Lately, my mind has felt like a junk drawer that's been emptied onto a trampoline.
I haven't written anything about what is going on in my life in quite awhile. An actual blog post. In fact, over the past year I've barely written anything other then poetry; which in itself does share information, maybe? I'm looking forward to a new beginning with this new year and that is why I think more so now than ever I've been so reflective. I'm going to take this as an opportunity to sift through the rubble that was 2016, and hopefully cleanse the karmic pallet so that maybe, just maybe 2017 won't be such a cluster fuck.
Here's to hoping. Have a comfy seat, this may take awhile.
This time last year,
I got a new car. I also went out on a date with the car salesman. That was also the same night I saw The Force Awakens and fangirled super hard. After getting in a fight with my ex for following me and taking pictures of me on my date because I wouldn't tell him who I was going to the movie with, I was asleep for maybe an hour before I got a call from my sister. Mom was being taken to the E.R. by the police. Before I knew it, I was in the emergency room sifting through the rubble of my childhood and repressed memories as my mother was being involuntarily committed for attempting suicide. Being the oldest and 2 years older than my sister and 5 years older than my brothers, I had to sit them (and several counselors) down and explain how I was fully aware that this behavior that she was displaying was nothing new to me. They don't remember any of it, because they were babies. That I remember going out in the middle of the night with all of us kids in our Jammie's to find my mother at wherever she disappeared to for a week to party and left us with my stepfather. I remember him dragging her back home. I remember her manias and projects of the moment that were all the rage until she got bored, like ceramics classes and making dolls out of raffia and crocheting. Her fits of rage were only ever directed at me, that's why they don't remember them. The constant control that she had to have over everything. This time, she had fallen in love with (yet another) random guy who told her he loved her one day and then the next day didn't even act like he knew her and told her that she imagined it. She was unhappy with her life, and this threw her into another mania and she was drinking and taking prescribed pills incorrectly. This night, she was parked in his driveway as she texted and called him and he refused to come outside to talk to her. She had been drinking for most of the day. She threatened to kill herself to him and did take a handful of her medication in her car and he called the police. For several months she had been sneeking off to see this person and lying to everyone and I would get random texts from her asking me to tell people that she had been at my house; to which I would tell her that she wasn't and that I wasn't going to lie for her (I had no idea what she was doing). To put it the only way that I can, the day that for 35 years I had been bracing myself for came. In March she left my stepfather who had been in my life since my brothers were 6 months old and they divorced. She moved in with the guy that she attempted suicide over. She still lives with him, but she has cut all ties with our family. She doesn't answer the phone when I call. She quit a really good job that she had to be with this guy full time and be financially reliant on him; a man that she has known for less than a year. I have seen her about 6 times since she moved in with him; we used to go shopping once a week, talk almost every day. A week after my son's birthday I finally texted her and asked her if she was even going to acknowledge his existence and she said that she had been busy, called him and promised to take him somewhere for his birthday. That was in July. She never did. In October I met this guy. Only because I was being held hostage at the gas pump as they parked next to the one I was at and I made small talk with her. She has this look in her eyes that she has only in her high moments, and others have said that same thing, it's like she almost stuck in a permanent state of mania. She's almost entirely unrecognizable when you talk to her. She looks the same, but she isn't there anymore. My sister said that she has told her things and calls her when she's low and having a breakdown. She doesn't come to me with it anymore. I won't lie for her, and I won't tell her that her decisions are OK or healthy. I would love nothing more than to have a relationship with her, but it's not my job. I'm the kid, she's the parent. And if the day comes where she ever wants to act like it, then I'm here. You don't just up and abandon your entire family and life. I won't get into the rest of my life or hers, but I can say that I think it's harder to be abandoned by a parent as an adult than it is as a child. My entire life as I knew it is just....gone. My aunt that she's randomly in contact with and I were talking the other day and it hit me and I just blurted out "I feel like I'm just waiting for the phone call that tells me that she's dead." My adult mother, a mother of 4, grandmother to 6, who has been the pillar of her family, has been replaced with someone with the mental capacity of a 15 year old juvenile delinquent.
Oh, and my step dad are hugging now. Yeah, it's a thing. For the first time in 30 years.
I was catfished and stalked by my ex of 7 years. We had been broken up for a year and had remained friends, only for him to lose his shit entirely after I started dating someone new and didn't hide the fact that I was happy. I have a protection order against him. I don't really have a lot to say about it.
The guy that I was dating turned out to be nothing more than an exploration into the depths of my soul. I wanted things from him that I had never wanted from anyone. Felt things that I had never felt. We still talk from time to time, but it is definitely a closed book relationship-wise.
The only thing that I really can take away from any of that is this: It's really hard to reconcile the difference between the person that you wanted them to be and who you thought you knew or the person you wish they were; and the person they really are. A person that I, at one point, trusted with my entire being and was going to spend the rest of my life with.
I went out a lot after that. I drank way more than normal. Being alone with my brain is a really bad thing sometimes. There's some posts that I wrote about it all earlier this year:
There Might Be Life On Mars After All
I dated a little bit here and there; nothing that really fit but I still talk to them from time to time. I have written a few posts about my feelings about dating. In other words, I hate it.
Dating Can Go Fuck Itself
I have been seeing someone, and I'm not quite sure what to say about it, not because it's a bad thing, but because things are different and it's almost like I'm afraid to. I have things to say but I think they're best saved for a different time. I have written this about it though,
You
In Between Normal
Things on the job-front are going well. In July my boss was appointed regional director of our department and my hours changed, for the better. I have Wednesdays and every other weekend off and only work 6:30a - 2p and am home by the time the kids get off the bus every day but Friday when I work 10 hours. I also have a per diem position as Unit Secretary in the Oncology Department which I also love.
My camp was broken into by a bunch of jackass teenagers looking to party. They had the nerve to write a note in our family journal; things to the extent of "this place was too shitty to have a party in" and we'll be back, and listing all of the things that they took. The place has no electricity and is basically a bare bones hunting lodge, but it's been in my family since the 40's and it's my sanctuary. Nothing of any importance, like the handwritten letter my grandmother wrote or other things that can't be replaced. My brother went down to the private beach and found the camp chairs that were taken left there.
The kids.....Oh parenthood. The battle continues. My daughter entered high school and I haven't cried. She's still bugging me for a smartphone, which I refuse. Not only is it going to bring my bill up $20/mth, she's still very irresponsible with her stuff and her room is disgusting all the time. Most people I've run into seem to expect to be given full access to everything that they want right now with no expectations of responsibility. Be responsible with what you have now and show that you can be trusted, and then I'll trust you with a $500 phone. How does this not correlate? Still honoring their privacy, but I have another post of about this entirely.
This summer was filled with working almost every day, and a few adventures thrown in for good measure. Had a few really epic photoshoots and 1 grand adventure up in Northern Maine to see some abandoned trains that I hope to do again this year.
In November the stress that I forced away finally caught up with me and I ended up taking 3 weeks of short term disability to get a handle on my mental health and to sort out what it is that I really need in my life. I started therapy. It has helped, but then there's also the whole, "sharing my life" and sorting things out that always leaves my heart feeling like a squished grape.
During the time away, I dyed my hair. Yes. The one who stopped dying her hair as a coping mechanism. I truly hoped that it would help me feel better. It didn't. So then I put it into a ponytail, and had my daughter cut it off. 8 inches. I miss it terribly. Not that it looks horrible now, I just got used to it being long; that, and it looked really good.
People usually don't understand that there is a big difference between generalized anxiety and PTSD. For me, it's not about what might happen. It's about what did happen. It's not about worrying, it's about flashbacks and remembering, and worrying that it's going to happen again, no matter how irrational. It's accepting the fact that maybe I'm not the best mom on the planet, but I'm their only parent and at the very least even though I'm certain I'm screwing them up entirely, I'm not telling my children that they are ugly and that nobody is ever going to love them. During my time out of work there was only a handful of people that I talked about it with. And I got the same reaction every single time. "I had no idea there was anything wrong with you." And how would you? For 35 years I have held it together because I've had to. How would you know that I don't have my shit entirely together when I'm fine until I'm home alone and I'm showering and I can't remember if I locked the front door and I'm a terrified, weeping mess at the bottom of the tub? You had no idea that I was functioning on 3 hours of sleep almost every night. I still have to pull myself together and earn a paycheck and raise my kids. I consider the fact that I showered AFTER taking the kids to school Wednesday last week and not freaking out to be a major victory. It was first time I had tried it since the last time, in September; because whether I realize it at the time or not I avoid normal, every day activities in avoidance of triggering my brain to go haywire. And I'm sleeping almost entirely through the night without medication. Go me.
I touched on it in this post:
Let Me Take A Selfie
and
There Might Be Life On Mars After All
Everything else in between for posts are pretty much crap I wrote when I had a random thought or a boy made me think of him. He who shall not be named, or He who is shall forever be referred to by my friends as Satan.
It wasn't entirely bad:
My grandmother survived a heart attack in April. I welcomed a new niece into the world just after Thanksgiving.
My new year was kicked off by attending a surprise wedding. My aunt got married. Everyone thought they were just coming over for a housewarming party and she got married in her living room. It was hands down the best wedding ceremony that I have ever been to. This month holds a lot of big things, like the fact that in 6 days my daughter is going to turn 16 and my dog will be 10.
Here's to hoping that 2017 doesn't suck.
