Personal

Back to the present

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

Today I struggled with what to write. I want to go back to my autism series that I started earlier this month but so much is happening in my life right now. How can I talk about the past when the present is exciting, here, and almost gone?? I will finish it though. With the marathon last weekend and my first child’s graduation this weekend, I have a thousand thoughts and emotions running through my head. And it all has to fit into one post per day that should contain an average of 500 words. Lol.

Last night, Paul and I decided to call our parents to try to convince them into going to Angel’s graduation. I called my dad and asked him directly if he was going. Now I typically call my dad twice a year, on his birthday and on Father’s Day. So it was a big deal that I was calling him. He seemed happy to hear from me. He told me that Angel was a nice and good girl. He said that he was planning on going to her graduation. I was floored. Then he even asked me how my marathon went. I was shocked that the whole conversation was very positive.

Then I walked out of my bedroom to find that things didn’t go quite as well with Paul and his mom. Martha was on the phone with Angel saying that she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be able to make it. But this time she is really sick. So sick that she couldn’t make it in to her chemo appointment yesterday. I believe that she is really sick this time. But I liken it to the story of the boy that called wolf. Martha has been calling wolf so many times over the past several years that now my mind finds it had to believe that there is a wolf.

But there is a wolf. Martha has terminal cancer, the big devouring wolf. A few weeks ago, Martha was going to go with me to see Angel perform her solo and ensemble pieces at state. Martha was supposed to be at my house by nine. I waited around until 11:00, Martha didn’t show up or call. By that time I had already missed half of Angel’s performances. At 11, Paul called his mom and she was still at home an hour away from our house. She wasn’t feeling good enough to go but didn’t bother to call. She was going to try to make it out to eat with us later that evening for Mother’s Day.

I knew that Martha was sick. But it still brought up all of those old feelings that I had towards her for standing up my kids. I was very angry and hurt. I drove fast to get to the remainder of Angel’s events. I was pissed that I wasn’t there to support Angel when I told her I would be there to watch her. Then I even started to feel a little guilty that I was angry with my mother-in-law who is dying. So I have become tolerant. I have repressed the years of resentment, hurt, and anger.

It is hard because now I think that Martha might want to go to Angel’s graduation. But it is too late now. She should have gone to more things when she was able to. She should have been the involved grandparent then. Now it is much too late.

 

No sweat!

/ Outrunning my demons / 5 Comments

It has been two days since I ran my second marathon. I have moved beyond the point of thinking that I will never do it again to maybe. I told everyone that I know (and even people that I don’t know) to talk me out of it if I ever decide to sign up for one again. Despite everything that I said, I still might. You see, in my mind I have conquered the 5k, 10k, and half marathon. Since I consistently land in the top 7% of my age group in these categories, the challenge is gone. I have not conquered the marathon yet and it calls to me.

I refuse to beat myself up over a bad time because I really had a good time. I think that I beat myself up enough just running it.

I am sorry if I scared anyone off from running a marathon from my post right after running a marathon. Emotions were running high. I want to share with you honestly everything that I am thinking and feeling here on my blog. It is important to me that I do that. And sometimes those thoughts and feeling aren’t always roses and trophies.

The recovery period after a marathon can be rather intense, especially if you are used to being active. You may have flu like symptoms like I did. Climbing up and down stairs is difficult the first couple of days. You worry over things like bloody toenails. You will get strong feelings from your body that you are sick or something is wrong. It was hard to get myself off of the couch to take a shower. I found that these feelings are a lot less frightening the second time around. Now I expected to feel twice my age.

It was very hot outside the weekend that I did the marathon. This happened after a cold spring after doing a lot of training runs on a treadmill. The weekend before the marathon, we had snow flurries. The week before the marathon, I had the stomach flu that lasted almost a week. Plus I injured my knee on my last long run. I wrapped my knee for this marathon and it really helped. So maybe it was a miracle that I was able to finish at all.

But lets get back to the heat for a moment. I always prided myself on not being a big sweater. I could always go out with the girls on a steamy hot night and not sweat much at all. My friends makeup would melt off of their faces. Sweat dripping off their hair. Mascara lines down their face. Foundation running down their necks. They have to bring purses with extra deodorant and perfume. Sometimes they even need to bring an extra pair of clothes while I remain dry. Not being able to sweat does me no good when I am running a marathon on a hot day. By the end of the race, the alert flag was at red signaling extreme running conditions. People were dropping out of the race like flies. I got through it without even breaking much of a sweat.

