To the End

When I began this blog 5 years ago, it ended up being a catch-all for whatever slogged through my brain, mostly writing and the difficult journey that was caring for my mom.

After a year+ battle with multiple cancers and the complications of surgery, and a 40+ year battle with mental illness, Mom is finally at peace. I held her hand as she left this world, tearfully reminding her she wasn't alone, that she is loved, and that I would be with her through the end. I'd like to think she heard me. She wasn't conscious that day at all as far as we could tell, but she was gone right after I spoke.

In harder moments in the last few days since she died, I tell myself she's at peace, for perhaps the first time ever. I don't know where I fall in terms of belief when it comes right down to it, whether my mom is reunited with her mother and grandparents in a brilliant utopia or has simply ceased to exist. Either way, she's no longer tormented by the horrors and aftershocks of a nightmarish childhood that harmed her in ways she couldn't heal from. I hope (and regardless of my uncertainty I do pray every night) for her sake there is something better where I'll see her again someday, where I can know her as she truly is.

I am left with a silent paranoia that I can't remember enough good times with her. I know there were certainly plenty in my childhood, and though her illness tried it's hardest to eliminate them, there were good times woven in my adult years with her as well. I've felt this panic before, after the death of a loved one, that I couldn't remember specific details about them or my relationship with them.

On the other side of that fear is a bit of clarity. What I struggled with for so many years, was not truly my mother, but the "demons" of her illness trying to take away those of us who meant the most to her. I will never be known as the most patient of people, but my heart is fierce and I know I fought endless battles to hang onto her as long as I could manage. The war is over, but it was a worthy one.

At the moment, aside from a ridiculously high fever that's swept in without warning, I'm left with the perplexing bit of things. Life keeps on going, regardless of how empty or fragile you feel. Life is both exactly the same but completely different, all existing at the same time. My father and I go through her things - we've already made a donation of extra medical items to those who most need them through her hospice. I've written and had published her obituary - the writing was agonizing, the reading of the exact same sentences published was like sucker punch to the gut. My home is still. Her absence is strangely palpable to the energy of the house. I did mention the high fever, yes? Even money on her absence or the fever being the cause.

I have eaten a verifiable-y insane quantity of chocolate in the last week, completely unrelated to Valentine's Day. I could do some serious damage to a variety of baked goods at this point, just sayin'. I'm from hearty Midwestern stock and Southern by marriage - comfort food is the backbone of funerals and grief.

There is, truth be told, a new reality to adjust to, and that is for the first time in my life, my life is sort of my own. My mom and her illness have been so deeply etched on my psyche, completely self-inflicted and unbeknownst to my family, that many decisions I made had to be balanced against what I'd need to do about or for my mom. As I process the grief, as I wobble between days wanting to curl up in bed and sleep from the sheer exhaustion of the last year and days wanting to spend hours writing or exploring the world, I'll be getting to know myself in some capacity. I think catching up on shows & movies I've missed and zoning the hell out is the first order of business.

But, there are still things to get done. Clothing donations to make. Her de facto hospital room to change back into a spare room or office. Her ashes and death certificates to pick up. A celebration of life to set up (flowers, food, memorial cards, location). Etc, etc, etc. Zoning out for a bit sounds pretty darn good right about now.

My momma is gone. All I want is one more afternoon with her from when I was about 9, just her and I in the car while she gets us a sandwich and an orange soda while I tell her about my day at school. Or a morning when I was 3 and I'd snuggle up with her on the couch to watch The Price Is Right. Or a Saturday night when I was 11 and I'd feel so grown up helping her perm or color her hair in the dining room.

I love you, Mom.

Rewrite of a different kind

Family is a tricky thing. What you grew up with as normal might freak out others you come across. What you tried to hide as embarrassing family shenanigans might be ho-hum for others.

