Wedding

1 week

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Oh my gosh, I can’t believe the wedding is a week away. I feel the anxiety. There is a fine line between anxiety and excitement. My mind creeps over to worrying about the things I can’t control. What if I get sick? I worry about Angel and Dan getting sick. Angel who was always the one to get sick right before a big performance. The anxiety burns her body out and runs her right down. But the anxiety cannot be controlled either.

I have been trying to stay healthy. One of the biggest things I’ve been trying to do is drink more water. I started taking more vitamin D. I try to make healthy food choices and exercise every day even if it’s just a walk around the block. It’s been hard to give up sugar, not because I crave it but because it is in everything. Look at labels and you will be surprised. Pinto beans? Seriously, there is sugar in canned beans. What I miss most is sweetened coffee creamer. But I realize I could do everything right and still get sick. Maybe I’m being anxious thinking if I carry around some sort of rabbit’s foot I’ll have good luck. If I try extra hard to be healthy I won’t get sick.

I also wanted to lose a few pounds. The overweight comment by the doctor a few months back really stung. I feel old now. I felt really good up until 45. That was the year everything happened with my dad. Then right after that was when my daughter attempted suicide. Followed by COVID a couple months after that. Then I started having health problems. Maybe it would’ve happened anyway. It’s hard to say but no doubt the stress probably didn’t help.

I’ve aged a lot over the past 3 years. I stopped coloring my hair. It’s been two years now and no color remains. I haven’t had my hair cut since January and have no plans of cutting or coloring it soon. Angel says she likes my gray hair. I have to say the color is very unique, a sandy blondish brownish gray.

Nobody says I need to lose weight for the wedding. No one really cares but me. I just don’t feel like me anymore. Maybe I just want to feel young again. Today I went to the pet store and bought a 20lb box of cat litter. The young lady that checked me out called me ma’am and asked if I needed assistance carrying the cat litter to my car. Three years ago I ran a 50k and now I look feeble enough to need help carrying something to my car?

I swear I am trapped in someone else’s body. What really scares me is that I see my dad in myself as I age. He never exercised a day in his life, is obese, and has a lot of aches and pains. He is everything I don’t want to be, yet I find myself like him in some ways.

I’m afraid my arthritis will be acting up and I’ll end up sitting in a chair all night and not cutting up the dance floor. I’ve found that having arthritis is a delicate balance between not overdoing it and not doing anything at all. Today I would do anything just to be able to go running again like I used to.

I’m going to try to relax and not freak out so much about everything. But that is easier said than done. I was invited to a party tonight but opted not to go to avoid being in groups right before the wedding. Gotta stay healthy. The funny thing is I didn’t want to go anyway so it’s not much of a sacrifice. Why would I feel guilty skipping a party I didn’t really want to go to anyway? Am I obligated to go if I have nothing else going on?

Yesterday Arabella found out she has mono. In the last month she has had COVID, an ear infection, and now mono. She is sick all the time and her immune system is garbage. But she does nothing to take care of herself.

I just have to keep telling myself that regardless of what happens, Angel is marrying the right guy. It’s not about who gets sick or stays healthy. It’s not about whether or not my dress is a little tight around the waist. It’s not about whether the day is cold and rainy or if snow flurries fall. It’s not about how much I get out on the dance floor.

One week left, I have to stay focused on what really matters.

8 days

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Another dream, this time where the past meets the present. My best friend, not even invited. Not by my side as the matron of honor. Never to see or talk to again. I had a dream she was not invited to my daughter’s wedding. How could she be when she was not invited to mine?

I felt the pain of those left behind. Before it was Shelly. She was supposed to be my matron of honor. I was the maid of honor in her wedding. But along the way life happened and screwed it all up. You see, Shelly needed a job and my brother Matt needed a teacher’s aide in his special ed classroom. Maybe that’s where things went wrong. Matt was physically violent and at the time he was a full sized adult.

Matt didn’t like school much and had the tendency to hurt someone when he didn’t want to do school work which was quite often. One day after attacking Shelly at school, the police were called. The police came to school, handcuffed my brother, put him in the back of the squad car, and took him to jail. It was something my mom always warned us about. Watch Matt carefully he is an adult now and if he hurts someone he could get locked away forever. I haven’t been able to get over my fear of the police. Every time I hear a siren my heart races.

