Worry

Friend or follower

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You are my friend. I know so much about you. You know so much about me. Isn’t that what friendship is about? 

Never mind that you live across the world from me. Or that we have different viewpoints. Or different religions, peronalities, struggles, or birth order, etc… Who wants to be friends with someone exactly like them in every way anyway? 

I don’t have any formal training in writing. But if I write about very difficult and dark things, the next time I will try to make you laugh.  

I feel like I know you even though we wouldn’t recognize each other walking down the street. Maybe for a few minutes we ran next to each other in the same race. One thing is for sure, for a moment in time our lives intersected on the path of the human race.

Maybe we are the same age, but some of you are half my age or twice my age. In this world it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes I worry that I say too much. Sometimes I worry that I will run out of things to say.

Then I feel bad when I don’t hear from you for awhile. Are you okay? Sometimes my new friends disappear and I miss them. I think about the things that you have told me about your life. I can relate to your struggles. Sometimes I get attached. I find myself thinking about you when I am not in this world.

I understand how you may lose interest after the honeymoon phase of blogging wears off. It is a big time commitment. 

I understand that you may not have achieved your goals after you set the bar too high. Write about your failures. I want to hear about the good and the bad.

Sometimes I am jealous that you have more friends than I do. Maybe you will no longer be interested in my little blog. 

Sometimes I worry that you don’t have many followers or likes. I fear that you will become discouraged. 

If I don’t hear from you, I worry about you. I wonder why you left. 

Oh my gosh, did you die?? Would I even know? Or did you find that blogging was not for you. 

Does that mean that our friendship is over?? I’d hate for things to be one sided. I’ve never been one to totally dominate conversations.

Cabin chaos, part 4

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A couple of years back, Paul wanted to learn more about sailing. He signed up for a beginner’s sailing class. At the end of the class, the instructor suggested that the students buy a small sailboat to practice sailing. That is exactly what Paul did. He bought a 1960’s model 12 ft Puffer, complete with retro life jackets.

At the time, the sailboat seemed big. We took this boat up north and learned everything that we could on it. Since we bought a sailboat twice the size the following year, this boat looks so tiny. Now we keep this sailboat up north year round.

There were a few things that happened up north with the sailboat that were a little scary at the time. Now it makes for a humorous story.

We were up north for an unseasonably warm weekend in late September when Paul and Arabella decided to go for a sail. My mom was the one that alerted me of danger. A wind gust caught the small boat and tipped it over. Paul and Arabella were treading in cool deep water.

I couldn’t see them because the boat was blocking my view of them at first. I was worried that Paul got knocked out somehow. I feared that they were drowning or freezing to death. I tend to go through all of the worst case scenarios in my head. 

Paul said that they seemed to fall in slow motion. The biggest danger that they faced was losing the center board which he later secured.

I sent Angel and Alex out on a rescue mission in a paddle boat. I know what you are thinking. Really, a paddle boat?? Did that take a couple of months, or what? We didn’t have any other boats to send out. 

Meanwhile, under the stress of the rescue mission, Angel and Alex started fighting. I watched as my oldest two children started yelling, screaming, and swearing at each other over who had control of the paddle boat. The fighting escalated into pushing and shoving. Next thing I know, Angel was pushed overboard. Eventually, Angel and Arabella swam to shore and walked back to the cabin. I am glad we made sure that all of our kids are strong swimmers.

Paul and Alex struggled to bring the wayward boat back to shore. No lasting damage was done.

Too bad I didn’t get any pictures of that!

 

Grace uncommon, part 13

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It was the scariest night I spent at Aunt Grace’s.

Aunt Grace lived in the same big farmhouse her whole life. However, the family business replaced the farm that should have been next door. My great-grandparents built the house in the early 1900’s. At one time, the unincorporated town that she lived in was bustling and alive with businesses, families, and even a train that ran through the town.

The town grew old right around the time Aunt Grace did. A lot of the major businesses pulled out of town leaving behind vacant buildings. Big old houses, the old grocery store, the dance hall in the bar, and even the old bank that Grace worked at were turned into cheap apartments. Weeds grew along the creek that trickled through town instead of flowers and freshly mowed grass like before. The family business shut down and the windows were boarded.

