaten path…take many pictures and write…

That would be my dream job..

 

6. The hardest thing I ever experienced

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6. What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?

My childhood was the hardest thing I ever experienced..

Outwardly, people thought that I had it all. I was voted most likely to be a supermodel by my senior class. We lived in one of the biggest houses in town. People expected me to be happy and perfect all of the time.

But inside our house there was always a fresh stream of piss on the bathroom floor. Dirty dishes covered the kitchen counter. Rotten food festered in the fridge. There were many rooms dedicated to the clutter shrine. Stack after stack of newspapers, magazines, and papers adorned the floor. Broken items and unworn clothing littered the forever unfinished bathroom upstairs. Every surface area was cluttered. But it didn’t matter because no one bothered to visit anyway.

Maybe it would’ve been different if I didn’t have an autistic brother or if my parents didn’t have 4 children within 5 years.

Several friends of my parents told them to beat the autism out of him. Believe me, my dad tried. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work.

Maybe things wouldn’t have been as chaotic if Matt wasn’t autistic. Matt sometimes was violent. Pulled hair..bloody lips..black eyes..bruised arms and legs..a head bashed into a nose..poked eyes…Violence often infiltrated our house. I was told not to retaliate or feel anger because Matt didn’t mean it. Didn’t I know that I was the lucky one?

Sometimes we would get excited about going somewhere, just to get there, and have to turn back home again. Matt wasn’t welcome there anymore..

Then there were all of the rules that didn’t make any sense. For example, I wasn’t allowed to wear hair spray, nail polish, or perfume. I had to sneak a bottle of hair spray into my backpack and get ready at school. That was when we were still able to go to school. Matt’s behavior was so intolerable that he was no longer allowed in school so I didn’t go to school either for 3 years.

I lost a lot of friends after Matt hurt them…

My parents argued constantly. My dad lashed out verbally and sometimes physically as well. Half of the household at one time or another was severely depressed. Nooses hung from empty trees. I was fearful of what I might find when I entered a quiet house.

My mom cried out to God at night asking Him why He was punishing her…

My childhood was a time of chaos, disorder, dysfunction, and despair…

4. Ten things to tell your 16 year old self

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Day 4: List 10 things you would tell your 16 year old self, if you could

  1. Spend as much time as you can with your grandparents. I hate to tell you this, but friends come and go. Your best friends now won’t even be at your wedding. Soon something is going to happen that will push the friends you have now away. Enjoy the times with friends in the moment. Remember that your grandparents won’t be around forever. They are the greatest source of stability in your life, not your friends.You will never regret spending a lot of time with them.
  2. Your strong work ethic will get you very far in life. However, don’t put work or your long to-do list above your relationships. Take the night off of work to go to your brother’s high school graduation. The $30 you earned that night will never make up for the regret you will feel for the rest of your life for not being at your brother’s only graduation.
  3. I know that you are dealing with some pretty hard things to handle and you feel like you are all alone. These are the hardest years that you will ever face in your life. Hang in there, soon it will be smooth sailing.
  4. Don’t think that you have to be perfect, or even good, at something before you are willing to try it. You don’t have to be good at something to like it either. You don’t have to be perfect. Quit being so hard on yourself. It was a big lie when you were told you had to be perfect. Put yourself out on a limb. Try something new even if you are not good at it.Who cares if you fail?
  5. Leave home when you turn 18 and do WHATEVER it takes to not go back. In fact, move far away. Do not take responsibility for your parents problems. Do NOT agree to be your brother’s caregiver. You should not be giving your brother a shower on a Saturday night. You should be out living your life doing the things that young people do. For once in your life, be carefree. You will already regret not having a childhood, don’t regret not living while you’re young too. Soon enough you will be tied down by your own responsibilities.
  6. Don’t be a caregiver for your brother or anyone else for that matter. Be a little more selfish. Do the things you want to do. Allow yourself to be stupid and make mistakes that you can learn from. Hold out for the library job you will be offered instead of turning it down to be a caregiver. You did enough care giving as a child. This will not be good for you.
  7. Buy an expensive pair of running shoes and start running. Trust me. You need a healthy way to relieve your stress. It is a lot cheaper than therapy and all those bottles of pills that never helped you anyway. Soon you will enter adulthood with enough baggage to travel the whole world. Once you realize their weight, you will have a lifelong struggle with depression, anxiety, worry, and anger. Running will help you get through all the years of repressing your feelings that you couldn’t handle.
  8. Keep writing down everything you experience and don’t stop. It is worth making time for. Some day it will make for a helluva story.
  9. You have to forgive the people that have hurt you for your sake. Pity their weakness. Eventually you will no longer be able to outrun all of the things that you are hiding from. It is going to take a long time to face your demons. You will spend a lot of time reflecting. But eventually you will have to let go..forgive..and trust that God has a bigger plan or purpose for your life. Be a beacon of hope for those that struggle around you.
  10. Try not to worry so much. It annoys me and the others around me. I don’t like it. I want you to relax. Please start working on that now so we can get over this someday.