What may be more to the point for this post is that explaining your family can be a tricky thing. How do you explain why your dad calls your oldest cousin 'Apple Juice Fitzhibbert' instead of Alan, followed swiftly by everyone of that generation repeating on cue "So say we all"? This is not a true story from my family, but is as random as the collections of both you-had-to-be-there and it-evolved-over-time family stories that many of us don't even realize we have. Most of our family stories involve fart/poop jokes or injuries, so I aimed for an example that might seem more wholesome. *cough*

I've had my share of relaying family history and stories. All of my siblings are married and have children, so there's been plenty of rehashing of us. My poor husband asks on a weekly basis WTF the reason my parents do or say something is.

He's got no room to talk though.

Recently family history has taken a turn off the paved road, shall we say. New relatives, people kept hidden one or two generations back, have appeared on our radar thanks to the modern marvel of DNA testing. Exact relationships are still being figured out because, we think, those involved are deceased. But initially it looks like a pretty close, family altering, match. On my husband's side. A family history that has been difficult to piece together at times - perhaps we now know why.

I'm in the position now of trying to explain a family's history. What do you start with? Do you stagger info, saving the potentially less ideal for the future? Do you lay it all out from the beginning, warts and all?  I mean the "new" relative is already quite aware somebody in the biological mix kept a secret.

Secondly, how do you address this with the family who is still alive but was not aware of what happened? How do you go about having to rewrite their history?

Australia - AtoZChallenge

With last year's experience in mind, I was sure I'd put a fair amount *cough* of effort *snort* into prepping for this year's A to Z Blogging Challenge.

I scribbled down a couple of theme ideas, figured I'd revisit and consider.

Yeah, that worked well.

So as with most of the science fair projects in my life, the night before it's due a spark of an idea came to me: Bucket List. Where do I want to go? What would I like to do?

I liked it. Plenty of directions to go.

A was a gimme. Australia. That is a big dream my husband and I share. I don't know that I wouldn't have to be sedated for the 18+ hrs of air travel - the thought of flying that far makes me... queasy... at best. But somehow I'd like to explore Australia in my lifetime (you know, except for all the wildlife that is deadly and crawls into toilets).

I'd intended to explore a little bit about what I'd like to see and things I'd like to do. But I had a phone call today that underscored the idea of living life to the fullest and kicked me in the gut. A relative's cancer is no longer in remission. And it was almost missed to have allowed it to continue spreading unchecked for a year. And it's not a patient, slow moving, relaxed kind of thing.

So A is still for Australia. And the bucket list of what I want to do in life is once again more precious a thought in my life.

Pay the Toll

There is a price to be paid in my house for when I'm happy or I've done something for myself. Because it really pisses off my mother, the person who embodies cutting off anything you enjoy as a form of self-punishment. Or for shits and giggles. Who can really say?

It's taken a long time for me to figure out I do the same damn thing and try to stem the eruptions of guilt that occur when I take 5 minutes to myself once in a while.

And if you think I'm exaggerating or being over-dramatic, the person writing this had to have a psychological professional tell my parents to stop smothering me by requiring my presence in their lives constantly as a teenager. I think they took my teenage leave-me-the-fuck-alone-to-read-or-talk-to-friends as a sign they'd failed to make their home a better one than they'd had growing up. No, just teenage introverting and hard crushing over guys I'd never date, but thanks for making it about you.

Which is sort of the root of the matter with my mother. My life has been melted down to the basic idea that she should be the center of my life. This exists both internal and external of her mental illness, and so I've decided at this point it's really just an issue that exists within her as a person and not specifically because she happens to have a serious mental illness. Sort of moving it into the category of "regular" passive aggressive mothers everywhere. Just spicier.

So when I have friends? She's jealous. When I leave the house? I'm partying on a yacht instead of sweating my ass off lugging groceries into the back of a vehicle in 100% humidity in the blazing sun. When I leave the house to see friends? Guaranteed meltdown. And yesterday was no different. Uncaring hussy that I was, I didn't go out just once yesterday. Oh no. 3 times, once just one-on-one with my husband for an errand, I had the audacity to get in my car and enjoy myself. Nerdy word play, filthy jokes and all. She'd have a stroke if she knew I had a donut with my coffee. Because where was hers?!

