Worry

Cloudy with a chance of stalking

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

I will be leaving shortly. As you are reading this, I am probably on the road. I will be driving 2 hours to meet up with my daughter Angel who will also be driving 2 hours to meet me. Tomorrow she has a vocal competition at the midway point’s college.

We weren’t even sure she would be competing. She was sick with a fever off and on the last couple of weeks. She has been to the doctor 3 times in the past month and is currently getting over tonsillitis…which isn’t the best for a singer. In the meantime, my husband will be staying at home taking care of the business and kids.

On Friday, Paul is taking our son and his girlfriend to meet up with the family of the people whose cabin they had a party at this past summer. Quick recap, the daughter offered her family cabin for an underage drinking party, ended up getting busted by her parents, didn’t go but told the others to go without her. Twenty kids showed up and trashed the place. They want to talk to our son because we were one of the few parents that made their kid apologize and offered to help pay for damages. I have a bad feeling that the meeting is not going to go very well.

Meanwhile, I will be out of town with Angel. We will be at the college of her ex-boyfriend Mitch. This is problematic. A few years back, Angel befriended a guy named Jeremy while she was on a school music department trip. Angel liked the guy as a friend and Jeremy liked her more than that. At the time, Mitch and Angel were dating.

Jeremy started stalking Angel. He hacked into Mitch’s facebook account. He sent her threatening messages from random numbers on her phone…one of them said that he would rape her. Then Jeremy punched Mitch on the campus we will be visiting this weekend.

Wait, there is more…After Mitch and Angel broke up, Angel confided in me that she thought that Mitch could have been posing as Jeremy all along. Either way, it doesn’t matter…they both go to the college we will be at tomorrow. Chances are we might run into one of them and things could get dicey. We have no idea who the guilty party is…that makes it really hard to know what could happen.

I am going to the college to support my daughter and also as a bodyguard so to say. I don’t think that either guy would be willing to give her grief in front of her mother. In my mind, I think I could take them on. A karate chop to certain body parts. Hiyyyaaahhh! Realistically, an athletic woman in her 40’s probably doesn’t stand a chance fighting a couch potato 20 year old male. But it would be very entertaining.

I am happy to have some time to spend alone with Angel. I haven’t seen her for a month. She hasn’t been home since August and is starting to feel homesick for the first time. It is hard to be sick away from home without a mother to give you chicken noodle soup. Not to mention not having a doctor and having no clue what to even do.

AAAAGGHHHH!!

Then after all this is all said and done, I will be turning around and heading back to the same college campus for a college tour with my son next week…

Will the insanity ever end?????

The sign

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

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.

 

 

Enlistment?

/ Outrunning my demons / 3 Comments

Last night my son told me that he was planning on enlisting in the military after high school.

He has been talking about it for the last couple of weeks ever since we started watching a Vietnam War series on public TV.

My dad was in the Vietnam War.

Times have changed a lot since the 1960’s.

But really have times changed that much?? After watching several episodes about the Vietnam War, it really hit me for the first time how hard the 60’s were. A president assassinated, political unrest throughout the country, violent war protests, young men drafted…

Times were tough for my family then…My dad went off to war while my mother went off to college..While her then boyfriend was at war, her mother died. She had to tell my dad in a letter…he missed the funeral. My mom’s college finals were cancelled because of bomb scares and there were violent war protests out in the streets. My dad saw his buddies die next to him. I can’t even imagine.

My grandparents had to send their only child off to war…My great-grandparents sent their only grandchild off to war…several decades before that all of their children were in the military for WWII.

Today was my grandpa’s birthday. He passed away the year my son was born. Even though they did not have the opportunity to get to know each other, they are a lot alike. My grandpa was full of piss and vinegar. Before I was born, he was a bit of a bad ass. He rode around on his Harley with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Although he was a small man, people didn’t mess with him. He wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he believed in. My grandma was the only one that could tame him.

I see my grandpa in my son.

My grandparents were wonderful people. They are a big part of the reason why I am sitting here typing this today. They insulated me. I would be a huge mess of a person if they weren’t a big part of my life growing up.

I feel proud of my son. I think this is the right move for him. He would thrive with the structure and discipline the military would offer him. It’s just the mom in me that feels worried.

