I think I've known for a very long time that my mother didn't love me, and I'm not saying that in the hopes of making excuses for my past behaviors and my shortcomings now, I'm saying it because I believe it to be true. Growing up I was all but invisible, if I wasn't serving some purpose, be it babysitter or confidant. Once when I was around 9 or 10 I decided to run away from home. My grand plan was to live under the bleachers at the ballpark across the street from our house. I wrote a note to my mother telling her that now she could have her three perfect boys all to herself, that now I would be out of the way. I wasn't gone very long, it was cold and dark outside, and when I got back I thought she'd be so relieved to see me, so happy. But nothing. I don't know if she even realized I was gone.
When I was in the 8th grade I had my first boyfriend. We ended up dating for the better part of the next four years, until he moved away to Florida. He and I had sex in the spring of our Freshman year. The next winter I got pregnant. I was one of those stupid kids who thought things like that happened to other people, certainly not to me. On the day I came clean to my mother I had already decided that I couldn't continue the pregnancy, in my mind there was no other option. 15 and pregnant was not how I had pictured myself, and I knew I had to take care of it so that I could go on with my life pretending that it had never happened. I begged my mother not to tell my father, I knew that he would be beyond furious. In looking back I understand that she had to tell him, that he had a right to know. When I was called down from my room to the kitched table that day I kind of got a glimpse into how a convicted murdered on death row must feel as he's led to the electric chair. I knew it would be bad, I just wasn't prepared for how bad it would be. For the next two hours my father proceeded to tell me what a pig I was, how I was no better than the slut next door, how not having the baby was murder, how wrong it was. Over and over I cried that I was sorry, that I never meant for it to happen, but nothing I said made a difference, he just told me to shut up. My mother just sat there the whole time, watching me cry, listening to me beg him to stop. She did nothing. She said nothing.
The was the very beginning of our end. My father and I were able to put that day behind us, but it took a long time. But I could never forget how she just sat there, saying nothing, doing nothing. Over the years the betrayals added up, until finally something so irreversible happened that there was nowhere else for us to go. The could be no moving forward, no forgiving and forgetting. Despite all this I miss her every day. I crave having the mom's people have on TV. A mom is supposed to be there to celebrate her children's triumphs, encourage them after a misstep. Not having that influence in my life has colored so many things a dismal shade of gray. I hate her and love her all at once, but the thought of having her in my life terrifies me. I can't move on, but I can't go back. I don't know what to do, I don't know how to feel better.
I'm tired. I feel the first vestiges of a cold coming on now that the weather is changing. I'm worried. The ex still doesn't have a job, and I have to take a loan out against my 401K so that I can pay his rent. I don't care about the money, not really anyway, it's more the uncertainty about the future. It's human nature to do the whole "well, if I were you..." thing, but in this situation it really does apply. I want so badly to say to him:
If I were you I'd appreciate the fact that I got to spend every day this summer at home with the kids.
If I were you I'd appreciate the fact that they worship the ground you walk on.
If I were you I'd drink less, and live more.
If I were you I'd want my children to come home to a clean house they can be proud of, instead of a dreadful mess.
If I were you I'd focus more on the positve, instead of everything that's wrong.
If I were you I'd treasure the friendship that we have, instead of mourning the marriage that we lost.
If I were you I would have tried harder to save us.
If I were you I would have noticed when the person I was in love with was lost and unhappy.
If I were you I'd call my parents more.
If I were you I'd reconnect with old friends who love and miss you.
If I were you I'd join an online dating site and see what happens.
If I were you I'd stop making excuses for my shortcomings.
If I were you I'd smoke less pot, and breathe more air.
If I were you I'd care more, and brood less.
Sadly though, I'm not you. Any saying these things out loud will only produce a defensive reaction, an assumption of what kind of person and father I think you are, neither of which will be true. I'll end up apologizing for my words, and meaning that apology, even though I have nothing to be sorry for. The time spent waiting for things to get better never seems to end, and I'm constantly worried about the future, there's so much I can't change, can't control.