And I refused to engage in the reindeer games when I returned.

She announced that she'd been having trouble for days with her mind, but hadn't wanted to tell us. I know my mother's tells. She was bullshitting me. But calmly, I played along and asked for details. After cutting back the underbrush of word games (her favorite way to stall for more ideas) and just plain moose caca, her explanation amounted to whenever I left the house, she got confused and so I shouldn't leave the house anymore without her. As long as she's with me, she doesn't have any trouble.

This is the woman who when she's been committed to psychiatric wards ends up running the asylum by the time she's allowed to leave. She's fucking brilliant at manipulation. One issue she has with me is I know her. Even at her most cunning, she's got patterns. She's got tells. Tells that are on full display when she's up to something. At least to me.

I listened to everything she had to say, asked if she was having trouble sleeping and sent her to bed. Today she has followed me around every inch of the house whenever I'm not in my bedroom or the bathroom. She sat and stared at me for at least 30 minutes as I was at my desk . A little later, she spent an hour in the next room putting a puzzle together and making random comments every 20 minutes.

As always when discussing situations with my mother, I get that she's ill. I get that she's declining. And I get, as I have my entire life, that some of goes on is completely and totally out of her control. Some days are just wilder rides than others.

No Stigma, but not my finest hour

My family story is not as convoluted as I once pictured it. Sure, we're weird and have a hefty dose of things plenty of people only whisper about as part of our day to day life, but (and I mean this with all every iota of sincerity in my being) plenty of other people are royally messed up. Like, next level warped.

And regardless of how intense things can get on a daily basis when my mom is having troubles, it is what it is. My mom is an abuse survivor. She has been battling a mental illness for more than three decades. If you've been around on my blog at all, this is not news to you. But I say it, I repeat it, I state it over and over. On purpose. Because so many others will not.

So my dad and I do our best to take care of her, to get her the help she needs and do what we can. I have tried over the course of my life to come to terms with my mom's illness and history and how it has impacted my life and our relationship. And just when I think I've got a handle on it, as is often the case (at least in my experience) I uncover some unexpected wrinkle.

The other day my aunt, a woman I haven't seen in almost 20 years (unless you count social media re-posts of recipes), posted a cute picture. A sweet image about loving your sister.

And it set me the fuck off.

I fought the urge, over several days, to start some serious drama. WTF, me? Get a grip!

See, the last time my aunt and mom saw each other it was going through their mom's stuff after her funeral. There has probably been less than a handful of calls in all the time. Maybe one letter. But hey, at least there's pre-printed Christmas cards most years from her! And she comments on my social media posts regarding my mom to say hello or wish her well on her behalf.

On that sweet, sisterly post she put up, a friend of hers asked how her sister was doing. My aunt liked her comment but said nothing. At least not publicly. Nobody else between her family or 'ours' liked or commented. While I seethed, my fingers threatening to unleash venom.

I want to reply to this person and say that my aunt wouldn't know how her sister is. That her illness has ravaged her life. That my aunt can't deal with their past and more or less walked away from my mom decades ago.  That when I wrote to my mom's siblings years ago at one of mom's worst points in her illness, nothing changed.

This is wounded and protective daughter. This is the me that howls for the agony my parents have endured on their own. I want reparations for a wound that will never heal.

A wound that wasn't my aunt's fault.

My aunt is an abuse survivor, too. While I mourn the connections my parents lost over the years, families don't fracture for no reason. The strain on her over the years took a toll as well. I know bits and pieces, enough to know it's not been easy. Enough to know she probably misses my mom but doesn't know how to bridge that divide. Enough to know that when I wrote to her, detailing what I'd learned about my mom's past and their childhood, she wept. It's not fair of me to have expectations of these people I never really have gotten to know, my aunt or the other siblings. It's not fair to me or them.

It's a convenient lightening rod for my frustrations. Assign a blame or blow up at the slightest of provocations over something well-meant or at the very least not well thought through. Not my finest moment to be sure. Not my worst either.