 

Biking the rat race

/ Outrunning my demons / 3 Comments

This morning I thought I would go for a bike ride at first light. My kids already left for school and I thought that maybe for once working out wouldn’t conflict with work.

It wasn’t my best idea. I got caught up in the rat race of people rushing to get to work and school.

I had to slow down for the neighboring school’s buses. I counted 4 buses on my(?) route. Several passed me before stopping in front of me to pick up kids.

What would I do if I can’t unhook my shoes from the pedals?

I slowed down for a bus stop, then had to speed up because there were dogs out.

Interval training at its best.

Everyone that wasn’t on the road seemed to be letting their dogs out for the morning. Will they chase me??

I learned several things…First, the neighboring school district has nicer buses than ours. Second, I now know the garbage pick up schedule.

If I did fall off my bike surely everyone and their neighbor would see me….school children, moms holding hands of children waiting for the bus, and people taking out the trash. Maybe I would fall in a dumpster. Maybe I would get hit by a car, garbage truck, or bus.

There were wild turkeys grazing on the side of the road. I couldn’t hug the shoulder. I couldn’t hug the middle of my lane as the cars whizzed past..

Biking kind of makes me feel stressed out..

Why do I even do this anymore?

That’s right, I spent a lot of money on the bike.

It was a cool and windy day…soon it will come to an end and my bike will be put away for the winter…then next spring I will start all over again…but I probably won’t be biking the rat race anymore… I mean, I didn’t even get a participation award..

On casting the first stone

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This weekend something happened to me that caused my blood to boil. I felt furious enough to punch someone.

Saturday morning I did a 12 mile run outdoors. It was a lovely fall day that drew many people outside on bike, foot, and car.

As I was running mile 7, I saw a lady about 10 years older than me walking in front of me with her unleashed dog. A car was coming towards us in our lane. There weren’t any cars in the opposite lane. The lady in the car did not move over or slow down for the dog or the walker. After she passed them, she veered in my direction. Then she quickly swerved back into her lane as she sped by.

I was really upset and complained to the walker about crazy psycho drivers. I slowed down to walk next to her. I didn’t think I could run past her without her dog chasing me. After petting her dog a couple of minutes and venting my rage, we introduced ourselves.

The walker told me of a man that ran by her house all of the time. She thought perhaps I would know him. She said that she started seeing him many years ago and that he lost a lot of weight. He always runs with a beagle dog that, although old, never seems tired. And on and on she went about how wonderful the strange man was…

Maybe I know who he is?? Yes, he’s my husband!

When I got back home, I told Paul about his secret admirer. I told him that I had a conversation with her after our run in with a careless driver.

Paul gets very upset when I tell him about my close calls out on the road. I’d like to say that it doesn’t happen very often, but it does. It makes me even more enraged when people do not move over or slow down when there are animals or children on the road.

Paul said that he had the perfect solution. He said that I should carry a rock while running. If they almost hit me, I should take the rock and chuck it at their car. Perfect!

Forget the mace and rape whistle! My biggest threat isn’t from dogs or the creepy guys that cat call as they drive by. My biggest threat is from the psycho drivers that almost run me down as they speed by. I was even wearing my ‘honk if you’re going to hit me’ shirt. But the words are on the back of the shirt, not the front. My bad!

Carrying around a rock was Paul’s best idea ever. It seemed out of character for him to give that kind of advice. He regretted his words immediately after uttering them.

What if your hobby of running gets you in trouble with the law?? What if they get out of their car and beat the crap out of you?

Seriously, who cast the first stone?

**Honey, if you are reading this…Not to worry, I probably won’t start taking your advice anytime soon.**

Walking away

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

I bet you were waiting all weekend to hear if we have bedbugs. Good news! We don’t.

We spent money to find spiders apparently. But I have a piece of mind that everything is okay.

We have since moved on to our next crisis.

Our son’s car broke down right after the exterminator left. The car started steaming when he got to our road. When he pulled into the driveway, all of the antifreeze leaked out. Today we had to get the car towed to the garage to be fixed.

We have been having record high temps in WI. It has been hotter the first few days of fall than it has been all summer. All I wanted to do was go to the beach, but that never happened.

On Saturday we drove a couple hours to go to my friend Lisa’s 40th birthday party. She wanted to go to a small town’s Octoberfest.

While we were there, we heard from a friend that we might get sued.