Today, I am happy. Halfway through the marathon, I found a running partner. We decided to finish the last half of the race together. Today he found me on Facebook. I found a running buddy during my first marathon too. I can’t even explain to you the bond that can develop with a stranger that is going through the same grueling experience. Emotionally, running a marathon is very intense.

My new friend’s name is Lewis. He was traveling with a running group. There was a women in his group that was celebrating checking her 50th state off of her 50 states of marathon running bucket list. Lewis’s friends were getting wasted. Almost every mile they stopped along the route asking people to bring them beer from their houses. Apparently a lot of people did. One of the guys was pretty drunk. Lewis apologized for his friends, but I found them to be rather entertaining. It took my mind off of my pain.

Along the route, there was an old couch someone threw out. It was a dirty disgusting ripped up 70’s vomit green fake leather kind of couch. The woman on her 50th state laid down on that couch for awhile with a drink in her hand. All the while, the group of drunk runners stayed pretty much at the same speed as Lewis and I. Sad, I had a couple of sips of beer that was given out at mile 9 but other than that I was completely sober. Lewis also said that they stopped for a cigarette break.

Marathons are strange if you think about it. There are thousands of strangers that pay a lot of money to torture themselves both physically and mentally. Each person bringing in their own strengths and weaknesses. But through this common struggle, sometimes a stranger becomes a friend. It is such an exhilarating event, such an achievement. It is the only struggle that I ever went through where I did not feel like I was alone. I don’t think I can adequately explain it.

 

You can’t get that kind of experience from a 10k.

Time to move on

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The marathon is over, now it is time to move on to next weekend’s big event. Graduation! My daughter will be graduating from high school. I think that I finally accepted the fact that she is ready to move on with her life without us. Over the past couple of weeks we attended her last school play, a musical that she was in, state solo and ensemble, and her last choir concert crying a little along the way. Last, last, last, and last. I don’t want to be sad about this anymore! I want to be excited about all of her new adventures in life. First, first, new, new, new..

Throughout the last several years, my mom, Paul, and I have supported Angel though all of her events. Last night Angel expressed some sadness over the fact that some classmates have two rows of family come to support them. At her last choir concert, Angel had several solos with only 3 family members there to cheer her on.

She is worried that her grandparents won’t even come to her graduation. Besides my mom, I don’t think that her other grandparents will go either unless we try hard to convince them.

My dad volunteered to work at a food stand this whole weekend. If he can do that, I am sure he could take off an hour to see his granddaughter graduate. When I mentioned attending graduation to my mother-in-law she said that she probably couldn’t afford to go. She can’t afford to drive a half an hour to her grandchild’s (free) special event? Pathetic!

Year after year, we listened to lame excuses for not attending the parties/events of our children. I don’t feel good, it is too hot outside, it is too cold, it might snow, it’s raining, I don’t have money, my car broke down, I have a casino trip planned with the girls, I can’t take off of work, I had to go shopping but I will stop by after your event, my water heater broke and I couldn’t take a shower, etc… This has been very hurtful.

My dad isn’t any better. He doesn’t make lame excuses, he just doesn’t go.

But how can we expect our parents to be good grandparents when they weren’t good parents? It is very disappointing. They can blow off all the other events, but I think a graduation is a big deal. I am planning on giving my dad a call and Paul is going to call his mom and step-dad in an attempt to try to convince them that they should go.

We’ll see what happens. If they decide not to go after we tell them how important it is for them to be there, I am ready to write them all out of my life…

We really shouldn’t have to try to convince our parents to attend our daughter’s graduation, should we??

My second marathon

/ Outrunning my demons / 6 Comments

Am I still alive? At this point, I don’t know. I feel like I have the flu. Every muscle hurts. I almost feel feverish. My C-section scar hurt for the first time in over a decade. My middle toenail on my right foot is bleeding. I almost feel like it is flipping me off for running. My skin is hot to the touch.

I woke up before 5 this morning and choked down a half a bagel. Other than half of a banana, I didn’t have anything to eat for 10 hours. By the time I finished, the food was almost gone. All they had left were a few greasy brats that they soon ran out of. Yuck! I ate when I got home, but felt sick afterwards.

I didn’t do that well, no better than last time. It was a hot day. I ran slow and steady most of the way. Slow and steady wins the race, right? Well, apparently not. 

Why did I run so slow? I don’t know, maybe because I ran too fast the first time and got hurt. Maybe it was the heat, but my friend who is older than me finished in a little over 4 hours. Maybe I am just not good at this. I have to face that. Please don’t tell me how great it was that I finished. I felt humiliated afterwards when I sat in a group of runners that finished in under 4 hours and most of them were quite a bit older than me. Why can’t I be like that? Why is my body so weak? Or is it my mind? 