Aunt Grace’s house was always cold and drafty in the winter. Her house was even cool in the summer. She didn’t have A/C. She didn’t really need it. I remember it being a hot summer night that eventful evening. We slept with all the windows open. The kids and I stayed with Grace during the week without Paul because he had to work the next day. Even though my dad didn’t seem to mind staying up all night with Grace during the week, he sometimes needed a break.

That night after I put the kids and Grace to bed, I settled myself in on the couch outside of Grace’s bedroom. I awoke to shouting in the middle of the night. I looked out the window to see four men violently fighting outside under the street light. Punches were thrown. Men were dancing around in a bloody ballet. Does someone have a knife? What am I going to do? Will I witness a murder tonight? I have to call the police. But how am I going to dial Grace’s old rotary phone in the dark?

I am very afraid. If they hurt each other, what could they do to us? What if Grace wakes up screaming like she usually does? What if the children wake up crying? I feel vulnerable. I can’t protect anyone. I can’t get to the phone. I’m afraid to draw attention to the house. Don’t turn on the lights. All the windows are open with only a screen keeping them out. I am afraid they will see me watching in horror. I am afraid they will hear my ragged breaths.

I watched for those minutes that seemed like hours. The men stagger away into the darkness no longer under the street light. Do they linger in the backyard? Do they mean any harm? The adrenaline pumps through my veins preventing sleep. I can’t believe what I just saw.

Aunt Grace slept most of the night.

Grace uncommon, part 5

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Sometimes when I was with her I felt like I was suffocating.

Aunt Grace not only wore navy blue clothes, she bought navy blue cars as well. Except for the two tone two door gold Olds Cutlass. Aunt Grace was hands down the worst driver I ever knew. I often felt car sick riding with her. My stomach churned as I watched cars move towards us then stop quickly. It seemed like the windows were always up without A/C. It was always hot, always suffocating. I was trapped in the back seat. There wasn’t any way out of it. I often felt like I was on an amusement park ride that I thought I could handle, but found out I couldn’t.

Aunt Grace drove through red lights. She never stopped at 4 way stops either. She was oblivious to the rage of others and to our terror. When she was on the two lane highway, she drove at least 10 mph under the speed limit. She drove with half of the car on the road and half on the shoulder. People never seemed happy when she cut them off then drove slow in front of them. People tailgated. Some people thought that the shoulder was another lane and would pass her even if there was oncoming traffic. They would often honk at her or flip her off. She never seemed to notice.

My grandma once told me a secret about Aunt Grace. When she was young, she got pulled over for speeding and received a ticket. Not Aunt Grace, it didn’t seem possible. I wonder if it was after dark? She would never drive after dark, it was one of her rules. 

Aunt Grace often times would go into the ditch while backing out of my parents driveway. They live on the top of a small hill so their driveway is on an incline with 6 ft ditches on the bottom of both sides. We always looked out the window when Aunt Grace left, especially during the winter months. At times she would slide into the ditch and get trapped in her car by the snow. If we didn’t watch, she might not be able to get out to ask for help. Sometimes we had to push her out of the ditch. It sure was a good thing Uncle Harold had a wrecker to pull her out with when she got really stuck.

I told my mom that I didn’t want to ride in the car with Aunt Grace anymore. My mom was also afraid of her driving and worried when she took us places. But grandma always rode with Aunt Grace, especially after grandpa got sick and could no longer drive. My grandma never drove a car. 

Travel woes, the mess we returned to

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The first 24 hours upon our return from Orlando was such an emotional roller coaster ride that it rivaled some of the roller coasters that we were on during our vacation. While we were gone, we had icy roads. School was delayed. On the way to work, our employee hit a patch of black ice propelling her into the ditch. It wasn’t her first accident, she was so upset that she could barely work. On our way home, we saw a car in the ditch. Disoriented people were wandering around outside of their car in the middle of the highway. We faced the prospect of having to shovel 5 inches of heavy icy snow when we got home that evening.