Just a quick recap…last month my son, along with 20 other kids, went partying at another girl’s cabin without her. She got busted by her parents with alcohol but told her friends to go anyway. She gave them directions and told them how to get in. There was some minor property damage…a broken water pump, broken glass, blood on the carpet, and penises drawn on the wall.

We have been in constant communication with the parents and have offered to pay for a share of the damages. Now we are wondering if we need a lawyer. It doesn’t appear that my son will be facing criminal charges since he got permission to spend the weekend at the cabin via text from the daughter. However, we don’t want to get sued. We know some of the other parents will be unable or unwilling to pay. Will they go after us for more than our fair share?

I didn’t feel like celebrating after hearing we might be going to court. I didn’t even do one dance. I took a walk through the small unknown town by myself. I needed to be alone to think. I walked until I saw the courthouse and sat on the steps. It seemed bizarrely suiting for the occasion.

Sometimes I feel like walking out of my house with the clothes I have on and never coming back.

When I am really upset, I aimlessly drive for hours or go on a long walk. Last night I went for a long walk. I felt anger and despair. I wondered if God really was there.

Paul and I have been upset and/or fighting about this all weekend. We accused each other of not caring about the other, but neither one of us said that we didn’t care.

Now we just sit and wait wondering what will happen next. We just want this to be over with. We want to stop feeling angry every time we hear about it. Thankfully Paul and I are getting along better today..It is hard to be angry and to express that anger without feeling blamed or attacked.

I just want to walk away…or better yet, sit on the beach oblivious to the cares of my world..

 

Torn linoleum, bed bugs, and a touch of poison ivy

/ Outrunning my demons / 7 Comments

Remember last year when I told you about our worst return home from a family vacation to Florida??

Just a quick recap…we pulled into our snow covered driveway to find our pet sitter stuck in a snow bank…our house was covered in dog piss, feces, and vomit. There was wet pee covered towels shoved in under clean, dry towels…and someone went rummaging through everything in my bedroom..

This return home from Florida was up there with the worst.

We had a great time in Disney…then Paul and I stayed a few days for a conference..At the conference things started to fall apart. I was having a hard time sleeping and got a head cold. I had to force myself to stay awake for the seminars and was too tired to do a lot of the fun stuff afterwards. Great!

The kids spent the weekend at a camp up north for a family reunion with my mom.

The first problem came on Saturday afternoon when the new pet sitter arrived. She noticed that the dog got locked in our bathroom. I usually leave the bathroom door closed. But since I wasn’t there, it was left open. Upon leaving, I am always the last one to leave the house to make sure the oven is turned off, etc…to make sure these types of things don’t happen.

This is what I came home to:

Someone left the door open and the dog trapped himself inside. Our dog tried to scratch his way out of the bathroom. He tore the linoleum and clawed up the door and trim pretty good. To think that all of my worry scenarios involved teenagers trashing my house, not a geriatric dog!! Seriously!!!

Great! Good thing my son had that flooring job for the summer.

The following day, my son contacted me about bites all over his body. My mom thought it could be poison ivy since he walked near some. My son thought it was bed bugs.

The next day, he was covered in a rash.

I blew off some sessions to make a doctor appointment. Then I had to stay on hold to give parental consent since he is 17, under legal age.

The doctor didn’t know what was causing the rash…she told my son to thoroughly clean his room. That was the best advice a doctor ever gave my kid.

My son bagged his bedding and vacuumed his mattress. He thought he saw bugs, but wasn’t sure.

Meanwhile, my mom called the camp they stayed at for the weekend to ask about bed bugs in his cabin. This prompted a visit to the camp from the health department with no signs of bed bugs there.

Then I blew off some more sessions to contact my friend who works for an exterminator. To make a long story short, tomorrow I have an appointment set up with someone that does canine inspections for bed bugs. I really hope it is poison ivy or spiders. Yes, I am starting to like spiders even more..

At least this time I knew what I was coming home to. Although that did not make it easier..

I felt so miserable being sick. I felt stressed out about everything at home. I wanted to take a nice long walk…at night…on the freeway…but instead I literally cursed my luck with a few 4 letter words..

Why me?? Why??

I have a feeling this workation is going to be a lot more expensive than we had planned. It already cost what little was left of my sanity…

 

Blizzards, hurricanes, and airplanes

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My husband and I are flying to Florida next week…or at least we are (were??) planning to.