I feel like crying, but no tears roll out. I want to sleep, but can’t. My head hurts. Every muscle aches. 

I did meet some awesome runners along the road. Their stories carried me on the last several grueling miles. I ran side by side next to a man for the last 11 miles. He didn’t leave my side. He helped me get through. The support of fans and other runners was phenomenal. I have never seen anything like it. I can’t even explain how much that meant to me. Paul and Angel were there as well to cheer me on. 

I am going to keep running, but I am not sure anyone could talk me into doing another marathon.

Tomorrow…quiet, relaxing…marathon..

/ Outrunning my demons / 6 Comments

Tomorrow I’m running a marathon…quiet, relaxing weekend…seeing the musical Chicago this afternoon…quiet, relaxing…Tomorrow I’m running a marathon!…graduation gift for Angel…sipping wine…relaxing evening…Tomorrow I’m running a marathon!!…taking her out to eat at a nice restaurant…Tomorrow I’m running a marathon!!!…quiet, relaxing weekend…

TOMORROW I”M RUNNING A MARATHON!!! Now what did I get myself into?? Probably not a quiet, relaxing weekend. But exciting, yes it will be that…

You’re fired!

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Have you ever wanted to fire a customer??

Yesterday, when I was at work, a customer hung up on me. That was after 20 minutes of calmly listening to her scream at me.

Is the customer always right? Thank God she is a small customer that only calls on us about once a year. She didn’t understand why some products have variable prices. She explained to me that if she was being charged $15, then she shouldn’t have to pay more than that. I explained to her that in some instances, the price is variable because we have to pay more than what we are charging. Unfortunately, this happened to be the case in her situation. We were asking for less than we would have to pay.

So she said terrible things to me about how stupid I was, how I didn’t know what I was doing, etc for almost 20 minutes. Even though I have been doing the same thing now for almost a decade and she was calling me asking for help. Then she told me that she expected a call back from the owner (my husband) and promptly hung up on me.

All it takes is one customer like this to wreck a good day. It made me wonder if all of the hard work of owning a business is worth being treated this way at times. It really wears me down after awhile and burns me out. It takes away my joy and motivation. I know I should just let it roll off of me and for the most part I do.

Having this business has changed me, hardened me. I often see the worst of people. I don’t like people. I don’t trust what they say. I feel restless and bored. I lack compassion in order to protect myself from caring too much. I fantasize about retirement, having money and living on the beach in a warm climate. Seeing the world, sailing the world.

Encouraging words are few and far between. I saved a handful of emails over the years from clients that thanked me for helping them and told me how much they appreciated all that I do for them. These clients are the real treasures, the ones that motivate me to keep on doing what I do. There needs to be more people like this in the world!

How hard can it be to be nice to someone for a few minutes? Be a jewel and not someone that everyone hates talking to. Thank God the irate client is an infrequent customer and not a family member! How could you live with someone like that all of the time??

About a half an hour later, the irate customer called my employee. She spent another 20 minutes complaining about the $15. Seriously, we had a lot of work to do. Our time that she took was worth a lot more than the piddly $15 that she was complaining about paying. Maybe we’ll have to assess a difficult customer fee. Lol. Although I wouldn’t want to be the one that has to explain those charges!

I hope I don’t have to take anymore calls from that customer or anyone like her in the near future. It’s so frustrating. She was challenging my patience and composure. I just wanted to yell, “You’re fired!!”. But I am too nice to do that even to a competitor.

Something good did come out of the situation. My employee complimented me on my ability to keep calm and professional throughout the trying customer service call. It sure did take a lot out of me though.

Well, I had better get back to work…the phone is ringing!!

 

Seeing beyond the surface

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Last weekend my aunt Jan found a body in the lake in front of her house.

I have always had a love hate relationship with my aunt Jan.

My aunt Jan is bossy, critical, and controlling. She demands that things are her way, she doesn’t ask.

When I was a young girl, we used to have family reunions. Every year aunt Jan would pressure me into playing volleyball with the family even though I told her I didn’t want to because I sucked. Then I would play horribly and she would yell at me for sucking. After that happened several times, I had a “negative attitude” by refusing to play.

Games were played by her rules. I remember a few years back being involved in a family board game when she just announced out of the blue that the game was over. We were right in the middle of the game! It really made me mad, but she packed up the pieces and put the game away.

