This is morning, it's when I spend the most time thinking about what I've given up

Sometimes I feel invisible. Here's just one example: An email was sent out to a group of people asking if someone would step up and do the job of someone who would not be able to. I happened to be online at the time the email came in and I answered right away that I would be more than happy to cover for that person. I hit reply all, so that everyone would know and everyone could relax and not worry about stepping up to help. About a day later (today, in fact) another person on the email list piped in that he would do the job. Next thing I know, a flood of people replied how awesome this guy was to offer to help. I was like--WTF? I'm just so sick of people and the stupid games they play. Why can't anyone act normal? I know that I don't give off an air of liking to be dismissed and yet...there I was being dismissed by these people for no reason. Joe f-ing Blow is so awesome and I am---invisible, I guess.

Then I email my parents to see how they're doing and I filled them in on what's going on here. I also jumped up on my soapbox and did a little political ranting because I am just so incredulous about our precarious state of affairs as far as the economy is concerned (I believe the government will go bankrupt at some point), and the response I get back from them went something like this..."glad to hear you're doing well, life is filled with disappointments, the better you get used to it, the better off you'll be."

Ok. I didn't mention a thing about being disappointed. Hell, I'm ANGRY, not disappointed. I never get the feeling that they know anything about who I really am. For Christmas this past year they sent me a granny bathrobe and a gold pin thing that you see old ladies wear on the outside of their jackets. I am NOT KIDDING. I've never seen anything like it in my life. When I opened the gift, me and the kids started heart-attack laughing over it and I couldn't stop. I laughed so hard that I knocked off a Hallmark angel from the table next to me and the head of the angel broke off. I figured that was a sign that perhaps I shouldn't have been disrespectful of the gifts I was given because I really loved that angel. Immediately I stopped laughing.

Anyway...if I had to assign a theme to my childhood years it would be that "life is filled with disappointments" line. My childhood was great, but what was pounded into my head from an early age was this: be seen and not heard, don't question anything, dream small, aim low, follow the leader, be a good child of God, be good, color inside the lines, keep anger in check, fighting is pointless, live INSIDE the box, give other people control over your life, surrender. It was like living with someone's hands around my throat squeezing the life out of me bit by bit. It's taken me forever to knock those bastard hands off from around my neck. Forever.

I am running on anger now. It's behind everything that I do. It bubbles up just beneath the surface and is the motivating factor that keeps me moving. I want to break things. Then I want to stomp on top of the pile of things that I have broken for good measure. I keep the anger stoked by reminding myself of all the different ways I am asked to deal with asinine people and situations while keeping a straight face as I'm dealing with it all. I have to keep the fire alive or I am liable to give into a paralyzing sadness where I won't want to do anything.

Some of the anger is self directed because I'm finding out late in the game that I have been had by people I've trusted all of my life. I refused to believe evil exists and now I see it everywhere. I am having a crisis of faith--not in God, because He remains a constant, but rather in people, in humanity. It's like I've been sleepwalking my entire existence and have finally woken up and now I am on the war path. My mind is alert, questioning, and above all else, angry.

So I wake up angry, all day long I am angry and I even go to bed angry. It's with me all the time. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and it is still there with me in the quiet darkness reminding me that I need to stay vigilant lest I fall back into that mindless, listless sleep again where I can be deceived and not even know it.

There is a reason I am alive right here, right now. There is a plan for me written somewhere and it's important that I wake the f*&k up and stay awake to find out what that plan is. My anger keeps me on the path to searching out my destiny. It my fuel. It keeps me going.

We'll love you just the way you are, if you're perfect

I keep thinking that I will wake up one day and know everything I need to know about life. I keep thinking if I get the answers that I'm searching for, I will officially be grown up and I can finally stop looking around corners and wishing on stars and questioning everything. When things are confusing for me, I want explanations that comfort me. When the explanations are at best unsatisfactory, I want to throw them back and ask for something more to my liking.

I have a very disconnected relationship with my family. We can go months without speaking to one another and then I'll crack because a voice in my head will tell me that the normal thing to do is call or email them because that's how I think it's done with most people. I see my husband calling his parents every week and there's a part of me that thinks it's foreign to want to talk to your parents that much. I never begrudge him those phone calls, but I do listen closely to his end of the conversation to get an idea of how it's done because that sort of easiness does not come naturally to me and I learn by watching and listening. Still, when I talk to anyone in my family, I need to shut myself off somewhere so that no one hears me. I have this forced friendliness with them that I don't want anyone to witness because I really hate phoneys and I feel like I'm being one.