As you may have guessed, we have become obsessed with the news coverage of hurricane Irma. We are going to Orlando for a conference and decided to go a little early to spend a few days at Disney without the kids.

I was surprised to see people sharing things on Facebook about it being the end of the world. Major hurricanes, wildfires out West, and a solar eclipse…but all of these things have been happening since the beginning of time. At least we have modern technology to know about the storms before they hit.

Some people also have been thinking that the world was ending for awhile too. I remember hearing stories in my lifetime of people waiting on their rooftops for the end of the world to come. They would’ve died waiting too…which sends my thoughts to wonder how many fell off their rooftops? I wouldn’t want to climb out on mine, especially in winter.

Maybe people are talking about the end of the world because it seems like America is getting hit with some pretty nasty natural disasters.

Did anyone proclaim the end of the world when eBola hit Africa?? What about during the Salem witch trials, the year 666, and during the bubonic plague??

My brain might explode!

Do I believe that someday the world will end?? Yes, perhaps so, but I believe that the world has been ending since it first began. Kind of like life…people will debate over when life begins..Does it begin at conception or birth? But no one would debate that the minute something is living that it begins the process of dying whether it is a plant, human, or animal…

Wow, that is morbid and deep…okay, enough of the philosophy.

I don’t know if we will be flying out next week…As a Midwestern girl, I know nothing about hurricanes. I’ve only dipped my toes in the ocean a handful of times. I’ve never seen a shark in the sea. I’ve never seen an alligator or crocodile in its natural habitat. I couldn’t tell the difference between them.

All that Wisconsinites know about is blizzards.

Most of us know how to drive in a foot of snow. Some people around this neck of the woods can manage driving in a foot of snow drunk. I wouldn’t recommend it.

We rarely shut down for more than a day for a snow storm…usually a few hours. Most people have a truck, snowmobile, or 4 wheel drive. We’ve gotten used to white out conditions, sliding into snow banks, and leaving the house when it is 20 below without gloves and hats. We can live 3 months barely seeing the sun. We’ve become accustomed to seasonal depression. We shovel the snow out of our driveways with snot dripping and freezing onto our jackets. We are so desperate to get out that we fish on the ice. The bravest of us see how long we can make it before turning the heat on.

But hurricanes, I don’t know anything about that! I can’t even comprehend its impact.

I suppose I too am guilty of being self-centered. I am worried about myself, my flight, my ability to get away for a few days. I seem to be more concerned about the storm for my purposes then the people that have lost everything even their lives.

I admit I am rather happy that all of the news on Facebook isn’t political rants, rioting, and that weird stuff about statues. But I feel horrible about the stories of devastation that are replacing them.

Oh, and I never did read that article about the end of the world.

 

Momster, life as a ‘mean’ mom

/ Outrunning my demons / 3 Comments

And just like that summer is unofficially over…It is windy, rainy, and cool with high temps in the lower 60’s. For today, I put the shorts and t-shirts away…oh and…THE KIDS ARE ALL BACK IN SCHOOL!

My youngest child just started her first year of high school today. How do I feel? To be completely honest…I just want this parenting thing to be over right now. Harsh, I know. Perhaps this won’t be a popular post, unless you are or have recently been parents of teenagers. Then I don’t even have to explain and probably wasted my time writing this post..

A few weeks ago, we took our oldest back to college for her second year. It does get a lot easier the second time around. We moved her in early since she had practice before school started. She was the first roommate to arrive on an unseasonably warm day. Her apartment was stifling hot and did not cool off quickly. She decided to sleep that first night in her underwear. She wasn’t aware that her foreign roommate would be moving in that night at 3 AM. Welcome to America! Awkward!

I received another call this past weekend about my son and the underage drinking party he attended at a cabin last month. To recap, my son was supposed to pick up a girl to take to her family’s cabin (to be more exact, to the cabin of her recently widowed grandmother) but she got busted by her parents with alcohol. So she told her friends to party without her. She explained how to get in if the door was locked. About 20 kids showed up and trashed the place.

The parents of this girl spent Labor Day weekend up north at the cabin and found more disturbing things. They left a message for me to call them back. As far as I know, they have not been in contact with any of the other parents.