Every year at Christmas time, she demands that Angel and I sing Christmas songs. “You are singing and you are singing right now”. It makes Angel rather angry. But for some reason, I don’t protest or rock the boat by being disagreeable despite hating being told what to do.

Aunt Jan is a clean freak.

Several years ago a few members of our family along with Jan rented a large tent camping site close to her house. In the early morning hours a freak storm popped up. We packed up our camping equipment then huddled dirty and wet in her garage. She would not let us into her house to use the bathroom because we were too dirty.

She recently hosted two bridal showers at her house. She told the guests that they were not allowed to wear spikes because it would wreck her floors. There was no clutter and not one item was out of place. She made it known that children were not welcome. Children make messes. Both times my oldest daughter (17) was invited, but my youngest (13) was not. My youngest cousin who is also a teenager was not invited. This caused a lot of hard feelings.

Unfortunately, my aunt seems more concerned about the state of her house than she is about her relationships.

You may be wondering, like my husband and daughter do, why I don’t just tell her off. Nobody’s perfect. For all of aunt Jan’s perfectionism she is far from perfect, but we love her anyway. Sometimes I need to look beyond the surface of what I see to what I know. For all of Jan’s negative personality traits, she has some really good traits too. 

Aunt Jan is one of the most compassionate people that I know. She has a big heart for those who are suffering.

Out of my mom’s four sisters, I think that Jan was the one that helped my mom through her hard times the most. She spent a lot of time listening to my mom. I could tell that she truly cared. She didn’t turn away when my autistic brother Matt had some of his darkest days like a few other family members did. I saw that she was there for my mom when she needed her the most. For that, I will always be able to overlook some of her annoying quirks. 

A few days ago, someone left flowers on aunt Jan’s doorstep. I can’t imagine how horrifying it must have been for her to find someone’s body in the lake in front of her house. When I was there earlier this month, the lake was cool, calm, and beckoning. It didn’t look capable of taking a life. 

Sometimes our eyes limit what our mind can see.

 

 

Bear with me

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I had to take the last couple of days off from writing. I still haven’t been feeling all that well. The stomach ailment that I had last week set my acid reflux into over drive. I have been feeling very nauseous as well. I finally broke down today and called the doctor’s office. I was so afraid that I would need to be scoped, instead I was prescribed some anti-nausea meds. Hopefully that will help. 

I have been downright crabby at home, not just because I haven’t been feeling well. Everyone is sick of hearing about it around here. 

Bear with me!

This past weekend, Angel had her last choir concert. It is finally starting to sink in that she will be graduating soon. I have been mopey and crying about this fact off and on over the past couple of days now. I told you I am a mess!

Bear with me!

This weekend is the marathon. I finally have some sliver of hope that I will be able to run it. Maybe I will be feeling better!?! The last couple of days, I did run really fast to the bathroom though. It has almost been 2 weeks since my last run. Tapering down is never a good thing for me. When I can’t run, I get pretty psycho. Yesterday, I was so moody and angry that I broke down and took the dog for a walk. 

Bear with me! Or just say screw it and be a bear with me!

A piece of cake…(or not)

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I thought I was feeling better…

Last night Arabella had her 13th birthday sleepover. Yesterday was also the third day of my stomach ailment. I was feeling better with no problems after eating a bland diet for over a day. I was symptom free. I was finally hungry. I thought I could handle one slice of stuffed crust pepperoni pizza and a small piece of ice cream cake. Boy was I wrong.

The party itself did not go totally as planned. There were a couple of girls that were upset that they weren’t invited, but I had to set a limit. I am not that much of a saint, or martyr, for that matter. I even allowed the girls to sit out in my hot tub without me (a first). It was a cool night that produced a few snow flurries in our area. 

The girls really enjoyed the hot tub. In fact, almost all of them wanted to stay in it after Arabella wanted to get out. This, and a few other little things, caused some hard feelings. “Nobody wants to do what I want and it is my birthday party” kind of feelings. Arabella became angry and spent some time alone in her room after yelling at her friends. 

The kids came in with wet towels and suits which got water all over the bathroom floor. That wasn’t a big deal except for the fact that one of the girls slipped on the bathroom floor, fell backwards, and hit her head on the sink. Great, concussion watch! I specifically told them no stitches since that is precisely what happened at Angel’s 13th birthday sleepover. Should have added no concussions or broken bones. Besides a few cuts, scratches, and a big bump on her head, she was fine.