I wonder a lot about unconditional love. I think it's a great idea, but I question how many of us truly love unconditionally or if we love hoping that we get something in return for our love. I think secretly we love hoping to get some of that love back. I think the hardest lesson I keep learning is that you cannot make people love you in the way you might need them to love you and so you settle for what they're willing to give because having a little of what you need seems better than having nothing at all.

When I first married my husband, my parents did something very hurtful to both of us. A couple of years ago (the last time we visited them), I guess my father took my husband aside and apologized for their behavior. My husband did not tell me this until just recently and my first reaction was..."Why didn't he apologize to ME???" but I know the answer to that already. It's because we cannot be real with one another. I am still indignant over this mostly because I carry around the way they've hurt me everywhere and it would be nice if I could hear those words so that I can chuck that sack of sorry's and be done with them for good. I am not ashamed to tell you that the messages they sometimes send me, sometimes break my heart.

There has never been a moment when I've doubted their love for me but love is a complicated thing. I've always feared that I would end up being like them, and there are times when I am certain I have. I catch myself saying things I know they've said to me and I catch myself wanting the love I give out to come back to me which means I am not giving it freely with no strings attached. I love with expectations and conditions and a scorecard that measures if I'm getting back what I put in.

I think I will always love imperfectly.

I think I will never know all there is to know about life.

I'M ON MY DAUGHTER'S SIDE

I am happy minding my own business, and not ruffling anyone's feathers. If you leave me alone, I will leave you alone, but if you push me, then you had better watch out because once I get fired up about something, I am pretty ruthless. The reason for this is that I have learned that I cannot live with myself if I feel as though I should have spoken up for myself (or someone I love) and I don't. I need to clear the air and if it means that we part ways after I clear the air, then so be it--I take that as a sign that things weren't meant to be. I can pretty much count on two hands the number of people I really care about in this world. If you're not on those two hands and you cross me, I lose nothing if I lose you. That's just the way it is.

Now. Another parents behaving badly at a sporting event story starring the same leather faced, bleach blond food Nazi who appeared in the chicken tenders fiasco. The team lost today and came in second place in the region. That's all good and well and respectable and whatnot but as I've written before, my daughter doesn't take losses very well. So after the last line lost (and my daughter was still playing and on her way to winning), the majority of the team went over to the girl who lost and hugged her. Missing from the huggers were my daughter and her partner who were both sulking over at a table by themselves. In other words, they were dealing with the loss on there own terms in their own way. They were not hissing and booing or throwing daggers in the direction of the girl, they were talking quietly amongst themselves.

Apparently the girl who lost (a senior in high school) tells her mother that my daughter and her partner made her "feel bad" by not hugging her after she lost. This mother proceeds to go over to them (in front of the other teammates) and says, "Ya know, I understand that you're disappointed that the team lost and I'm really sorry Sandy (not her real name) couldn't pull through for you (very passive aggressive since my daughter never told her daughter that she needed to win for her) but it would have been nice if you had not made Sandy feel bad about losing by not hugging her."

Um. WTF?

So my daughter, who was taken aback by being verbally attacked by someone who had no business interfering said, "You're acting really mature." This sets blondie off and she starts screaming how my daughter has NO CLASS and is disrespectful!!!

Um. She was minding her own business and was attacked by an adult who should know better. She did this AFTER I had left and no other adults were around. When my daughter returned to the school on the bus and got into my car, she recounted this story to me. At first I was like..."OMG, you should have just walked away from her and not said anything and allowed me to deal with her later" but in the heat of the moment I can understand why she responded the way she did. I do not subscribe to the idea that teens need to be respectful of adults who are behaving poorly. Assholes do not get free passes to be assholes just because they are over the age of 30 (or 50 which is probably closer to her age).

I got home and immediately went on a hunt to find blondies phone number to "clear the air." She wasn't home so I left a message and when she called me back, I told her what my daughter told me then asked her if the information I was given was correct (it was, although she insisted that my daughter said something REALLY FOUL and when all was said and done, she confirmed what my daughter told me she said...that the woman was acting "really mature" herself.) OMFG. Let's give her the electric chair. Let's not mention that my daughter wouldn't have said a thing had she not been approached by HER first.