While we were gone, we hired my daughter’s 17 year old friend to pet sit. She has been our pet sitter for the past two years without any issues. That being said, we were not prepared for the mess that was waiting for us. When we got home, our pet sitter was stuck in our unshoveled driveway. Our garbage bin was lying in the ditch tipped over spewing out garbage that was put out too late to be picked up. We parked our car on the road, running into the house quickly getting hit with blowing snow while jumping over snow banks. When we got inside, there were piles of dog crap everywhere along with rings of piss and puke in multiple locations all over our living room carpet. The floors were filthy, there was dog shit caked on our toilet seat. 

Our pet sitter started crying saying that she got a second job and asked her mom to help her with the pets. Her mother is absolutely crazy. She is the woman that the neighbor’s called the cops on because she would speed around the school bus while its stop sign was out. She also overfed her own dog from her hand. She somehow thinks that people don’t feed their dogs enough. It seemed as if she overfed our dog without letting him out. There were 4 piles of puke which contained a total of about 2 cups of food, our dogs total daily food allowance. Our dog seemed sick when we got home and threw up again during the night. I started cleaning up the mess while our pet sitter cried hysterically. Paul was able to get her out of the driveway and start on the shoveling. After our pet sitter went home, she got into a huge fight with her mother where things were broken and thrown. 

While I was cleaning up, I noticed a couple of wet stinky towels bunched up underneath the rest of the towels. It looked like someone was cleaning up a mess but trying to hide it. Then the kids and I noticed that some of our things in our bedrooms were out of place. Someone went through all of our personal belongings. I have never felt so violated and sickened in my life. I cried thinking of how my pets were not cared for properly. The house was absolutely trashed. Paul and I were finally were able to get to bed around midnight. When I woke up the next morning, I discovered more poorly cleaned up piss rings on the carpet. We ending up spending as much money renting a carpet cleaner that we did paying our house sitter. I am kicking myself for not taking pictures of the mess we returned to.

The next day I headed back to work. I was so busy catching up from the time that I spent away that I didn’t have time to do any more cleaning. To make matters worse, my in-laws were coming over that night for supper. My mother-in-law was going to be in the area because she needed a PET scan. Back in November, the doctors found a tumor in her stomach and lungs. They did a biopsy on the tumor in her stomach because that was less invasive. They found that the tumor in her stomach was highly treatable, so we decided to go ahead with our vacation plans. In December, the doctors decided to do a biopsy on my mother-in-law’s lungs. She had a collapsed lung and pneumonia which they treated with heavy duty antibiotics. But what was troubling was the finding that the cancer in her lungs was a different kind of cancer that was in her stomach. They are afraid it may be in other organs. She had breast cancer 15 years ago, now 2 different cancers in 2 different organs. Monday we will get the test results.

When I got home from work on Thursday night, my mother-in-law was sitting in the recliner wrapped in a blanket. She did not feel good enough to go out to eat so we ordered food instead. She was so frail, weak, and sickly looking. It was hard to see her like that. When she left she spoke in a hoarse strained voice. She told us all that she loved us. She told Angel that she would like to see the college that she picked out someday. This is the point that Angel ran into the other room crying. My mother-in-law said good bye to me. She thanked me for being a great wife to her son. It seemed so final. I went in the other room to cry and comfort Angel. 

The beginning and end of our vacation was very rough. I am glad that we were able to get away for a couple of days of fun. I am afraid that the next couple months will be very difficult. I guess we will find out for sure on Monday. 

Travel woes, just trying to get there

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You may or may not have noticed that I took a week off from my travel series. I took time off from writing about traveling to actually travel. We decided to take one last family vacation to Florida before my oldest child graduates this year. The trip down to Florida and what happened at the end of the trip was so horrible that I am still upset about it. I decided to vent about my woes with you today and then write about the trip (which went great) in another post.  

Last week my mom, husband, 3 kids, and I flew out of Milwaukee with Delta to meet up with my brother Luke and his family in Orlando. We were not able to get a direct flight to Orlando and had an hour layover in Detroit. Our flight ended up being delayed in Milwaukee because someone over fueled the plane which caused us to exceed our weight limit. Eleven people needed to give up their seats due to this. They also had to get a large hose to remove some of the fuel. When we were finally able to board they still needed to de-ice the plane which took a long time because they ran out of de-icer. It took an hour before we were finally able to leave. At this point, the flight attendant assured us that if we had a connecting flight they were aware of our situation and would most likely wait for us.