3.Describe your relationship with your parents

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Day 3: Describe your relationship with your parents.

My parents then…

When I was a child, my mom and I were always close. She considered me to be her best friend. As a parent, she did the best that she could and had the perfect amount of strictness. In that area, she has been my role model for parenting. I identified with my mother. She always worked hard. She rarely sat down and relaxed. She was not one to sit and chat. She was always buying gifts for me. When times were hard, she would bring home a bouquet of flowers for me. She confided in me because she didn’t have anyone else that understood.

When I was a child, I hated my father. He never hugged me or told me that he loved me. Instead of teaching me everything that he knew, he told me I was stupid for not knowing what he knew. He never set aside time to spend alone with me. He ridiculed my thoughts, feelings, ideas, and dreams. He was very lenient. He didn’t care when I came home, who I went out with, or what I did. He never sympathized with me. He never comforted me and told me things would be alright. He was never on my team. He never took an interest in my life. He never had patience for me. When the going got tough, he checked out emotionally. If he was forced to deal with me it was usually with irritation, anger, or harsh words. He never said that he was sorry. Our relationship was generally negative.

My parents now…

Fast forward the clock 30 years..

My mom and I are still close. Sometimes I resent her for not giving me a childhood. Sometimes she resents me for having healthy children and a loving spouse, things she always wanted. There was a rough patch in there after my autistic brother Matt attacked my daughter. I felt that she sided with Matt over me. But that was many years ago now. Over time, the rough seas smoothed out into reflective glass. We lived through some very difficult times together. Despite everything that happened, we are still very close. My mother has my utmost respect and admiration for her perseverance through hard times.

My dad and I still aren’t very close, although we probably get along better now than we ever have before. All in all, I don’t believe that my dad is a bad person. But when he had to step up to the parenting plate, he failed miserably. For this reason, we will never be close. I no longer hate him. I pity him for his weakness. I feel sorrow for the relationship we never had and never will have.

2. Describe 3 legitimate fears

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Day 2: Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.

This required a lot of thought. Every fear that I could think of that I have boils down to one big legitimate fear…The fear of not being in control. I am not sure why I feel like I need to be in control all of the time or why I feel responsible for things that happen that are beyond my control. I think that I have some basic trust issues.  For a long time it seemed like my life was ordered by chaos. It suffocated me. I tried everything to feel like I had some iota of control. I wanted to force change and be the magnet that forces the pendulum to swing in the other direction.

I have a fear of driving. For a period of time, I took medication to face this fear. I refused to stay at home to hide from this fear. I feared being trapped in my car which would bring on panic. If concrete construction barriers or bridges lock me in, I feel afraid. For awhile, I expended a lot of energy trying to be the perfect driver. I kept my car exactly in the middle of the white lines. There also was a period of time that I avoided the highway altogether. This was difficult because it was slow going the back way and I like to drive fast. Highway driving is boring, when I’m not anxious I fear falling asleep or not having a quick enough response if there is an emergency. Again, this boils down to not feeling like I have control. I can’t control the other drivers on the road. I feel afraid that I can’t guarantee that I will be able to keep my passengers or myself safe. Long road trips where I am the driver scares me. I haven’t totally gotten over this fear, but I won’t let it control me. Again, control.

I am afraid of flying which is difficult since I love traveling. I don’t have control over, or even know, the person flying the plane. Again, flying sometimes requires meds to prevent me from panicking. Taking meds is a struggle because it makes me feel like I can’t control my fear. I think the fear of flying stems a little from my dad being a pilot as a hobby. For most of my childhood, he was in charge of a civilian based group that would search for downed planes. He often would take calls in the middle of the night to get search teams together. It made me think that flying was not safe. 

I am afraid of death. When my dad was in the Vietnam War, he thought that he wouldn’t die there because he could foresee his future death. He said that he would die on Christmas Eve of 2011. That day came and past and he is still here. Having a future death date had one purpose. It took away his fear of death in Vietnam when his friends were dying. 

I tell everyone that I am going to die of dementia like others in my family did. I dream of not knowing that I am dying. Will the heaven that I believe in really be there? Or will life end in an empty meaningless void like it did before I existed? Will it hurt to take my dying breath? Part of the reason why I am a fitness fanatic is that it makes me feel like I have some control over time. Exercise will make me live longer. Cancer doesn’t run in the family. I have low blood pressure and cholesterol, so I ruled out heart disease as my demise. Thinking that I won’t know that I am dying takes the sting out of it. Death is something I have no control over. Will it be tomorrow, next year, or decades from now?  It scares me to death. 