She insisted that my daughter and her partner made her daughter feel bad for losing and so I stopped her and asked her if anything was SAID to her daughter and she said no but that they didn't hug her like the rest of the girls. So I told her that my daughter was not responsible for how HER DAUGHTER was interpreting things and she was not responsible for how her daughter FELT either because my daughter was just minding her own business. Furthermore, I told her that my daughter processes losses differently from other people and I didn't appreciate her trying to dictate how my daughter should respond to the loss--that at the very least she will always know where she stands with my daughter because she isn't fake. She's not a bullshitter. She isn't nice to your face only to stab you in the back later. She skips the fake part and just stabs you up front. Which is worse?--you tell me. The world is filled with those who are fake and I find my daughter refreshing. Insisting that she fake hug her daughter to make the both of THEM feel better is ridiculous. That makes her daughter's feelings more important/valid/real than my daughter's and--sorry but that isn't flying with me.

She kept trying to justify her behavior and finally I told her that her actions were inappropriate because I would never presume to tell her daughter how to feel or what to do because IT'S NOT MY BUSINESS. I told her that if she felt that there was a problem, she should have either come to me or gone to the coach but that honestly, I have no problems with how my daughter reacted because it's part of who she is and I am not going to tell her to be something she is not to make HER feel better. I told her that it is not my daughter's job to make her daughter to feel better and that if it is then I need to see the application my daughter filled out and I want to see where my daughter agreed to any such thing because I'm pretty sure she isn't being paid to make other people feel better about losing. Case closed.

Jesus. I really cannot stand people. She told me she would apologize to my daughter the next time she sees her because she realizes it wasn't her place to do what she did but I could tell by the conversation that this woman is not one bit sorry that she verbally attacked these girls. I know that secretly she is happy that she embarrassed them in front of their peers for no other reason than that they were off by themselves and not joining the big hug-fest. She fully intended to shame them and try to silence them and negate their feelings. This is why I don't like most women--they are mean and do not support other women.

I have to believe that people like her are just miserable people who need to spread their misery around to make their lives more bearable. Because, really, what did she accomplish? Nothing. She needs to tend to her daughter's fragile feelings and I'll deal with my daughter THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Newsflash: Sometimes it's better to keep your fucking mouth shut.

Parents behaving badly

The other night I was at a sporting event and witnessed a parent behaving very badly after her child lost. What made me sad was that I am friendly with this woman and she knew that I was clearly within listening distance of her tirade. She knew I was sitting in my car because it was cold and windy outside and she was parked right beside me. She had gone back and forth to her car several times and we had talked. When her child walked to their car after the game to unload some equipment, the mother started in on her child. The negativity and shaming that went on was almost too much to bear. I slouched down in my seat at one point because I didn't want her child to see me and know that I was witnessing the severe tongue lashing. All I can say is OMFG. No one should have to hear such terrible things about themselves, especially a child (teen). I don't know what possessed this woman to say the things she was saying or why she would think that being treated in that manner would help in any way.

It has always been my experience that children respond better to kindness than to anger and negativity. I also believe that we all know when we have not lived up to our potential and that we do not need someone else pointing it out for us. It's like calling a fat person fat as though they have never considered it before. They already know they are fat. They live and breath and anguish over their fatness probably more than any of us can imagine so telling them they are fat isn't helpful in the least. Likewise, when we fail at things, or we lose, we usually know the reasons why. Telling someone they might just as well stop playing a sport because they have an off night seems cruel to me. It sends the message that perfection is expected at all times or else there will be hell to pay. Who can ever live up to that? No one that I know.

Some other things that were said (yelled): That the team was depending on this child for a win and she had let them all down (OMG). That if the child thought the mother was going to waste more money on lessons then the child had another thing coming. That the child was an embarrassment out there. It went on and on.

Sigh. I felt so guilty just sitting there doing nothing to come to the aid of this child but I didn't see how interfering would help since the mother was quite unhinged at that point. She knew I was there and she still verbally bashed her child. It seems a little sick to me that I would have preferred she do it somewhere privately, but that's what I was thinking. I was also thinking that I needed to ask someone to slap me silly should they ever see me treating my own children this way

I think it's bad enough to have your parent berate you in such a manner but to then not care that you are humiliating your child in front of others seems beyond mean to me. It makes me wonder what this woman does behind closed doors if she is so free and easy with the abusive language in public. This woman sits with little index cards at the games and keeps count of mistakes that are made by her child and when her child is done playing, she hands her the card and immediately starts talking about all the mistakes that her child made. Even if she wins, the index cards are all marked up with mistakes that took place on her way to winning! I kid you not. If I happen to be sitting next to her when she does this I always make sure to compliment the good things I have seen because that's all I seem to know what to do. I want her to know that not everyone looks at her and thinks she's a failure. I don't want her to think we are all counting the mistakes she has made so that we can shove them in her face afterwards. I am totally the opposite type of parent. I think the world is cruel enough without also having to deal with parents who make you feel less than everyone else.

I don't know. Sometimes people make me feel so weary. If we could only see how we appear to others when we're making complete buffoons of ourselves perhaps we'd try a little harder to exert a little self control. I think too many parents see their children lose and take the loss on as their own and that's when the real trouble begins. I know this because I have had to fight this feeling myself sometimes. I've had to tell myself that I am not helping my children when I am projecting my insecurities onto them. I am not my child. My child is not me. Losing a game is not the end of the world and I just don't understand why some parents act as though it is. I think negativity begets negativity. I think parents should lift their children up and not tear them down but that's just me.

There's no water that can wash away this longing to come clean

"We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies." ~Shirley Abbott

About a year and a half ago I wrote a letter to my parents. In it, I spoke of the memories I have of my childhood with them and how I felt those things shaped me into what I am today. I put it in an envelope, addressed it and prepared to mail it off but for some reason, I could not do it. I took the envelope and placed it under my bed where it's been collecting dust ever since.

This is what I think about presents. I think the best presents are the ones that are made by hand, not bought in a store. I know that not everyone possesses the talent to paint or sculpt or write music, but I think if you have those sorts of talents, they are the things that people like me prefer receiving. My most prized possessions are things my father has made for me, things my children have made for me. Those are the things I look at and want to keep safe and feel better just knowing I have them. A sweater from Macy's just doesn't have the same effect. In a fire, I would not think to save a sweater because it was given to me by my parents. But a painting or a piece of furniture made with their hands? Those are things I know I would fight to keep with me.

Even though I have this blog on the internet, I do not share this space with anyone in my family or even my friends. It's so hard to explain how I am this intensely private person and at the same time I am willing to share my feelings with total strangers without batting an eye. It makes no sense and yet it makes perfect sense to me. I feel at ease opening my heart because I'm not risking the involvement of the real people in my life. I think I do not always trust that my family and friends will be careful of my heart. I don't know what I'm afraid of--maybe it's that they would stop loving me if they knew the real me--the one who is imperfect in a million different ways, the one with messy feelings that leak all over the place when what is prized in their world is keeping up appearances, keeping it together.

Sifting through books and whatnot under my bed, I came upon the letter I wrote to my parents and once again I thought about sending it off in the mail to them. I took it in the car with me and passed by the post office for weeks without stopping to get it weighed. I don't know what finally made me mail it. I think I asked myself what I was waiting for and could not come up with a good enough answer. I think I asked myself if I would regret not sending it to them should something happen to them and I knew in my heart that I would. I think I wanted to stop being afraid of owning up to how I feel and I realized that I could not control how they would respond, but I could at least be brave enough to open my heart and say, "this is me." And so I did. I held my breath, then let it go.

A couple of days ago, I received a call from my parents and they told me they loved what I had written, that they had never read anything more beautiful in their lives. They kept referring to my letter as a gift. I cannot tell you how happy this made me because as I've written before, we are not a family who does under the surface living very well. We keep our feelings in check even if it kills us. A lot of the time, actually almost all of my life, I have felt like it's been killing me or at the very least, killing the spirit of who I really am. The last time I tried to communicate to them how I was feeling during a rough period in my life, they changed the subject which left me feeling like I could not be my real self around them--I had to be what they wanted me to be, not what I was. They tend to give me that message a lot, and after a while, I learned to take a hint. But this time? They did not come back and tell me anything more than that I had truly moved them with my words.

This is what I have learned: Sometimes, when you're really scared about opening your heart to people you should be able to open your heart to, they do not disappoint you.