Tag Archives: Mother

Loving With A Limp

Posted on by Standard 44

I wanted to write when I was in a better mood. However, since the funk isn’t clearing much these days, I’ve decided to go ahead and write about where my mind keeps PIXECT-20130315055221returning to time and time again. I know I’ve written in length about these fears from my childhood in my journals, but I can’t remember if I’ve written here about them or not, and I’m not in the right frame of mind to sift through the 300+ posts I’ve authored to see. If I already have, please indulge me this time.

For me, one of the worst things about this whole separation and divorce from Chef is the amount of garbage that keeps washing ashore on the beaches of my mind from my childhood. I’ve written about my mother, my father, my stepfather, and my brothers and sisters somewhat, but, while this may be hard for some of you to believe, I’ve actually held back some, too. I’m notorious for being an open book about stuff, probably more so than most people, but there’s more to some of my stories than I let on sometimes. Trust me. If I really spilled every thought, every story, and every perception about my life, you’d freak. Or you’d tell me yours, and then I would freak. :-) Who really knows?

In a nutshell, my childhood sucked. I don’t say that for any sympathy or pity. In fact, please don’t pity me at all. That childhood shaped who I am now, and I’m okay with me for the most part. But I don’t like to reminisce about some of the crap that went on, and these days, I’m somewhat dismayed at my inability to push these hard memories back into the dark closets of my mind. The fear of human beings, mainly men, is back with a vengeance, and I have had a few dreams of what all had happened to me that made me wary of  people in the first place. I’m mentally and physically tired from this new battlefront.

broken heart birdsMy mother and father weren’t happy people. I don’t want to get into what they did to make themselves unhappy, or write any judgments about them. All that is important is that I watched the two most important people to me as a child very carefully, and what I learned from both of them I actually used to change my own life so it wouldn’t resemble theirs. (Or, at least, that is what I tried to do). My fear is that I was destined to walk down the road my parents did, whether because of my genetics or the harsh childhood I endured, and now that I seem to be plodding along in their footsteps, I’m slightly depressed. I feel like all that hard work was for nothing. I could have gotten here without all the twists and turns in my life.

Each of my parents lost their one great love in life, though ironically, it wasn’t each other. Well, not for Mom, anyways. My father will tell you to this day that the only woman he ever loved in his whole life was my mother. They met during the Vietnam war, both of them in the United States Marine Corp. Dad was getting ready to be shipped off to do his part in this great police action, and Mom was pregnant. They married because I was on the way, but for Dad, it was real. For Mom, not so much. 5 or so years later, and with another child recently born, my Mom left my Dad and married her great love, my step-father R.

Just with that one sentence, I have an infinity of roads I could travel down. I loved my father with every fiber of my being. He was cheerful, happy, and he made me feel like I was a real princess. We were inseparable. And when Mom left, I didn’t know what we were doing, or why, and suddenly Dad was out of my life. What was once a cheerful disposition slowly over time became bitter, resentful, angry, and so very hurt. My Dad married briefly right after Mom did, but the marriage quickly fell apart, and for the rest of the 35 years since then, he never married again. He once told me he already had had a family, and lost it. He wasn’t doing that again.

Mom’s story is better and yet worse. She had a very long marriage to her great love. But, her great love molested me. I have nothing much to say about him other than I learned a great many skills about hiding, confrontation, shame, guilt, sex, love, and plain selfishness from that man. And because I was angry about my father being yanked from me, I refused to be close to her much. I wasn’t mean to my mother, and I really did love her. But I resented her decisions, and I learned early on that she made decisions on the fly without considering her children at all. I want to reiterate that these are my perceptions, which are always colored by my life experiences. My mother had her own brokenness that shaded her, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m automatically correct and she’s wrong. Life isn’t like that, and I’m not trying to throw my mom, who can’t defend herself anymore, under any buses. I write this only to show why I’ve always felt so very alone on this planet. Dad was gone, and Mom’s decisions seemed to always end up with something bad happening to me. I didn’t trust her.