We ended up landing a few minutes before our next flight was scheduled to depart. We ran across the airport as fast as we could and got to our gate two minutes after our flight was supposed to leave. We arrived to the gate just as our plane was leaving. They could not wait for us for 2 minutes!! Then we were herded into a long line of passengers from our plane. At least 20 people that were sitting near us missed their connecting flights. After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, we were able to talk to an agent that barely spoke English. He said that the only way he would be able to get all six of us to Orlando together was if we took a connecting flight to Boston. At this point, I was extremely angry. He wanted to direct us into Boston right around the time that the east coast was supposed to be hit by a blizzard. I pictured my family being stuck in the weather that we were trying to escape from. You didn’t want to hear the words that seeped out of my lips.

He booked us on the flight to Boston which we cancelled. Then he tried to get us all on the earliest flight available closest to Orlando. He had a few seats available but by the time he tried to type all of our names in the seats were gone. The best he could do was get an 8 PM flight to Tampa for my mom and Paul. He was able to get the kids and I on an 8 PM flight to Jacksonville. I would arrive in Jacksonville at 11 PM then have to somehow find a rental car to drive 2 1/2 hours in the middle of the night with 3 kids on roads I’ve never driven on to get to the house that we rented. You would think that they would agree to pay for the extra rental car to get us there. Nope, they told us that the flight was delayed due to weather and that they would not cover that additional cost. The delay was NOT weather related.

We noticed a half an hour later that another flight was leaving for Orlando. We decided to run across the airport to try to be on stand by for that flight. When we got there, they made the announcement that they were overbooked and were looking for volunteers to take another flight. That wasn’t going to work. We saw another flight leaving for Tampa in 30 minutes all the way across the airport. So once again, Paul and I ran as fast as we could with 3 children and a senior citizen with all of our carry on bags across the airport. When we got there, the Tampa flight was boarding. They told us that we needed to talk to customer service to be added to the stand by list. We went where they directed us to go and no one was there. When we found where we needed to go, we had to wait in line for 10 minutes to speak to someone. When we explained our situation, the woman told us that she needed to leave for her lunch break and directed us to talk to someone on the phone. While Paul was speaking to someone on the phone, my daughter called me in a panic to say that the flight was about ready to leave. We missed the opportunity to catch that flight.

Then we went across the airport again to get on stand by for the next flight to Orlando at 5:30 PM. It was at this time that I switched the Orlando rental car that I booked over to Tampa. I made several other troubleshooting and problem solving calls. I was so angry that I wanted to take my carry on backpack and slam it into the garbage bins to knock them over. I don’t think that I ever swore so much in my entire life. I don’t know what it is about yanking around people’s schedules (while feeling a total lack of control) that can turn reasonably sane people into raging bulls, but it does.

I will be totally honest with you right now, I am terrified of flying. Every little bit of turbulence, I agonize that the plane is crashing. I usually pop a couple of anxiety pills and sleep most of the flight arriving in a comatose state. Paul usually has to make sure that I get to wherever I need to be safely. I read everything that I could about flying to try to get over my fear. I read that planes don’t crash due to turbulence. Most planes crash during take off or landing. Thanks, now that scares the hell out of me too. I am afraid of dying. The thought of falling terrifies me. I feel trapped with a total loss of control while flying. My life is in the hands of some pilot that I don’t even know. You say that flying is safer than driving? Well, that scares me too. I spent a good deal of my life struggling with driving anxiety. I told Paul that I didn’t think that I could handle flying and then driving 2 1/2 hours after being awake 20 hours. He did everything that he could to make sure that the kids and I were on that next flight to Orlando. At the very last second, the person at the desk was able to get the kids and I on the flight. I told Paul to make sure that if they couldn’t get my luggage on that they would send it to Tampa. I had to fly totally alert and unmedicated ridden with anxiety.

Once we landed, I got the message that Paul and my mom were able to get an earlier flight to Tampa. They said that my luggage was in Orlando. My youngest two kids were fighting and touching the luggage carousel. I was just about going crazy, but I was there. My luggage never came out and I panicked. It turns out that they set some of the luggage to the side. Then, due to miscommunication, my brother did not know that he had to pick us up at the airport. We sat at the airport another hour waiting for him. Finally we got to our rental house after 10 PM. My mom and Paul ended up getting there at 11:30 PM.