My mom was sick with fear for Matt. He was facing assault charges which were eventually dropped because he was incompetent to stand trial. I never spoke to my childhood best friend again. My mom flippantly said, “Oh well, you were going separate ways anyways.” I was going to college and she was working with my brother. But I wanted the choice.

My plan was to go to school to become a counselor. Then I was going to fix my family. That was when I was young and dumb enough to think I could. I already felt the weight and responsibility. If I only knew Matt was going to hurt someone before he did. I could have stopped it. It’s my fault he attacked someone because I was not vigilant enough. If I believed it was my fault, I also believed I could fix it.

I felt guilty on my wedding day because I didn’t want Matt there. I didn’t want Matt to hurt someone. When I got married, Matt was going through some serious health issues and my parents thought Matt could die which intensified my guilt. They got a room for him in the hotel we had our reception at. After the ceremony, which he didn’t attend, we had the photographer come to the room to take wedding photos with Matt. We were gone so long some of the guests chided us about what took us so long as we were coming down from the hotel room.

Now it’s my dad who is not invited to the wedding. I can’t say I blame my daughter for not wanting him there, but it’s still painful. What if people ask where he is? He was pretty sick a month ago and in my mind I thought maybe he would die and free me from the shame he brought upon us. It’s a horrible thing to wish for. As if I will ever be free from the pain he caused me. My counselor said if asked I could tell people he is not well enough to go. If further asked, I could tell them I will talk to them about it later. I am good with the plan. It’s the last thing I want to talk about. It’s my mom I worry about. She has a tendency to overshare and play the victim making it all about her when the focus should be on someone else.

Call me a slow learner, but I just figured out this year I can’t fix people. In fact, I don’t have any control at all. I thought I could fix my family of origin but they are way too beyond broken to be put back together. I can’t even fix myself. I tried to fix my husband when he was drinking too much. I felt like it was my fault. I was responsible for him. It was my job to fix him. How easily it was to jump back into my old role. At times I even thought he was drinking just to hurt me. He has been seeing a counselor too which has been helpful, but I think it will be something he will always struggle with. At times I can’t blame him. If drinking took away my pain, there wouldn’t be enough I couldn’t drink.

He thought he could fix me too. He thought he could be my knight in shining armor. He thought he could bring me out of the dark spaces I hide within myself. He tried to make me happy so he could fix my depression. Why didn’t my fear and anxiety go away? Didn’t I love him? Didn’t I trust him? Wasn’t he something to live for? Couldn’t I just stop feeling that way? Couldn’t he just stop drinking??

We couldn’t fix our parents, both of us having parents with addiction/mental health issues. We couldn’t fix each other. We can’t fix our kids who all show signs of addictiveness and/or familial mental health struggles to some degree. That was a hard lesson to learn. There is nothing like having to watch someone you love hurting. I wanted to do anything I could to take the pain away from them. It’s harder as a parent, especially being the mom, because there is a huge sense of responsibility to fix your children. How often is the finger pointed at the parents when the kids struggle? (I can tell you with a daughter who has Borderline, it’s a lot even from professionals that should know better). It’s even easier to blame myself.

I guess if there is any silver lining in this, we have been waging war against these demons for a long enough time to know how to fight them in the best way possible. It wasn’t the first time someone I was close to wasn’t invited or wasn’t well enough to go to a wedding. My best friend wasn’t invited to my wedding and I never saw her again. My own grandpa didn’t go to my wedding because he wasn’t well enough. I can only control what I can control. It’s not easy, but there is some peace in knowing when to let go.

10 days

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The church was full and I was in the front row. The sermon seemed to go on forever. It didn’t seem right, how a wedding was supposed to be. It started with a sermon and then they do the rest of the wedding later? I got a call saying it was time to get ready. On the way out, someone said next time not to do such a long sermon.

I went upstairs in the attic of the church to get ready. There was big puffy insulation laying on the floor and the ceiling hung low over my head in an upside down V. There was a small mirror, nothing else. I didn’t look right. Something was wrong with my hair. Something was wrong with my daughter’s hair too. Her long golden tresses were shorn short and didn’t look good. She was the bride, so my hair shouldn’t matter but I kept trying to fix it but nothing worked.