The timing didn't help. Mom's been declining enough to make her psychiatrist concerned. As a family, we've begun discussing what may be coming next and consider what plans or arrangements we should be preparing for. I've tried over the course of a few cards to explain to my mom's siblings that Mom is declining. I gave up on the updates when all I get in response are those lovely pre-printed holiday cards. But mostly silence.

Again, these people have their demons, too. If you've tried desperately to forget hell on earth, how would you handle random reminders of that time? And my mom isn't capable of having a deep and meaningful connection with these people anymore (not that they know it). If I'm being honest, at this point trying to interact with them doesn't benefit her as far as I can tell. So the updates from me have stopped.

Maybe one day I'll get the opportunity to sit down with my aunt and talk to her. Maybe it'll be healing and cathartic. Maybe it'll be nothing of the kind. It's just as likely it won't happen. It's becoming more clear to me that there is no information I could get, no extra piece of their story, that's going to make things any better. It happened. They both are the way they are and their kids are the way we are. There are things I don't need to know. Nightmares I don't need made more real.

I'm down from seething over that post to mildly irked. For me, it represents such loss. A gigantic disconnection. And no good will come from my flying off the handle about it. I can march around with a banner about mental illness and supporting my mom all day, it doesn't mean the rest of her family is there. Or will ever be there.

You Gotta Hold the Frame Pt 2

Quick recap: a tale of good intentions and matriarchal vengeance, or what it was like taking my mom for an evening out.

Look, Dirty Dancing on stage? Did it need to be done? If you’re not a fan of the movie, then probably not. If you’ve seen the movie anywhere as often as I have in my life, then yes, it absolutely works for you. Here’s the deal, every memorable line, every particular dance move to a particular part of a particular song, it’s all there. With a few extras I’m sure as much to stretch the time a bit as to make up for songs the woman behind the movie wasn’t able to get then that she could now. And they even figured out a cool bit of stage magic to handle the part where Baby learns the lift in the field and then water. I was transported. I'm also weird, so there's that.

With the arrival of intermission, my mom wanted to leave. I had already realized at the very least we were going to miss the ending so we could get a little extra time down those steps before the crowds started to leave. So much for the time of my life. But Mom threw a curveball as only she can. “There’s more?” she asked as folks filed past to find bathrooms, drinks or (unbeknownst to me at the time) merchandise. Yes, Mom. Just the second half. Just the most iconic scene of the damn movie you’ve recently blocked out. “Oh.”

She didn’t want to leave while the show was still going on, because it would be dark. She was ready to leave now. Unless I was having a good time. Was I having a good time? She’d hate to ruin my night. About halfway through intermission, she decided to stay and we’d wait to leave until after our section cleared out. Unless she changed her mind for any reason later. A kid came back to her seat by us clutching a Johnny Castle teddy bear. That’s when I realized there were souvenirs. Damn and blast.

OH-EM-GEE

That's when the paramedics showed up, climbing the stairs to the nosebleed seats. One of the older ladies from our earlier stair convoy was in some kind of distress. When the paramedics walked her down a few minutes later, she told them she felt fine. Not really sure what happened, but my mom watched the whole thing like a hawk. I sat back in my own seat thinking it was a win for the evening that the paramedics were there and it wasn’t for my mom. I kept my fingers crossed that she wasn't getting ideas of her own for later.

We made it through to the finale, standing ovation and all. The theater emptied and we finally took the 3 foot walk over to descend K2. I’ll make this shorter than it unfolded. It took almost an hour to make a usually fifteen minute (max) walk to the car from our seats. 2 separate ushers felt the need to make small talk with me to while away the time for us to get out of the auditorium. That should have been a 45 sec walk, including the stairs and my gravel-filled knees. I had to promise my mom a milkshake to keep her motivated to get back to the car.