My mother’s marriage fell apart at the 30 year mark when R decided that caring for a wife who had just recently had a liver transplant wasn’t what he wanted to do with the brokenremainder of his life, and he drove her up to my house in Oklahoma and dropped her off with me. He gave her an old Jeep Cherokee, $100, and some of her writing stuff, returned home, divorced her, and married a much younger woman. Feel free to throw rocks. I state the facts, but I’m sure you can read the disgust in my typing. I had a front row seat to watching this very ill, very crushed woman cry day and night for months. It was horrible. Nothing I could do or say could comfort her, and I was lost for words. In a probably misguided effort to make her feel like he wasn’t all that big a loss, I told her about what he had done to me for years and years. It only made things worse, because she then she had to admit that she was still in love with a child molester. I did not think that one out well enough, and I launched her into another ring of hell. We were able to mend the bridges a little, though, and while she didn’t really want to admit it, she did acknowledge that she’d known something was wrong between R and me, but she had felt that she was ill-equipped to support 5 children on her own, and it was just easier to look the other way. She was very apologetic, and I can honestly say I’ve forgiven her completely. She was right, in a way. She hadn’t worked all those years. She was a stay-at-home mother which is the hardest job on the planet but the least paid.

A few months after being dumped, she had several strokes, and now she is an invalid in a nursing home. Her children are scattered in different states, and we all feel disconnected from her and from each other. Her life just makes me weep, and I just never wanted mine to resemble hers.

The question to me lately is, what if I end up bitter, angry, and am never able to love or trust anyone again, like Dad? Or even worse, I stroke out from the stress and get put in a nursing home and promptly forgotten? Oh.my.G__!

The last couple of days have been really hard. Let’s say Chef really, really showed his a$$ this weekend. I won’t go into specifics. I want to be careful about holding him up forimages judgments to be made. I’ll just say that I wouldn’t treat a person I disliked with my whole being the way he used me this week, and that is no exaggeration. The fact that T (his creepy girlfriend) basically helped him hurt me made it even more low-budget. I’m the queen of this whole farce, though, because I fell for his crap again after learning for the last year and a half that he can NOT be taken at his word! So, as usual, I’m the one who came out of the fiasco with hurt feelings, tears, and a little poorer for the experience. I wear my crown of shame with pride. I earned what happened this week. Hopefully, next time I won’t be such a moron.

Today, while I was at work, I had vicious thoughts about both Chef and his girlfriend. Each time a thought would enter my head, I’d reject it. I’d pray. I’d imagine what kind of person would even think about such things. It was this whole wearing process, and I ended up leaving early and coming home. I don’t want to be that kind of person!! My dad isn’t a Christian, and he’s old school about father’s shooting their sons-in-law if they make their little girls cry. While I like that someone feels that way about my tears, I also get hit with all the sadness and pain his own wrecked marriage had caused him all his life, and the bitterness, anger, and hate seep into those conversations. I don’t want be  35 years out from this and still feeling what he is feeling. I just don’t. Mom ended up leading a relatively happy existence in comparison to Dad for most of those years before it all fell apart, so all those harsh emotions didn’t achieve anything for him. Bitterness is an emotional cancer that eats the life right out of a person, and I’m terrified that I might be my father’s daughter in this respect too. Everything about me has mimicked him all my life, and now I’m scared a little bit.

hurt motherMom’s reaction was to turn over and die, and there was a time that I did want to just give up on the remainder of my life, but that is gone now. I say that, though, when I’ve been losing weight at a shocking rate. I call it the Divorce Diet. Unlike some people, I’m not a comfort eater. I’m a stress starver. The more upset I get, the less I eat. But even though I’ve been eating more than usual lately, I’m still losing weight, and I’m at about 110 lbs now. That is way too skinny for even my liking, and I can tell from my family and friends that they are concerned. Am I subconsciously trying to die? I can’t honestly say.

I have a friend who I’m seeing at the moment. We’ll call him The Guy. I don’t call him my boyfriend…we aren’t any where near that yet. I have literally tried to “break-up” with The Guy several times. If you think I’m honest with my crap on here, you ought to see what this poor man has to endure, being my first real step back into the land of the living again. I knew I was going to probably be a big pain in the ass when I got back in the saddle again, and I was right, but he just keeps on hanging on.

He knows I think I will always be in love with Chef. He not only understands that I feel like this, but he is somewhat glad to know that I’m capable of loving someone that deeply. What?? He complimented me instead of getting hurt and jealous. I find myself always in un-chartered territory with The Guy. Chef’s head would have split open and laser beams from his eyes would have melted my face. The Guy has listened patiently as I cried about the latest wound Chef has inflicted, or the shame and disappointment I was experiencing for whatever reaction I’d launched in return. He’s watched me rage around the room about the things Chef’s little t**t says to me when she feels like getting in a shot for herself now and then. He’s patient when I cancel plans at the last minute because I just want to be left alone. He’s everything Chef never was. Where Chef is charismatic, The Guy is quiet. Chef is kind of a bully; The Guy respects my freewill. Chef is somewhat selfish in all aspects of a relationship; The Guy puts my wants before his own. He isn’t intrusive. He is a reader; Chef says print is dead. The Guy has a massive education, and I find we have whole new unexplored areas of life that we can talk about to each other, and I find myself learning stuff from him; Chef likes to talk about himself. I know enough about that subject.

But in the back of my mind, I have an uneasiness about The Guy. I think he’s wonderful; I don’t think I can make him happy in the long run. I am really afraid that with all theimages (1) baggage I keep hauling around from my life, I will only end up giving a tiny part of my heart to anyone again, and that has made me sad. No one deserves to be loved fractionally. We all crave to be loved whole-heartedly. But you have to be willing to be vulnerable and I’m not there. Hopefully, Chef won’t be the first and last person I’ll ever trust, but after examining my parent’s reactions to their own losses, I’m truly worried he might be. I hope that in this one respect, I’m not so much my father’s daughter.

I’m loving with a limp these days, and I am convinced The Guy deserves better than that.

I have no answers to my questions. I wrote down my fears in hopes that someone will deliver magical words to me that will make this latest train of thought dissipate  and I continue to pray that God be merciful with this broken kid of His. I don’t want to be anyone’s partner in this life if I can’t bring them happiness in return.

 

– Bird

Painful Reminder My Husband Is Gone

Posted on by Standard 51

 

Tonight, my daughters took me out to cheer me up.

 

English: Love Question

English: Love Question (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I have no luck.

 

We ended up at a bar and my husband’s bike was there. Long story short, I’m holding in my hand a love letter from the woman my husband has been cheating on me with. I know her, and she is a proclaimed Christian woman, in her twenties. The love letter says when she is with him she feels protected, safe, and secure. My heart is just killing me.  My husband hasn’t made me feel any of these things in a long time.

 

She goes on to say that she is truly blessed to be able to be the one in his life. Oh my God. How do you cheat with a married man and then think it is blessed???

 

She says it is an honor that is too good to be true; a love that she had always heard and not seen, but finally gets to see.

 

I would love to know how anyone could do this to his wife? Even up until the day he left, my husband insisted that we’d grow old together. He kept telling me he was just having a midlife crisis and he’d work it out, but that it had nothing to do with me.

 

Oh, God. I am devastated.

 

– Bird

 

Ghetto Living

Posted on by Standard 41

 

Since I met Chef 20+ years ago, this man has always made sure I live in some very nice homes in some affluent neighborhoods. The kids were given their own rooms as much

No, I didn’t live in anything like this. But it is really awesome though, isn’t it??

as possible; they attended good schools, and we lived in security and stability. And then the economy tanked, I got laid off from a very well-paying job when the company I worked for moved to Georgia, and Chef ended up having to take a job that didn’t pay half of what he usually earned. And we found ourselves relegated to adjusting our standard of living and moving just across the street from the dividing line in Tulsa that separates the North side and the South side — Admiral Place.

Now, of course, unless you live in Tulsa, you aren’t really going to know what that means. But every large city has a part of it where us poor people live, and a place where the not-so-poor live, with a gray area in between that houses the mid-level incomes. And, about a year and half ago, Chef and I moved to the ghetto…lol. And frankly, it is just so much more fun than living in the large, boring houses I’m used to living in.

I’m pretty good with money, and I have had to live in poverty during my childhood, and with my first husband, so I know how to make my pennies scream. But Chef is not used to this kind of financial bind, and it was enough to make his head explode. When he looked at the houses we could afford easily, he rejected them all. Finally, I picked one out that had possibilities, as he put it.

Thanks to the club, it was painted, had new windows installed, and had some carpentry work done, all for nothing but the cost of the supplies. My landlord actually cried when I showed him the improvements. My neighbor is going to install an automatic garage door opener. Just for the price of a door he bought on clearance for $150. And, if you ask Chef these days how he likes our home, he’ll be the first to admit that it is nice not having to compete with the Joneses next door, or sell a kidney just to make utility payments. Our cars look like everyone else’s on our street; our dogs look the same as theirs, and no one flips out if the dogs pee in the wrong yard or the cat sits on a neighbor’s car. And my neighbors are friendly, kind, and always quick to lend a helping hand. We are all just working stiffs, and I just love that camaraderie.

lol….How true.

I live down the street from a Walmart that seems to just attract gunmen, crystal meth cooks,  and gang members, a bar that attracts some really, really lonely men, which in turn, attracts the Working Girls, and across the street is their working venue, a roach motel. This part of Tulsa never sleeps. I’ve seen a guy running from the police cut through my back yard, and last week another guy hid in my neighbor’s yard, trying to allude law enforcement. I’ve had a homeless girl knock on my door to get out of the rain, and I cooked her lunch, and put her in a hotel for a night. Because I live in the area that I do, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormon regularly knock on my door, and frankly, I’m starting to recognize their faces, and I even wave at them when I drive by now.

The guy that mows my lawn found some snakes in my yard, and one really large rat was living in the dog house. No, I’m not kidding. :-)

You know, I am really loving this, much to my husband’s complete astonishment. I guess you can move the girl out of the trailer park, but not the trailer park out of the girl. And every time I see something odd, or meet someone who is having a hard life right now, I’m reminded that the Lord Jesus was poor, and if you ask me, He seemed to prefer to hang with us poverty-stricken. There is just so much more to laugh about. You will never really appreciate the good things in life until you’ve gone without, and I’ve gone without plenty of times. I have cable, when for a period of my life, I didn’t even have a television set. I have a cell phone, when there was a time, I didn’t even have a home phone. Internet when I never had a computer before.  I have central air/heat, when I once lived in a home that had neither.

Yes, I may be living in the ghetto, but I’m blessed to have so much.

My husband and I are well on the way to a stronger, happier, more peaceful relationship. Financially, my new job has made a lot of difference.

My neighbor installed my doggy door, and now Sebastian and Milo have the freedom to rule the world, as they’re inclined to believe that they do. And Suzie and Jake no longer have to exercise miracle bladder control while I’m at work all day.

And best of all, in about three weeks, both my daughter Caitlyn, who is stationed in Japan, and Rebekkah, who has been in Texas taking care of her grandparents, are coming home. My son Dj just got back from Texas, and for the first time in too long, all my children will be in one place. Thank you, Lord!!

 

Life is good!

– Bird

 

 

 

 

To My Baby Daughter, Caitlyn, On Her Birthday

Posted on by Standard 32

Today is my youngest child’s 21st birthday. Caitlyn is in the United States Air Force serving in Japan, so I’m missing one of her

Caitlyn — My precious baby daughter

milestones, and it bums me out to no end. But, thank God we have the kind of technology that allows me to converse with her without waiting weeks and weeks for snail mail.

I have often said that being a mother was my favorite job ever. All three of my kids are very different, presenting with strengths and weaknesses that I dealt with in each individually. But hands down, Caitlyn was just the easiest kid ever. Even her birthday is the easiest ever to remember — July 1.

From the minute she was born, it was clear that Caitie was no whiner. In fact, as I lied in pose on the delivery table, waiting to hear her cry, she had to be smacked on the butt twice before she let out a newborn wail, and it was over within seconds. Evidently, she was in agreement that her time had come. No wanting back in the womb for that kid. The world presented her with opportunities, and she wanted to seize every one of them.

When I got her home, she had two toddler siblings that required a lot of Mom‘s attention to compete with, yet she was always patient. She slept 6 hours in a row at night from day one. Of course, this was unnerving for me, so instead of capitalizing on the sleep time, I spent time hovering around her making sure she was breathing.

My eldest child was moody and stubborn, having to actually be taught how to have a sense of humor, and my second child skipped crawling altogether and launched into walking and then escaping from home in the wee hours of the morning, but Caitie completed every milestone a baby is supposed to accomplish normally and without causing my eyes to bleed. She learned to crawl and then walk by nine months, spoke words on time, and was so laid back I could literally take her anywhere with me without worry. She was, and is, a huge blessing to her tired mom.

Of all my kids, Caitie has been the one that has the most characteristics I recognize in myself. She has a hard time giving up; she is passionate about succeeding at whatever she sets her hand to do; she likes people in general; she strives to protect the weak, and isn’t afraid to stand up for what is right, even if she is the only one standing. She even has the angry streak that I’ve worked hard to control in myself all these years, and already, she maintains self-control better than I do.