Not only do I fear death, but I also fear that my loved ones will die or be in incredible pain. I try to control this by giving unsolicited advice. Don’t drink too much! Wear your seat belt! The more I push, the more they pull away. I would rather be in pain than see the people I love suffer. I want to be in control of their change.

I am afraid that my life partner will die before we do everything we planned. 

I have to always have control over myself. I have to control my emotional response. I’m stoic. I fear things that could cause an outburst of emotion. I fear inappropriate laughter. I am afraid I won’t have complete control over my mind or body if I let go. This frightens me. Fear stops me from relaxing. 

I have to double check the oven and coffee pot because it gives me a false control that my house will be safe when I am gone. I have to be the last one to leave the house. I am afraid that if I don’t have things under control, the house will burn down. I also am afraid that my cat will get caught in the blind cords and die if I leave him alone for the weekend. I am afraid to be the first person back in the house when we return. 

I can’t stand being controlled by my circumstances, of being physically or emotionally trapped in situations I can’t control. 

I am more fearful of the weather controlling my comings and goings instead of the storm itself. No control over the weather.

I am afraid that I will get sick and have to change my plans. No control over my body.

I have to be the last one to bed and the first one up in a group setting. I feel like I have to be ready to step in and control how people get along. I hover. Watching. Waiting. Taking control of the situation, problem solving in my mind. 

Staying up until the last kid gets home makes me feel like I have control. 

I guess I am a control freak because the thought of not being in control freaks me out!

I try incredibly hard to not let any of this fear control my life…

On the plus side, I am not afraid of spiders, water, snakes, scary clowns, or public speaking.

1. List 20 random facts about yourself

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Ok, not only will these be random facts, some of them are downright weird…

1. I am left handed.

2. My blood type is AB. Not only do I have the rarest blood type, but I am the universal receiver baby! That means I don’t have to feel guilty about my fear of needles.

3. My personality type is ISTJ. Everyone in my house has a different personality, however we are all ‘T’s’ meaning that we are all thinkers versus feelers. Which also means that our house is full of debate versus drama. Lol.

4. I have incredibly good hearing. This has given me a natural ear for music. It also means that I wake up when a pin drops at my neighbor’s house.

5. I have the rare ability to voluntarily control my tensor tympani muscle. This means that with concentration I can close my ears off to sound without covering them. This has been a great gift when I can’t handle the sound of people loudly chewing.

6. I am a texture person, not a taste person, when it comes to food. I can’t stand eating onions, mushrooms, cooked green beans, shrimp, or chewy meat because of the texture. But, maybe, if you put these items in a blender I would like them.

7. I am a first born.

8. I ran in two marathons.

9. I have a Bachelor’s degree in something totally unrelated to what I’m doing now.

10. I have been with the same person exactly half of my life.

11. I have been married for 19 years. We have also been business partners for half that amount of time.

12. I found my first gray hair at 27.

13. I have 3 teenage children.

14. I love doing laundry, but hate dusting.

15. I read the whole Bible cover to cover.

16. I am double jointed and can touch my thumb to my arm.

17. I have 3 brothers, but no nephews.

18. I have 2 nieces, but no sisters.

19. I have a black thumb.

20. I like to clean.

Wow, that was a little harder than I thought it would be! 

Please comment if we have anything in common…..

 I’m thinking if we have zero in common, you have already moved on to another post…

1 to 5, casual reader…

5 to 10, follower maybe getting emails every time I post…

10 to 15, new best friend….

15 to 20, when can you move in??…..

20 or more….Wait, is that humanly possible?? Twins separated at birth?? Nope, that negates number 7 then…Lol..

Thanks for reading (putting up with me)! 

What is it about anyway?

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I suppose that some of you are wondering what my blog is about anyway…The easy answer is…I don’t know..I write about many different things such as travel, parenting, growing up with an autistic sibling, sailing, working with my husband…You name it, I probably wrote something about it…What can I say? My life is complex. 

My life is changing so much this year. I’ve been experiencing more change now than I have in almost 2 decades. Even for the better, change is difficult for me. I hate the uncertainty. 

With that being said, I am surprised that I haven’t structured my blog yet. Monday is parenting talk, Tuesday is autism day, and Wednesday I post a picture. I take every other Friday and the third Thursday off, etc…It may come down to that someday. Oh the thought! Putting my blog into neat color coded organized compartments…except that sometimes life is messy..

I’ve decided to change things up around here and do a 30 day question thingey. I haven’t run out of things to say…this isn’t a challenge, no one challenged me and I challenge no one. I’m not putting my name on the bottom of an old fashioned chain letter and sending the person on top a dollar. 

There, now I can tell everyone that I am working towards embracing change…

Who knows?? It might be fun!