I'm so tired.
So where am I going with this? Honestly I'm not sure. But I do know that as the years have passed I've changed, grown up, realigned my priorities, and I don't want to be around people who haven't grown up, whose priorities are so drastically different from mine. This post seems to be a lot of words about nothing, and even though there are a lot of words, I still don't feel like I got out what I needed to. Maybe I'll try again later.
I think in part it could be attributed to how under-appreciated I feel lately. Always running around, helping out other people, with close to nothing left over for myself. As a result I'm tired and short tempered, prone to bouts of severe oversensitivity. Things are just insane, I'm completely overwhelmed. It'll pass.
So the plot is as follows: overweight process server (Seth Rogen) who is dating a high schooler buys some one of a kind weed from his dealer (James Franco)and then witnesses a murder while sitting outside the home of one of his supoena recipients (who just so happens to be his drug dealers supplier-Lumberg from office space aka Gary Cole) The murderers are a female cop (Rosie Perez. No really. Yeah, I thought she was dead too). He tosses his half smoked joint on the ground and takes off, but not until he smashes into the car of the policewoman and another parked car. So the drug supplier finds the half smoked joint, knows what it is, knows that he's the only one supplying it and the only person he's supplied it to is James Franco. So basically Seth Rogen and James Franco spend the whole rest of the movie running away from Lumberg. The can't stay at James Franco's place, and everywhere else they go Lumberg seems to find them. So my problem is this-before all of the running around started why didn't James Franco and Seth Rogen just go to Seth Rogen's place and hide out there? Lumberg didn't know his name or what he really looked like, and he would have had no way of knowing that Seth Rogen was the only person that James Franco sold the Pineapple Express to. Yes, I know that there would be no movie otherwise, but it was just so glaringly obvious. I realize that me making this connection is along the lines of what those hard ass guys do when they watch action movies and say things like "yeah, that gun is a (insert bad ass gun name here) and it only holds six rounds and that guys just shot off 12. There's no way that guy had time to reload that fast".
For the last couple of years numerous people have told me that I HAVE to watch Oz (on HBO), because it's such a good show, it's so real (none of the people telling me to watch have ever been to prison so I'm not sure how they knew it was "real"), blah, blah, blah... So last night I happened to catch an episode. I didn't plan to watch, the TV was just on, and I didn't bother to change the channel.
The show absolutely sucked. Completely. The acting was horrible, the script was even worse. Despite being chock full of recognizable faces- The Fuck Buddy from Sex and the City, Mr. Echo from Lost, Michael from Lost, the dad from Save the Last Dance, and some dude who I'm pretty sure was on The Soprano's, not once did I actually think to myself, "hey, I think I'll watch this again!". In a way I was actually relieved because I've been missing absolutely nothing by not taking time out of my life to watch this show. And furthermore, taking time to watch Oz would have meant less time to watch Enchanted, repeatedly.
Once upon a time there was a girl who had an older brother. He wasn't too much older, only by 11 and a half months (thus making them the same age for four weeks every year which kinda makes you wonder what the hell their parents were thinking), but with regard to maturity he might as well be a 15 year old. The older brother had the unfortunate habit of becoming obsessed with any female who gives him the time of day, convincing himself that he "is in love" with her, and that he "can't live without her". This is a pattern that he had repeated for most of his adult life (and I use the term adult in the loosest way possible). About a year ago the older brother developed an intense passion for Bikram yoga-that's the kind where you sit in the sweltering room and contort yourself in the dim light for an hour and a half. He talked for months about his instructor who was also the owner of the studio. He gushed about how smart she was, how well spoken, how intelligent, how understanding, how she really "knew" him. It wasn't long before he regaled all who would listen with tales of the fact that they were now dating. Spending Friday nights together watching hockey, sharing long talks over breakfast. After a few months the breakup happened. The reason? She wanted children and he, already being a father once over, did not wish to procreate again. According to the older brother the yoga instructor could not understand where he was coming from, the hurt and bitterness that still resonated from his last relationship. So he ended things.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Older brother has one too many hits off the bong and reveals the address of his super secret blog. The younger sister has an uncanny ability to remember small bits of conversation. The younger sister has always had her doubts about the validity of the older brothers stories about his yoga instructor dating adventure. So she goes home, finds the blog, and her assumptions come to fruition.