On the drive home, Mom tried telling me the exact opposite of comments she made about the experience earlier in the evening. Rewriting history is as much a part of her as the paranoia. After an all too brief silence she informed me that she's got to put her faith in God to get her through such difficult moments, because only He has the power to get her through. No offense to the holy spirit, but I rolled my eyes. My mom has a history, as is actually kind of common in some forms of mental illness, of having a rather fanatical devotion to religion off and on. Depending on your interpretation of faith and divine intervention, I'd say God has put my father and I in her life to help her get through, but why start being practical now? I kept such observations to myself and let her continue down her conversational martyrdom. As much as I had enjoyed the show, as relieved as I was about getting her back to the car, I was bummed about the ongoing inability we have to connect. She slips further away all the time. 

After several minutes, she thanked me for getting her through it. Me? Did I do something? She told me that my siblings would have given up but I never do. It’s as close to a genuine observation about our relationship as she’s ever going to make. A few minutes later she called herself stupid and laughed like an out of touch teenager. She’s well aware how much her verbal self-harm bothers me. The 'genuine observation' from earlier was just as likely bait to wind me up, since she brought up the siblings. She’s paranoid, she hallucinates, but she’s far from stupid and preternaturally astute about some things. Especially where I’m concerned. They are one of her favorite ways to stir me up.

In the end we got through it. I stopped on the way home and got her that milkshake. Maybe even an order of onion rings for good measure. As we neared home, Mom asked if I had any plans for the next day. My spideysense was tingling, so I cautiously reminded her that I had appointments to get a few of her grandchildren to and various errands to run. "Oh," she lamented, "I was hoping you'd have the day to sleep." Why? "Because you must be exhausted after tonight." Said complete with crazy eyes and the creep factor of a little girl possessed by evil. I managed a completely casual "Nope, got stuff to do."

My evening with my mother aside, I'm left with a burning desire to watch Dirty Dancing for the seven millionth time and listen to the soundtrack on repeat for a bit. The biggest shocker of the whole thing was learning one of my older niblings had no idea what the show was about because they had not yet seen the movie.

I'll be taking care of that in the near future. Alas, the souvenir bear is out of reach along with the tank tops they were selling emblazoned with "I carried a watermelon." Not that I needed something else of my own to collect dust in a corner of my office.

Writing: Seem to have settled into productive rhythm, so I'm contemplating ways to go from productive to getting.it.done.

Reading: Halfway through new book, feeling twitchy over stack of library books I shouldn't have acquired all at once.

Language: 30+ days and counting. Have gotten my dad into the program, just with a different language.

Coffee: Getting back to making morning protein drinks w/coffee. The sensation of more neurons firing is intoxicating.

Naps: I've actually managed a couple this week.

Positivity: The night out with Mom would typically be enough to derail my mood for a bit. But aside from the ever present dissatisfaction with how we relate to each other, I started moving on from it as soon as I was driving us home. I feel like my life is in the middle of a kind of evolution, moving up to some next step of self-improvement, personal enrichment, general good-type-things. That sounds all new-agey to me, but I tend to be an intuitive (or so I'd like to believe) person, so if I have a sense of something, there's a good chance there's something to it. I'm also crazy accurate at predicting the next song coming onto the radio or knowing a song in the first few notes. Seriously, it used to freak out my hubby. Not that any of those things are marketable skills.

You Gotta Hold the Frame Pt 1

Where to begin?

Let's rewind to Christmas time 2015. My mom is not an easy person to shop for. Closets are littered with gifts that were never used or tried once and forgotten. Even if it's exactly what she asked for. Usually we are forced to play gift roulette and spin the wheel of Mom's disappointment or confusion over what she's supposed to do with that. Birthdays, Mother’s Days, anniversaries, holidays…. And I'll tell you something else, local stores don't exactly carry cards that express my feelings for or my relationship with my mother. After more than 30 years with her, I can't bring myself to hand her a card bursting with sentiment about how she's the best mother who always put me first. And even if I could, my dad’s chortle of laughter at the message would piss her off anyway. I'm looking for: "I love you but I’m not so trusting that I wouldn't sleep with one eye open around you.”

Hmm, that might sound a little more bitter than usual. Let's move on.

I wanted to get my mom a gift that wouldn't collect dust in a corner but wasn't a gift card for a restaurant (food being her gift of choice). Since my mom isn't subtle (she thinks she is) I'm aware when I go out and about without her, that puts her in a jealous snit. I decided to do an activity with my mom as her gift. And an activity can be a dicey proposition, so something that doesn't really require interaction would be ideal. Having had a positive experience taking Mom to see a touring Broadway production a few years ago, I ordered tickets to see the tour of Dirty Dancing. She knew the story. (Easier for her to follow that way) She knew the music. (She likes music and this was mostly upbeat songs she knew.)

Life has been so busy, neither of us realized the show was coming up until I saw a reminder the day before. Those tickets?  Sitting in the Christmas card they came in, under a stack of dust-collecting crap. The good news about Mom not remembering the show was coming up is she didn’t have several days to obsess and worry about it, backing out of going every three hours. But I didn’t think about the show taking place in March, a time of great instability for her.

While I got ready, after finding clothes she insisted she didn’t have to wear and my dad making her get a shower, she tried several times to convince my dad to tell her she shouldn’t go. See, it’s not her decision if she convinces someone to say the words for her. More importantly, it gives her someone to throw under the bus later when she’s upset about the decision. 

I knew they would be searching purses at the door of the theater, standard operating procedure for just about any venue lately. To my relief, I wasn’t going to have to explain that to her and spark a fresh panic because she wasn’t going to bring her purse. She was, however, going to bring with her a big bottle for night time pills she usually takes at bedtime. She was worried about someone having a problem with her pills. I’ll skip to the end here: she didn’t end up taking them until after we were home.

The biggest hurdle I was bracing for was walking to our seats from the parking area. Which is right.freaking.there. My mother had been practically skipping around the house the previous few days. That night, out and about and around people? She was suddenly weak and feeble and kept trying to throw herself forward as she walked. I have no other way to explain it. She walked just fine and then as soon as she saw another person, she’d threaten to fall to her knees and throw her upper body forward like a diver attempting to jackknife. If we were walking to a restaurant from the parking lot, she’d have left me in the dust.

Luckily, I factored the potential for extra needed time into our arrival. What I had not factored was my mother refusing to let go of my arm as we approached security to check my purse. Thankfully, I got a guard who seemed to understand or at least empathize, who offered to come to us instead of my putting the bag on a table. I feel safe in believing had this been the TSA, I’d still be in an interview room being detained. Luck did not hold out and the ticket taker was bogged down by the folks ahead of us having ticket trouble. As the hiccup unfolded, my mother pitched wildly while we stood in one place.

I’m compelled to point out here that had I brought my mom in a wheelchair she doesn’t physically need but desperately wants in some bizarre hang-up, we couldn’t have gone. The handicap seats? Those are conveniently located in an area that costs 3 times as much as our tickets. And then there are the people who honestly, actually need those seats. The ones who can’t run into a restaurant.

I was relieved when they finally allowed us into the seating area. I was relieved until I showed them our tickets and the usher told us to go to the left and up the stairs. Stairs? With my mother? I was 75% sure she was about to meltdown and demand we leave. It was a conservative estimate. There was no elevator for that level, but I’m positive if there had been, it would have been on the other side of where we were, outside, down two flights of stairs, and in an underwater cave. Why? Because only maybe 10 stairs stood between us and our seats. You’d have thought they were asking us to hike up Everest.

Even without sherpas we eventually made it, the head of a convoy of little old ladies with canes climbing up to the nosebleed seats beyond us. The usher on this level was patiently cheering us on. “Slow and steady. There’s no rush. Take your time.” We weren’t going up a whole flight of stairs. I took comfort that there were others, quite a bit older, but there were others. I'd managed to get us aisle seats, so I figured once to our personal summit we were golden. Wrong. Mom was so flustered from those 10 stairs and her annoyance with having to go up them, she couldn't figure out how to sit. