Frustrated

When I was 26 years old I took on the responsibility of being my mom's caregiver. Now, at first that only meant having her live with me. I didn't change my lifestyle completely at the time. I still went out with friends constantly and lived my own life. But slowly I started living more her life. I felt bad if I left the house to do something without her. I felt bad if I was doing something she didn't like, you know, things I had a right to do because I was an adult, but things she didn't like. I started to feel like I was 16 years old again.

Here I am 10 years later, and I'm raising children with her in the house, and I still feel like I'm 16 years old. I feel like every decision I make has to be OK'd by her. If my kids ask me permission for something, if she's there I look to her to make sure she's OK with it. I HATE that. Why can't I be an adult and stop looking for her approval before I do something? She doesn't necessarily expect me to get her approval, though she does give a good guilt trip if she doesn't like my decisions. But for crying out loud, when will I take my life into my own hands again? I don't like my kids thinking they should ask Granny not mom. And they do. If she and I are in the same room and one of my kids comes in looking for permission, they say, "Granny, is it alright if..." I'm standing right there, and they don't even give me a second thought. This is my fault, I need to take charge here. I'm so weak and wuss like.

And now, my dad is here. He's driving me INSANE! He was NEVER there for me. He was not a parent. He left when I was 4. He was a jerk the whole time I was growing up. He doesn't have the first clue about how to parent, let alone how to have a decent relationship with anyone. He says the rudest things to people, and is so judgemental. And now he's doing it to my kids and I am hating him for it! And he's made snide remarks to me and my mom, and I'm sick of it!! Who does he think he is coming into my life all of a sudden and thinking he has the right to put any of us down? He's the jerk who got fired and now can't take care of himself and has nobody willing to help him! I find myself confronting him like I never used to, and he doesn't like it. Any time I confront him and make him explain why he just made a rude comment about someone in my family, he leaves. Good.

I look at friends and cousins and people my age, and I see them being the adults in their families, and being who they should be at this age. Why can't I make the change in my life to be that? Decisions about my kids should be mine and only mine, and I shouldn't feel the need to look to my mom for permission. It's not like she's all knowing and superior, she should be Granny. God help me!

Untitled

I thought about calling this "Where Did You Go" or "Lost Girls" but can't decide. I had the desire to write a song one day. I was missing Allee a lot and they called and said they were moving Kristy. I'd never written a song before and suddenly really wanted to. It would be cool if someone like Pink sang it because Allee really liked Pink. Anyway, here it is, what do you think? Title suggestions?

I remember you, when I was a girl I was sitting on your lap,
You were whispering in my ear, mommy to me, together we’d be.
I remember feeling your arms around me keeping me warm, keeping me.
I wish I had a picture. I wish you were here now.

Where did you go when I needed you most?
Where did you go, I thought I saw your ghost?
I’m gonna explode, I can’t hang on
I’ve lost my way, I need you mom.

I can remember going to the fair
Laughing with you beside me eating cotton candy,
Hanging on to you as we flew through the air on the swings.
I remember being at home sitting on the porch
pointing out butterflies with you, being with you.
I wish you hadn’t left me. I wish you could come back.

Where did you go when I needed you most?
Where did you go, I thought I saw your ghost?
I’m gonna explode, I can’t hang on
I’ve lost my way, I need you mom.

I can remember searching the streets for you, wondering why,
Keeping warm without you at night,
then waving goodbye to you as they drove me away.
Sleeping in strange beds, living with strangers,
year after year while you were where?
I can remember hoping never to see you again, never to hear your voice again
But I didn’t mean it then, and especially not now that I won’t see you ever.

Where did you go when I needed you most?
Where did you go, I thought I saw your ghost?
I’m gonna explode, I can’t hang on
I’ve lost my way, I need you mom.

I’m all grown up now, I’m a woman on the run.
I can’t find my home, I can’t find my mom.
My daughter cries and I see your eyes, I hold her tight
And point out butterflies.
I hope I can be what you weren’t for me.
And keep her safe for eternity.
She’ll always know where I am, where are you?

Where did you go when I needed you most?
Where did you go, I thought I saw your ghost?
I’m gonna explode, I can’t hang on
I’ve lost my way, I need you mom.

Mom's Not Doing Well

My mom is just not doing well. She lost all that weight, and then the fluid started. She goes in to the hospital 3 times a week to have fluid drained off her torso around her lungs, and they can only guess that it is being caused by her Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, specifically the Lupus. So they did a CT last week, and found a HUGE blood clot in one of her lungs. Now they're in emergency mode trying to get that to dissolve. And yesterday she overheard them saying they also found spots all over her spleen but they didn't tell her what it was or could be.

God, please help my mom. She needs you right now, she's scared. I hate seeing her like this, and I worry so much.

Name the cliche: it's like old home week, they're coming out of the woodwork, when it rains it pours...whatever.

(I can't get a title on this post. Technology!)

One time I wrote this brilliant poem using all cliches. I was so creative and genius when I was younger.