He made the whole thing up. Every last detail.
Rest assured, there was a yoga instructor, and he did pursue her. She however, did not return his affections, did not feel for him what he felt for her.
The moral of the story? If you're going to fabricate large portions of your life don't make the mistake of revealing your blog address to you audience. The younger sister never told the older brother about her discovery, what would that accomplish? Clearly his delusions are grander than real life, after all, they always are.
Why is it that when asked, certain people will blame their faults, failures, and shortcomings on their upbringing/past/childhood/parents? Think about this one for a second and I KNOW that you either have known someone (or more than one someone) or you know someone right now who does this. One of my friends is married to a police officer with one of the worst tempers I've ever seen. And it's not one of those situations where he holds back and then unleashes when they're alone together. He lets it alllll go when the fit strikes, and God help you if you're in his sights. So the point of this is that the husband continually blames his temper on his childhood. "We were poor so that's why I'm like this", "my mother was married to a bum so that's why I'm like this". Both of these things are true and his childhood stories are honestly heartbreaking. With that said, it doesn't make it ok for him to behave the way that he does. It doesn't make it ok that he hurts his wife with his words and actions, who continues to put up with his attitude. See, for me, there's always a limit. When the person I'm dating/married to, calls me the "C" word, that's a limit. When he comes home drunk at four in the morning and passes out in a pool fof his own vomit after yelling at you for no reason until the sun comes up, that's a limit.
The really scary part is that this man has a gun. A loaded one. Yeah.
So I started this blog over a year ago and I haven't done such a great job keeping up with it. I mean to, I compose blogs in my head but by the time I get around to putting the words down on paper they've dissipated, the thoughts gone. I was just re-reading my earlier entries and having a chuckle with myself over how much things have changed in the last year, what a different place I'm in now (figuratively, not literally). I still haven't told anyone about this blog or ever alluded to the fact that it exists. There are too many blogs that I read that have the story of the day that they were discovered, and the tears and explaining that followed. I think I've spent way too much time in my life trying to explain myself, trying to get people to understand me. By people I mostly mean my family. Somehow the people closest to you are the ones who have the hardest time accepting you for who you are (and loving you anyway!).
I remember back when I was in the process of getting divorced. Everyone wanted to know why, what happened. I was cast as the bad guy, the villain, while the ex got to play the role of the victim. People would remind me of how much he loved me, how he would have done anything for me. And the sad thing is that they were right; he DID love me, he WOULD have done anything for me. The problem is that wasn't enough. Love is the easy part, it's everything that comes with it that's hard. The Beatles got it all wrong when they said "all you need is love", that crap about "love means never having to say you're sorry" is bullshit too. Just so you know.
My ex-husband works in the technology industry which gives him access to all kinds of nifty toys and gadgets. The latest addition to his extensive collection of goods (and by goods I mean mostly crap) is a totally kick ass projector. He figured out that the projector could be hooked up to the X-Box, therefore leaving the big TV free for the Wii. Everybody wins.
The projector is fixed to shine on the big white wall right above the couch; lights off and you have primo video gaming real estate. Except video games (except for Wii games) are boring.
Tonight as my ex and my brother faced-off for Soul Caliber, I decided that the game needed a little spice. What makes a scantily clad buxom woman getting the crap kicked out of her by a buff ninja warrior so much more fun and entertaining? Shadow puppets. Yup, shadow bunnies and dogs having their own battle amongst the fierce warriers on the wall.
Sadly, my ex and my brother didn't find it nearly as hysterical as I did. My parting gift as I left for the night was to whisper in the ears of my children that perhaps they would like to make shadow puppets on the screen, since Daddy and Uncle Stephen loved them so much!
Evil. I. Am. Evil.