Naturally, I was upset all over again and called back inquiring about the disturbing things. Apparently, the disturbing things were broken glass and blood on the carpet. My idea of disturbing things are needles, drug paraphernalia, and evidence of satanic rituals. They called several times now to just talk about things, to commiserate.

I am starting to wonder if this is the start of some bizarre friendship.

At freshman orientation, I spoke to Arabella’s teacher. She ran her first marathon last year when I ran my second. I felt like we had this quasi-competitive relationship. She is an attractive woman in my age group. We finished a few seconds apart. I asked her if she competed in anymore marathons since last summer. She said that she was trying to get back into shape. She also commented on how popular my posts are on Facebook. We are not Facebook friends and I didn’t think she even knew my first name. Although, she did call me about once a week when my son was in her class over nothing much really. Does that make us friends?

These relationships with other parents are so confusing! I wonder if she will call now that my daughter is in her class since she is a straight A student.

I have been the mother of teenagers for 6 years now. I have over 5 years to go..3 years, 8 months, and 10 days until my youngest is an adult. But who’s counting??

I am growing weary of it…the constant stress, the constant worry…the constant feeling of poking myself in the eyeball with stick pins..make sure to put your clean laundry away instead of leaving it on a pile with the dirty clothes on the floor.

If my son decides to go to college, and decides to go to a school nearby, I don’t want him to live at home to save money as previously discussed. I want him to leave and live his own life. I already nag my husband enough and don’t need another adult to nag..

I suppose this is a natural part of parenting teenagers…the not wanting to let go followed immediately by the desire to set them free..

A good friend of mine said that we shouldn’t make our home too comfortable for our adult children to return to. They should want to leave. Although her son flunked out of college and moved back home. So the whole idea is not working out great for her. She is beside herself.

So I am happy as another school year starts. I want my kids to mature, to grow up. I want to be their friend someday as adults like I am with my oldest child. I am ready for the work to be over and the fun to start! My adult daughter calls me her best friend…sometimes she tells me too much about what is happening in her life..

I no longer want to be the ‘mean mom’ that enforces curfews, grounds them when they have drinking parties at someone’s cabin, makes them clean their rooms, and otherwise teaches them responsibility as they resist my efforts to nag them into becoming fully functioning adult members of society.

 

Crossed i’s

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I had every intention of posting another day on my travel log. Although I have been working on it for a few days, it seems to be lacking something. Emotion, perhaps? Oh, I think I will more than make up for it today.

It has been a rough week. I haven’t been sleeping. For every good night of sleep, there are 9 nights of not sleeping well. Maybe if I felt rested things would be easier for me.

I awoke this morning crying. My MIL visited me in a dream. She looked the way she used to, all full of life before the cancer devastated her body. We hugged and said how much we missed each other. Then her husband Darryl started giving me his belongings in the dream and we feared he would commit suicide. It was all rather horrifying and something that we worry about.

Loss is hard. It hurts sometimes to care about other people.

I found out this week that one of my best friends is moving a couple of hours away. This weekend my daughter will be leaving to go back to college. I feel pretty bummed out. I feel a little lost actually.

To make things worse in my life…while I was updating my travel post for the ninetieth time, I received a phone call from a friend of a friend. It wasn’t a social call. It was a call asking what my son was doing this past weekend.

Apparently, my son was going to pick up his daughter to go to her cabin for a party. Her dad busted her with alcohol and grounded her. She told her friends to go ahead without her. So about 20 teens showed up at her family’s cabin, did some hard core underage drinking, and trashed the place.

It didn’t go well confronting my son. We implemented a no staying overnight at friend’s houses policy for a month, a curfew of 10, and he would have to contact the parent to apologize for his part in the party. He was really upset when we told him he also needed to contact his girlfriend’s parents. He was afraid that her parents would make her break up with him. Thankfully for him his girlfriend told her mom about it.

It’s been really hard to concentrate at work with all of the stress and lack of sleep. Next week we have an auditor coming in. We need to make sure all of our t’s are crossed and our i’s are dotted. I feel like I’m crossing my eyes.

We had employees take off this week due to illness or sick kids. I felt a little jealous. Is that sick or what?? Maybe if I was sick I would be able to sleep and be oblivious to the world around me.

Don’t worry…tomorrow I will post about travel. There will be a lot of nice pictures and a lack of nasty little emotions.