It was a rough start to our vacation. I am glad that we were able to get there the same day. All of the stress could have been avoided if some idiot did not over fuel our plane. I don’t think I would have been quite as angry if we didn’t watch our connecting flight leave two minutes after the scheduled departure time without us.  Running back and forth across the airport with 3 kids and my mom was extremely stressful as well. I am thinking about writing Delta a letter. Unfortunately, our arrival back home was just as horrible and that had nothing to do with Delta. I will tell you about that next, this post is long enough already.

 

My soul is worn thin

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Do you ever have one of those days or long extended weekends where everything seems to go really wrong? Yeah, me too.

I tried to login to talk about this earlier, however my account seemed to be frozen. I imagined hackers who got into my account because I posted of my recent upgrade which means that I used a credit card. It really isn’t too far fetched because one of our credit cards did get hacked last week. I decided to really go nuts about security. However, what I didn’t know was that being secure would take so much time. I had to pick up my daughter from the bus drop off point. I imagined her sitting outside in the dark with wind chills below zero freezing because I needed to feel safe.

Oh it gets much worse. Friday night I came down with a cold. I’m sneezing with watery eyes and a runny nose. Saturday I heard that my neighbor and friend was very sick in the hospital with pneumonia. On Sunday she died. But she wasn’t the only one that died that day. Matt’s long term previous caregiver also passed away. I spent most of the day a crying miserable sneezing mess. Then I spent the evening at my son’s concert looking like I lost my best friend.

I was feeling very overwhelmed with my neighbor’s passing. She was a couple of years older than me and left behind two young children. It was unexpected. It was horrible. I am still in shock. We had made plans this week, now I am planning on going to her funeral. So I wrote a really touching tribute to her on facebook. This was problematic in and of itself. People don’t know me as a writer, this is still a secret life for me. I wrote it in such a way that people thought that she was like a best friend to me because it was so personal and touching. This made me feel very uncomfortable because I was not a best friend. It even prompted a message from an ex-boyfriend who said that he was available if I needed someone to vent to, someone who understands, someone who is ABSOLUTELY available. No, no, no, no,no!

Then I heard from a relative today that a cousin of mine was going to leave her long time husband and three little kids for another man. Sure, why not?? Is it to late to start the year over?

A runner’s nightmare

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It is the day of the marathon. I didn’t know it was today. I am not sure if I am ready. I have to go to the bathroom but someone cut in front of me in line. I pat her arm in disgust. I ran out of time and now I can’t go to the bathroom.

The race is ready to start, but my shoes are worn out. I can’t wear them. Everyone waits for me. I look down to find that I am wearing nice shoes but they are unlaced and on the wrong feet. Please don’t fire the starting gun. I see Gu 15 feet from the starting line. I relax a little knowing that it is there. But the beige package that it is in says flavorless. Next to it are little heads of broccoli. I cross the starting line looking for better shoes. I beg them not to start the race without me. It is now 8 minutes after the race was supposed to start. People are getting antsy for me to take care of my shoes. I put on another pair. This time they fit, but they are uneven. One pair is 2 inches higher than the other pair. I can’t run in those shoes. Another shoe is brought out, it is very comfortable but it is way too large to fit me. Somehow none of the shoes lace or fit right. People are getting antsy, a few cross the starting line. It is a big mess of disorganized chaos because of me.

Then I woke up.

Demons past, present, and future

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Every couple of months my mom and I take the day off of work to spend the day together. This usually involves going out to eat for lunch and getting a massage. Last week we had our mother-daughter day. This time it included a back burner task. I decided that we needed to take in all of our old family videos to be saved onto a hard drive. Silly me, I thought that we could drop off the old VHS tapes and be out of there in a half an hour. We ended up being in the store over an hour talking about not only converting our old family videos but also eventually taking the old family photos in to preserve them.  I know that I have at least 3 large bins full of pictures to scan. This is going to be a big project.