Angel’s college roommate’s mom was there helping us but she really wasn’t helping. She clucked and chirped acting really helpful but did nothing besides make me feel totally inadequate in helping my daughter get ready. I couldn’t even help myself. It reminded me of the college music competitions. Angel and her roommate getting ready to compete, both equally talented, but her roommate’s mom also went to school for music. She dropped names and acted like a big shot whereas I sat silently watching because I had nothing to say.

Angel, who thought I was an amazing singer and wanted my guidance in high school, long left me in the dust. I could hear the mistakes back then. The college competition singers were all extremely talented. Angel would ask, “Mom, did you hear where they messed up?” But I couldn’t hear it anymore. It all sounded the same to me. I was no longer holding that special knowledge we once shared. She could hear things beyond what I could hear. I gave her a gift and she went off running with it. What more could I ask for really? It was the feeling of being left behind when what I thought was once necessary and important. Bittersweet, a loss for me was a gain for her. I couldn’t help her anymore.

Loud heavy metal music was playing as we were getting ready. I knew the song, maybe it was a song by Alice in Chains both Angel and I like. I felt like it was sacrilegious to be playing that music loudly in a church especially overheard by the wedding guests waiting below. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like a prude when I told someone to turn it off because it was inappropriate. They put something else on, something I didn’t like which was more appropriate. I felt comfortable with that although it wasn’t what I wanted.

Then I woke up with 10 more days…

12 days

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We finally found a dress for Arabella at a bridal store whose tag line was something like it’s all about you. Arabella laughed at that one. She said her sister would kill her if she made it about her. Instead of department stores and boutiques, my best friend Cindy suggested dress shopping at a bridal store. Back in the day, before I met her, she worked at a bridal store and knows a lot about dresses. I really give her the credit for helping Arabella find a dress.

It was a very challenging experience because Arabella is not very proportionate. She must’ve tried on at least a dozen dresses before we found the right one. We had to find the largest sizes and they still didn’t fit the bust and were large everywhere else. There was one we were thinking of getting, but even that dress needed a lot of alterations to fit properly. Most of them did not fit at all and the rest of them showed most of her cleavage. If there is one complaint about bridesmaid type dresses right now it’s that they are very low cut. As the mother of the bride and bridesmaid, I do not want my cleavage hanging out. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to wear a low cut dress with a lot of cleavage to anyone’s wedding.

We pretty much exhausted every option for Arabella at the bridal store when we found ‘the dress’. She was fading fast and said she was pretty much done trying on dresses being very discouraged with the process and selection. As a last ditch effort, I started looking for dresses in the granny section. That is where I found the dress. It looks a lot like the dress my mom picked out. It was even the right color! It had a sparkly old lady poncho over a nice dress. I knew my daughter was going to say no way. But I told her to try it on anyway. I convinced her by saying she didn’t have to wear the ugly poncho over it and it was the last dress to try on. She tried it on and it fit perfectly. No alterations needed. It took a granny dress to find something that fit without showing too much cleavage. Sad, but we are done!

We were so overjoyed to find the perfect dress in the right color that didn’t need alterations. Now I think I’m ready for the wedding. My son’s girlfriend didn’t have a dress yet either. So I am letting her borrow one of my new dresses I never had a chance to wear because COVID cancelled the event I was going to. It looks amazing on her and matched my son’s dress clothes perfectly as well. Finally things are coming together. Just 12 more days…

Gratitude week 142

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  1. We experienced a notably warm summerlike weather pattern this week after three days of cool and rainy days last weekend. The cold rainy days made me appreciate the warmth more.
  2. Cool nights and a campfire.
  3. Friday afternoon relaxing on the patio by the pool.
  4. Finding dress clothes and shoes for my son to wear to the wedding within 15 minutes at the first store. After one day of dress shopping and a cancelled order, my best friend and I are taking Arabella dress shopping again this afternoon. I’m really hoping and praying we can find something today…
  5. I ordered a wedding gift for my daughter and her fiancé and it arrived the same day.
  6. I finished the book Don Quixote which was a challenge due to it being over 400 years old and over 1,000 pages long. There was a lot of wisdom to be found in it. It was interesting to get a glimpse of life back then. I couldn’t help but notice how different life is today. There definitely was not an emotional component to the book, yet I never dreaded to pick it up to read.
  7. Yesterday we went out to eat and sailing with friends to celebrate the September birthdays. The weather was perfect. It only started to rain right after we got off the water.
  8. We had Angel and Dan over for supper on Friday night. Oh my gosh, the wedding is less than two weeks away! Thankfully my daughter is very organized.
  9. I’m grateful Angel’s future mother-in-law is a seamstress. My mom and I went in to get our dresses fitted this past week.
  10. Mom and I got a massage.
  11. My son got together and practiced with his band this week. It’s been the first time since COVID. I didn’t know if they were ever going to meet again as several of the members are older retired school teachers. This group has had a positive impact on my son’s life and I’m grateful they are back together again because I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen.