A phone conversation (or five) with a friend today got me thinking of 2007 in review. Most of you who know me well can attest to the fact that this year has been, in a word, challenging (and by challenging I mean completely fucked up and totally shitty). So my friend asked me this afternoon when do things get easier, when will things finally settle down and go the way that you want them too? I guess my answer to those two questions is basically never.
I've come to realize that life is a big fat stupid-head (this is me being my super mature self). Things will always be challenging, there will always be strife and sadness and heartbreak. But at the same time there is good mixed in there somewhere. We all wake up every morning in a warm bed with a roof over our head, and sometimes we wake up alone, others with someone beside us. When we're at our lowest and experiencing our darkest days it's hard to put things into perspective and take the point of view that there are others out there that have it far worse that we do. A few months ago after whining to my Dad about one thing or another he brought up a friend who had a particularly bad run of luck in recent months. My selfish reply was that I didn't care about his friend, I only cared about me. I was joking of course, but as we all know, in joking there is always an element of truth.
I don't know what point I'm trying to make, or if there even is one. But recent events have made me think and rethink and question who I am and what I want and where I'm going. I've found that I spend too much time putting other people in front of myself (my children of course are excluded from this line of thinking) and that if I spent half as much time worrying about me as I did about others I would be a much more well adjusted individual. So maybe that will be my New Years resolution, even though I have always maintained that people who make resolutions are really just setting themselves up for failure, but what do I have to lose?
I've had this feeling of being incredibly unsettled lately, I don't know what it is, but something is really off. The strange thing about it is that right now I should be in a happy place. Work is good, I make decent money, I have a new boyfriend whom I adore, school is going well, kids are happy and mostly healthy, so what is my problem? I think it may be the new boyfriend. I got so used to being single that I think I may have forgotten how to function as a couple. Attachment makes me nervous because it's like inviting someone to just break your heart. Getting attached means putting all of your vulnerabilities out there and saying, "here ya go!". I know that one of the components of having a good relationship is the ability to break down walls and let people in, but why is it so hard for me to do that? Instead of opening up and asking questions and wondering out loud about things I just let it all fester. And then without fail it all bubbles to the surface at the most inopportune times (like, say, Superbowl Sunday after consuming the better part of an entire pitcher of rum punch).Then your poor boyfriend has to just sit and wonder why the hell you're sobbing in his bed. I still don't know why I was crying, all I know is that I cried so long and so hard that I just fell asleep, and when I woke up the next morning my eyes were red slits which nicely accented my puffy cheeks. Ugh. Since that night things have been fine, I apologized, I explained as best as I could. But still the unsettled feeling nags me. I'm afraid. Afraid of getting hurt, of being let down and disappointed, of putting my trust in someone again and giving them the chance to completely break my heart. But the alternative to doing those things is being alone, and I'm afraid of that too.
I think I may have forgotten about this site, seeing as I haven't been here in months and months and months. The holidays seem to do strange things to people and we're all in warp speed trying to get ready, trying to get through them in one piece.
I wish I has something insightful to blog about, but inspiration these days seems to have escaped me. This may or may not be a good thing as most of my material is born out of angst, the bad part is that it means that right now I'm happy, which in turn means that sooner or later the other shoe is going to drop- it always does.
Ugh, ugh, and more ugh. The events of the last several weeks are so distressing that I can't even begin to figure out how to put them into words. I've told and retold the story so many times that I have become bored with it, but still it plagues me.
It would be safe to say that my mother and I have had a somewhat volatile relationship for basically the last 17 years. That's roughly how long she's been with my evil stepfather (most people have an evil stepmother, but I like to live outside the box). I don't know exactly what the turning point was for her as far as our relationship went; for me it was the day that she told me that I was the reason that she left my father. You know those after-school specials where the parents are getting a divorce and little Bobby blames himself for the breakup and the mother hugs him and cries and tells him that it wasn't his fault? Yeah, my mom was just the opposite, it was more of a "by the way, you know you and that thing you did and the big fight that daddy and I got into about it? Yeah, that's the reason I'm leaving him."