It was at that point when it really hit me that my parents are getting old. It seems like yesterday that I was going through all of the old pictures with my grandma and great aunt Grace trying to put names to faces. All of my grandparents are gone now. I have only one great aunt left. My mom is the oldest living sibling. My parents are close to 70. Now is the time to work on this huge project with my mom.

It is also the reason that I don’t want my mom reading my blog. She is getting old. I don’t want this to be a reminder of the most difficult times in her life. She finally has a sense of freedom that she never had before. She doesn’t need to be reminded of the hard times. I don’t need to remind her of the day that she was trying to stop Matt from hurting himself during a meltdown. That was the day that she ended up with a black eye and bloody lip. It would be very painful for her to have to remember those days. It is very painful for me. Her life has been very difficult, I want her last years to be happy.

Matt also went to my daughter’s choir concert this past weekend. At one point he became separated from our mother. He became very anxious and agitated pushing through the crowd to find her. I calmly reassured him that he was alright, that mom was close by. But what happens when she is no longer with us? How will I not only get myself through it but help my brother through when he cannot process change? Every time I spend time with my mom I reassure her that I will help take care of Matt when she is gone. It will be alright, I can do this.

I decided that I will write a book about the journey of life with an autistic sibling. It will be hard. It will be painful. Next year I will dig out the old box of journals written during the darkest years. I will share it with you. I will start the process. Maybe I will even find out why I can’t relax. Why I always have to stay busy. Relaxing makes me nervous. Why does my skin crawl listening to relaxing piano music? Why does quiet meditation fill my soul with terror? Time to face my demons. I can do this.

Why do I torment myself with this? Do you know how easy it would be to delete this blog and walk away like none of this ever happened? But I can’t seem to let it go.

Disabled family cohesion

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Yesterday was my daughter’s last high school holiday choir concert. My mom went and some close friends. You can really tell how close your friends are if they offer to go to see your child perform. I really appreciate that. Our family is a little more sketchy. My mom makes it out to 99.9% of my kids events. My mother-in-law says she is going to 50% of things and usually would cancel out last minute and make it to 20% of things. I think that not showing up at all is better than saying you are going and not showing up or giving a lame excuse not to go. My dad and brothers are very sporadic about showing up to events.

My kids all have late spring/summer birthdays, so year after year I would throw a family party for them all at one time. A couple of years back I decided to cancel the family birthday party due to lack of interest. I felt very frustrated and angry about the whole thing.

Then a couple of days ago I really started to examine the reason why there is this lack of cohesion within my family. Then I remembered every time that we went on family vacations together, all of the times that we went out to eat as a family, the hugs, the laughter, the times that my whole family came out to see my concerts, my graduation. Then I realized that none of that happened. No family vacations, I can’t remember ever going out to eat as a family when I was young. Those things didn’t happen.

This is what REALLY happened. My mom had to find someone to take care of my brother Matt to come to my events. Lots of times my dad would stay home with him. Matt has autism and Tourettes. Taking him out in public to an event such as a concert or graduation was nearly impossible when he was younger. He would often have a melt down in public. He was hyper with a lot of anxiety that he would have a melt down. His anxiety caused his tics to be worse. Tics included hand flapping, eye twitching, and throat clearing. At the very worst, he would injure himself or others and had so much anxiety that after going to an event he would be nervous and throw up for two days afterwards. People were a lot less sympathetic towards those behaviors back when I was young.

So my brothers and I grew up living separate lives. We went to separate schools. We did not support each other. We never learned how. Luke didn’t go to my college graduation or party that followed it because he chose to be with his friends instead. When Luke graduated from college, I went but had my husband stay home to help take care of Matt. When Mark graduated from high school, I didn’t go and went to work that evening instead. Mark never went on to school and I missed his only graduation. It was only later that I learned that family events are important but I can’t go back.

But I can move forward. I can show my children how important it is to support their siblings. I can encourage them to attend their events. I tolerate them saying that they are bored. When is it going to be over? Is it almost done? I am trying to teach them this lesson now so they won’t have to learn it the hard way like I did.

It took me a long time to get over the hurt, depression, and worry involved in extended family events. I can finally say that I get along with my parent and brothers the best that I have ever gotten along with them. I do see my brothers, especially Luke, making more effort to have a relationship. Matt has an easier time going out to events. Things are finally coming together in my story.