19 days

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My son didn’t have to work today so I took him shopping to find dress clothes for my daughter’s wedding. It took 15 minutes, in and out. The first shop. The first set of clothes he tried on. I guessed correctly his shirt and pants size. Everything was the right color scheme. Found some black dress shoes. I had a coupon for 20% off. Done. It almost made me like shopping.

Meanwhile I got home to find out the dress I ordered for my daughter Arabella from Facebook marketplace has been cancelled. They didn’t even give me a reason. I will have to set up another dress shopping day. I’m running out of ideas of where to shop and time.

My daughter Angel sent me a message this morning that my Facebook account got hacked. I hope it had nothing to do with my attempted purchase. The fake account had my profile picture with a pride frame listing my pronouns as him/his. Really?? I don’t think any of my friends would be convinced I changed genders. It would be laughable if I wasn’t so frustrated about the dress order that got cancelled several hours after I changed my password. I’m hoping my credit card info didn’t get compromised. I don’t think it did, but still.

So, good news and bad news today.

Gratitude week 141

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  1. Summer, we had several warm weather days at the end of the week.
  2. It was so nice out on Friday that I said screw it and put off my to do list. I decided we should spend one day of the week just relaxing and taking it easy. It shouldn’t be reserved for that one warm day at the end of the season.
  3. I was able to spend time with all my kids this week.
  4. I finally found my shoes for the wedding. I searched harder for those shoes than the prince did to find Cinderella.
  5. Taking time to remember 9/11.
  6. The landscaping company that did our big project last year is going to replace somewhere around 30 plants that either died or didn’t come in. I’m really grateful for that because it looks like crap. I really wanted to understand what the problem was. I think what happened was since they did the project in November right before the ground froze they did not get the proper watering and care they needed to grow and thrive.
  7. We watched a really good series on Netflix called Devil in Ohio.
  8. Our elderly friend Vince stopped by for a visit.
  9. The grocery store had a really good deal on salmon and crab legs which we enjoyed over the weekend.

24 days

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In 24 days my daughter is getting married. Until now, the date seemed so far away. July was the bachelorette party with friends at the cabin up north. August was the bridal shower. Our 25th anniversary trip in between those events, still the wedding seemed far away. The calendar on my wall flipped once again and now it is less than a month away.

Time keeps marching on although I wanted it to slow down a little. Maybe we could go back to when Angel was still young and holding my hand. I find myself wishing for things that have already passed. I haven’t experienced a lot of longing for the past in my life up until now. The other day I had a dream she was leaving me. The feelings seem silly because she will always be our daughter even though she will no longer carry our name.

I have been busying myself getting everyone else ready for the wedding. I made the appointment for Paul to get his tux fitted. Yesterday I took Arabella shopping. I want my other children to have something nice to wear to their sister’s wedding. I don’t know why I thought I could just waltz into a store and find something. I haven’t seriously shopped for a nice dress for my daughter since before COVID. Remember when department stores had racks and racks of homecoming and party dresses? It’s not like that anymore. The only dresses I found a lot of looked like nightgowns, pajama dresses.

It’s even more difficult to find something nice in the plus sizes. The only acceptable dresses that didn’t look like nightgowns were dresses my grandmother would be too young to wear, never mind a teenage girl. I ended up ordering a dress on Facebook marketplace and I’m praying it is going to work because my daughter is extremely busty. Thankfully she does have one nice dress she could wear if it doesn’t work.