Are you feeling like I may be ADHD today, jumping around like this? I had something to write about and it made these other dumb things jump in my head, and I decided to do a kind of stream of consciousness thing.

Anyway, yesterday I was minding my own business, and got an IM from someone I worked with like 4 years ago, and really haven't seen or heard from since I left the company. It was cool, and weird, and good to talk to someone I knew then. I don't have much contact at all with any of those people, and you'd think I would. These were the people I met and worked with when I first moved back to Idaho, and continued to associate with and work with for 3 years. They saw me through a lot of stuff emotional and otherwise. And now I don't see or talk to any of them. Anyway, she was good.

Then, last night, at about 10:30 the phone rang. Now, in our house, if the phone rings late, it's usually bad news. My mom answered, then made a face and I knew it wasn't tragedy, but she looked irritated. She handed the phone to me and said, "It's {insert name here}" one of the girls' birth mom. So I took the phone and very coldly said, "Hello." This woman has no boundaries and calls at very inappropriate times, even now after she voluntarily terminated her rights to her daughter. The woman on the other end of the phone said, "Hi! How are you?" It wasn't the birth mother, it was an old friend of mine. We grew up together and went to high school together until she dropped out our sophomore year. At one time in our lives we were inseparable, and then we were on different paths just like that. Now she was on the other end of the phone line. We didn't have a falling out, or hate each other or anything like that, we just went different ways. I was sitting there listening to her talk and thinking how different our lives turned out, and yet here we were talking the same as we always did. Is that how you know someone was meant to be in your life? Even though decades can go by between times you talk, you can just pick up the phone and talk like it's something you do daily? She's a good person. I'm lucky and happy to know her.

Thanks for reading my title-free post. Should it bother me that I can't put a title on it? I think I need chocolate.

Sorry Just Isn't Good Enough Anymore

People are becoming impossible to satisfy anymore. If something goes wrong, it's like they want you to perform magical acts to alter the world until they are happy again. Sometimes, even when things have happened that are unfair to you, it can't be made entirely right again.

I had this guy walk into my office this morning thinking he was scheduled for a test. The reality was, when he called and scheduled, he'd called the office in Boise and so he was on their schedule. The test he wanted, I don't give on Tuesday mornings, so I couldn't give it to him. On Tuesday mornings my office is open for walk-in university placement testing, and I cannot give the test he wanted to someone while my door is open for people to walk in, it's a federal testing policy. I offered to try to get him in when I give the test this afternoon, but that test session is full, so I couldn't guarantee he'd get in.

He wanted me to guarantee it. I couldn't, I only have so many seats, and the schedule for this afternoon was full. I can't call someone up and cancel their test because this guy wants to test. I was trying to explain this to him, in a nice way, but he kept escalating. He was sure this was our fault because he didn't know he had called Boise when he scheduled. He kept saying I wasn't doing enough for him. I didn't know what else to do. I told him I was doing all I can do, and I apologized for the mix up. It just wasn't good enough.

But it made me think. I get that way to sometimes. Someone does something to me, or isn't forthcoming enough so I get caused problems or inconveniences, and nothing satisfies me after that. I don't want to hear sorry from people anymore. Is it because "sorry" is said too often and used to excuse incompetence or offending behavior? In some ways I think so. When my kids say sorry I tell them to save it because they use it to excuse their behavior instead of taking accountability and then doing something to change that behavior. For so long I've thought it was just them, but now I see that we all do it. People and businesses don't take accountability anymore. When we screw up we say sorry then move on to do the same thing to the next person the next day.

I need to make a pledge, here and now, that when I screw up, I'll apologize and mean it. I won't use "sorry" lightly anymore, and I will change my ways when the things I do or say hurt someone or make someone else's life uncomfortable. If I expect my kids to do it, I should to!!

I'm Just Sad

I was just reading over a post I wrote for Tales about one of my girls who just got married this month. You know, after you write and publish you go out and look at it to make sure it looks and reads right. So I was reading it, and I got teary-eyed. That's just sad! Anyone got a Kleenex?

Pain in the...

ELBOW!!

Good grief! I fell, what, a month ago. Oh, I haven't posted since just before I fell, have I? See, I was walking out to the van, getting everyone in and ready to head to soccer. I had 2-year-old in my arms and was almost there when my foot slipped off the edge of the sidewalk. All I really remember is trying to keep my boy from hitting the ground (and he hit anyway.) For about two weeks I endured ankle pain from twisting it, of course. But apparently I did something far worse to my elbow, because it still hurts. It's taking me all day to type this post because of the waves of pain radiating from my elbow to my fingertips and from my elbow to my shoulder. They x-rayed and found nothing. I've had three different braces now, and this last one is too small I think because within minutes of putting it on my hand starts to puff up and anything I do hurts. I start physical therapy on Friday. Wish me luck, if that doesn't work, they'll inject steroids and immobilized my arm in a cast for three weeks. Wish me luck and thanks for reading!