I know in real life that I wasn't the reason. It took several years to figure it out. When you're young you don't see your parents as real people, as who they really are, you just see them as the people that you live with. They don't have identities outside of their mom and dad roles. But as you get older and become more independent, you start to see them in a different light. This isn't necessarily a bad, thing, more of a reality check. Things that were confusing make a little more sense, and light is shed on the dark side of the parental psyche.
It would take more words than I can muster to fully explain the roller coaster that I have been made to ride as a result of my mothers life choices. I learned a while ago that I could get off anytime that I wanted, but that has been easier said than done. I've tried it a few times, but she's always managed to coax me back on, under the guise of mending fences, wanting a relationship. But the ride never changes. The same loops and twists and turns are there, and the same sick and dizzy feelings resurface whenever I get on.
Now the damage that has been done in the past few weeks can't be undone. There are some things that you can't apologize for. The are some things that can't be forgiven or forgotten.You can't unring a bell, you can't unsay a hurtful word. My actions have been classified in her eye's as revenge. I could spend eternity trying to explain myself, justify myself. To what end? What does it change? People believe what they want. They see what they want. No matter what I accomplish in this life, in her eyes I will continue to be a disappointment and a failure. It shouldn't matter or hurt me anymore, but it does. It clouds everything I do, every success I have. I try to say it makes me stronger, but it doesn't, it just makes me sad.
Being an unreformable night owl is just so rotten sometimes. On one hand it works because I love to go out and have no issues with staying out until three in the morning, but on the nights when I'm left alone to my own devices I continually flounder. My apartment gets so small, and I wander around it in circles, with no direction. I think too much, I drink too much. I go through the numbers on my phone, relying on friends to fill the deafening silence. But really what I do is sit and lament on what's missing. The thing that I desperately want, the thing that I can't have. I don't know if its him per se, or just the thought of him, of someone. I insist that I want to be alone, that I'm happy this way. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Looking at friends, all coupled up, makes me so envious that the jealousy bubbles up from the bottom of my stomach until I can taste it. The problem is that I don't want to date, the idea makes me nauseas. I don't want to take the chance of putting myself out there, falling for someone else, and then being disappointed again. At all. I'm still holding out hope for the one I can't stop thinking about, and a sixth sense tells me that he's holding out for the one that HE can't stop thinking about, and it isn't me. I hate reading into everything, and I read into the song that he's posts, the blogs I can't see, and I assume that they're all about her. In the beginning I liked to delude myself that maybe I prompted some of the insight, some of the angst, and maybe I did. But that was in the beginning, and the beginning was months ago. So I stay away, I don't email when I want to, I don't text, I don't call, I don't comment. All in the hopes that my absence will make him realize that I'm gone, and maybe he doesn't like the fact that I won't be coming back, and maybe that will make him come around. Why can't I let go of this one? What the hell is wrong with me? Its like a kick in the face that this one person, who I want so badly, can just walk away and not look back. Maybe I envy him, maybe I wish that I could walk away and not look back too. Cause then maybe I could sleep at night.
More months ago than I care to admit you sent me the message about the "reset" button. The magical button that lets you go back and start over. The one that lets you undo all the stupid things you've done that you wish you could take back. I don't know what stage of production this button is at, but hopefully it will be done soon...
What would I undo? All kinds of things. Maybe I would never have sent that fateful first myspace message, the one that prompted all the replies that made me see how amazing you are, how funny, how smart. I would undo the night of the drunk text messages, the night that changed everything. Maybe I would have undone that night in my bed when I told you how unbelievable that first date was, the night that you asked me if I was trying to mess with your heart. Maybe I would undo that night I asked you to come home with me, knowing that you weren't ready for a relationship, but still hoping at the same time that it would change things. Most of all, if I could undo anything, it would be the way that I feel. Five months later, I would have hoped that I would have moved on, cast you aside like I've done to so many others before you. I would wish that I wasn't in love with someone who lives just one town over, but at the same time is so far away.
If only the reset button was real, things would be so different.
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