I had a heck of a time finding shoes. My daughter wants me to wear nude dress shoes since I am standing up in the wedding. I do not own a nice pair of nude colored dress shoes. I started that search several weeks ago and came up empty handed until last night. I don’t wear dress shoes anymore. (Plus I hate the color). The only thing I could find looked either like ballet shoes or were two inch stilettos. No way! I did find a cute pair that looked promising only to try them on to experience excruciating pain with my arthritis and bunion. There was no way I could stand to have them on my feet much less stand up with them for the wedding. Last night I found an ugly pair of dress sandals on clearance that don’t make me feel like someone is sawing off my foot. Done.

Yesterday I started a new diet. Okay, I will tell you right now I am an incredibly vain woman. A couple months back when I was diagnosed with arthritis, I also got diagnosed with being overweight. The doctor said I should exercise more. Funny thing was before I started being in pain all the time I was at the gym 3 times a week and was running marathons. I was in a strength training class. I prided myself on maintaining a youthful figure. I thought it would always be that way until my own body humbled me. Now I’m all squishy. Not that anyone expects me to look like I’m 25 besides me when I’m almost twice that.

Yesterday I started the diet of no alcohol, gluten, dairy, and sugar. I’ve done it before after the bad bout of colitis I had. I did feel a lot better, but it is hard to maintain. I am hoping to lose some weight, but mainly to just feel better. I am not going to be super anal about it. But I would like to get back to being healthier again.

I thought I would write about getting ready for the wedding as that is what is happening in my life right now. I feel like I dropped the ball a little with everything being a super organized planner and all. In some ways I don’t think I’ve had to do a lot of worrying because my daughter is also a super organized worrier at planning her own wedding and I don’t want to step on her feet. I really didn’t think about it all that much and here we are at 24 days already.

Gratitude week 140

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  1. Summer, although I feel fall starting to slip in.
  2. A nice sailing getaway.
  3. A quiet and relaxing Labor Day weekend.
  4. Sleeping in my own bed with clean sheets.
  5. Angel came over for a visit and took down the balloon arch from her party. I absolutely hate the sound of popping balloons and there were still over 50 in the house some filled with confetti. I swear her future mother-in-law must hate me. Ha ha, never again will I have that many balloons in my house.
  6. My daughter’s wedding is less than a month away.
  7. My best friend and her family had a safe, fun, and relaxing trip to Europe to visit their foreign exchange student. It was their first trip abroad and I’m happy for them that it went well.
  8. A friend gave us enough firewood from the trees he took down to last us all winter. With natural gas prices skyrocketing, I’m grateful for free firewood to help keep our house warm.
  9. The house is clean and most of the laundry is done.
  10. My husband is making his homemade pizza tonight.

Gratitude week 138

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments
  1. I’m trying to enjoy what’s left of summer. In August we have the best weather here in Wisconsin. The stormy hot days of summer have mostly reached their end with warm days and cool evenings.
  2. This past week I ate, slept, breathed, cooked, cleaned, and shopped everything bridal shower. The bridal shower for my daughter Angel went better than I even expected it to.
  3. We had some difficult people attending the shower, but even they were on their best behavior. My sister-in-law Carla who we had issues with earlier this summer was a model aunt. She was over the top friendly towards my family which was greatly appreciated.
  4. I couldn’t have done the shower justice without the help of my daughter’s future mother-in-law. I’m grateful for all of her help. She’s one of those crafty type people and made a majority of the shower gifts. It seems like everyone went home with at least two gifts. She did pretty much all the decorations as well. She bought a balloon arch which I still have set up in my house with another 30 to 40 stray balloons everywhere. (I’m not too entirely grateful about that).
  5. I’m grateful that Angel, her future MIL, and myself stayed healthy. There is no way the shower would’ve happened if we were not able to be a part of it. My daughter Arabella had to miss the shower because she has COVID. It seems like everyone is sick again.
  6. I’m grateful that my daughter received a lot of nice gifts for their house. It seems like there will be a lot of cooking for them in the future.
  7. I’m grateful that after this past week the following week looks like it’s going to be low key.
  8. Leftover party food so I don’t have to do a lot of cooking.
  9. I’m grateful my daughter picked a great guy to marry.
  10. I’m grateful I don’t have to do any weeding for awhile after all of the weeding I did this past week.
  11. Everything has been cleaned up from the shower (except the balloons!!).
  12. My sister-in-law Emily spent the night with my two nieces on Friday night. It was the first time I saw my sister-in-law this calendar year. We don’t get together with family often enough, especially since COVID so it was nice to catch up.