I kicked Paul out of the house to spend the weekend with his mom who has terminal cancer and his step-dad. He doesn’t have the patience for all of the noise and excitement. Alex left too to stay overnight at a friend’s house. Angel and I ran the party. After Arabella yelled at her friends, she was so upset that she wanted all of her friends to go home. Angel and I told her that she needed to apologize and get along with her friends. Eventually she did and I thought that at midnight I could finally go to bed. Wrong again!!

Right after midnight, I got sick again. Too much rich food after being sick. I spent the next 2 hours sick. In fact, I was the one that stayed up the latest at the sleepover without any acknowledgement. After that, I was up sick every couple of hours. When I got up at 6:30 AM, I was dismayed to find a couple of the girls awake! Screw it, I had to go back to bed for awhile. I woke up at 8:00 AM to strange noises in the kitchen. Half of the girls were eating a concoction that contained sugar, brown sugar, and hot chocolate with milk poured over it. Gross! 

I thought most of the kids would sleep in until 10 just like Angel’s sleepover. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!! I had planned on having them roll out of bed around 10 with a large brunch waiting for them of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and English muffins. 

Then we would be off for an afternoon excursion at a swimming pool 20 minutes away. The plan was that I would swim laps at the pool while they had fun. I have my first triathlon planned without a lot of time spent swimming yet. C’mon, there was snow this morning. Do you think I am going to jump into open water and start swimming?!? Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes my expectations are too high. Okay, okay! Quite often. Okay, more like all of the time. 

Maybe someday I should write about what I expect followed by what really happened. That actually might be interesting. And I thought that my expectations were realistic!! You know, kind of like that one time when I ran my first marathon. I thought that I might qualify for the Boston instead of barely finishing. This reality check is starting to make me crabby…now back to the story..

So I made this huge breakfast and salivated the whole time watching them eat while I was eating my bland diet. Oh sure, by that time my stomach was feeling just fine. However, I was dead tired from being up half the night because of it. After I cleaned the kitchen and threw in 3 loads of laundry, Angel and I took 2 cars to take the girls to the pool. We couldn’t fit everyone into one vehicle. The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. After the girls went home late this afternoon, I had to crash.

Yeah, I am ready to run a marathon next weekend. After this weekend, it should be a piece of cake (or not). Seriously, what can be more difficult than having 3 teenagers in the house?? Hmmm..

  

Sick pranks

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Finally, I am feeling a lot better! Not 100%, but my fever is gone. I am almost ready to host a house full of 13 year old giggly girls. The house has been cleaned and sanitized. I haven’t had a stomach ailment like this since I was 6 months pregnant with Angel. I remember spending the night in the bathroom curled up on the linoleum. Before that, I was really sick with food poisoning the day that Paul and I had dinner plans to announce our engagement to our parents. I’m sure this time you will easily forgive me for not being very descriptive in my writing about this. Lol. It was bad enough that I lost 6 pounds in two days. 

Of course, just because I spent a couple days sick doesn’t mean that my stories end. In fact it was quite the opposite. The day I got sick, Angel received a text from someone posing to be my son’s drug dealer. It seemed like Angel intercepted the message in error. It had drop off points and pick up times for a rather large amount of drugs. She texted me a screen shot and I went ballistic. Paul came home briefly for lunch and then had back to back meetings scheduled for the rest of the day. We spent a good chunk of that time troubleshooting the situation. Do we call the authorities? Who was texting these things? Was it true? Then how did they end up texting Angel instead of Alex? What the hell were we going to do? Could our son be a drug addict or dealer? 

It was all a very horrifying experience to deal with for several hours while sick with a fever. It was decided that I would have some sort of intervention with my son alone when he got home from school. Paul couldn’t cancel out of his work meetings last minute. After two hours of sheer agony over this, Angel called and told us that it was just a “friend” playing a prank on her. Apparently her “friend” borrowed another girl’s phone to prank Angel because she thought it would be funny. The girl whose phone was borrowed had a guilty conscience and confessed the situation to Angel. Guess what?? I didn’t find the whole situation funny. I am so angry about it that I never want to see that girl again unless it is to apologize to me. 

I told Angel if she gets anymore prank or harassing calls this year that I am changing her number. First, the guy that was stalking her, then some unknown person posing as a friend, and now this. 

How could someone think that something like this could be funny?? 

That is what I call a sick prank!  

A few good things did come out of it though. First of all, the allegations against my son were not true. Thank God! You don’t know how relieved I am about that. I was thinking such horrible things about him. Nothing about that was right. Second of all, my kids are not afraid to come to us with problems. We generally know what is going on in their lives. Once Angel told her “friends” how upset we were about their prank, they felt really bad just like they should. So in the end, maybe the prank was on them. Sure makes them look like idiots!