What Caitie possesses, though, that I don’t is a comfortable acceptance of herself. She likes who she is, and feels no need to explain

why. I’ve not met anyone yet who doesn’t instantly fall in love with this girl, and that list includes me. The minute I looked into the eyes of that baby with the old soul, I was hooked forever.

I have a lot of funny stories about Bekkie and Dj, but not so many about Caitie. It isn’t because she was not fun or wasn’t silly, or that I wasn’t paying attention. And she makes me laugh until I pee myself on a regular basis.  It is because she was always smart about most of her decisions. She didn’t get roped into a lot of stupid stuff, and was not in the least influenced by peer pressure, whether at school or at home. She approached Bekkie and Dj’s teen angst with the same practical nature I did. She had no use for it. But don’t be fooled. She is gifted at bringing laughter into a room, and to be loved by Caitie is to be loved by the best this world has to offer.

Dearest Caitlyn,

I miss you so very much, my heart feels like it will break if I don’t hug and kiss that little face soon. It has been a hard year for your dad and me, but one thing that has never waivered…we both love you with all of our hearts. I think God had you safely tucked away in Japan while we went through this because your heart would have been in as much danger as mine had you been here to witness the attacks satan has launched. You are a fixer, like me, and it would have been torture for you to stay out of it.

But, like you, I’m a tough nut to crack, and all of this will sort itself out in the end. I already see some cracks of sunlight in the situation. Please focus on getting physically healthy. I honestly think that you have anemia like me, but I am glad they are being extensive about diagnosing what is going on with your blood. In the meantime, be sure to eat healthy and take the vitamins they prescribe. And don’t drink a lot. Booze zaps your body of vitamins and makes you blog stupid stuff.   :-)

I am so blessed God gave you to me!!!

I hope you have a wonderful birthday, and at least we are only a few short months off from you coming home to see your family.

I LOVE YOU!!

Always,

Mom

I Love A Good Plan; Unfortunately, I Never Actually Come Up With One Myself

Posted on by Standard 27

This is an example of a bad plan.

When I was pregnant with my very first baby, Rebekkah, I had every intention of being the absolute best mother on this planet or die trying. Most mothers aim high with the first-born offspring. The next year, I had my son Dj in accordance with my plan to have all my kids at once so they would bond with each other,  and I adjusted my goals again to a more reasonable level…I’d settle for being the best mother in Texas, or maybe just in the little town we lived in. Then, the year after that, I had Caitlyn, already sensing I might not have thought this plan out as well as I should have, but still committed to it. And to make things really interesting, both Bekkie and Dj learned to walk within a short time span, and Dj learned how to catapult himself out of his baby bed to the tile floor below. I suddenly found myself chasing a bunch of kids who had their own plans, and they were never any better thought out than mine were. I never factored in the possibility they would actually have their own opinions and desires, and they might not coincide with mine at all. By the third one though, I immediately aborted the plan and tied my tubes. I already had my hands full and my brain cracked a little more everyday until they turned 4 years old and I could actually reason with them some of the time. It was the longest, happiest, hardest, most sleep deprived 4 years of my entire life. And I have no idea how we all made it out alive!

With three children under the age of three to care for, expectations had to be adjusted regularly.  With age comes some wisdom, but it always seemed to me those snippets of knowledge always dawned on me a day late and a dollar short. At 23, I now realize I didn’t have one single clue what I was getting myself into, and it was probably the mercy of God that I didn’t make any really permanent mistakes. I didn’t think about potty training, teething, colic, or any of the other million things babies are known for when I launched my dream of children that loved one another. All the other really important stuff just didn’t occur to me until I was hip-high in dirty diapers and pacifiers.  And by that time, I was already committed, so it was a suck it up situation.

They still don’t cooperate with my visions no matter how much I want them to, and it would seem that they were instinctively better captains of their lives than I ever would have been. They are strong, unafraid, survivors, and they find things to love about life daily. ..They’ve always had their own plans for what they needed from life, and it wasn’t the exact same things I did. Fear doesn’t seem to be something they struggle with, and I am glad about that most of time. Then my son jumps off the roof barefooted, unafraid of broken necks, death, hospital bills or wheelchairs, but with the sure belief that he can fly if he really wants it bad enough, and I wish they’d gotten maybe a tiny bit more of my fear and less of my inability to really flesh out a decent plan. :-)

I love all of you, and miss all your little faces. Please come home soon!!

– Bird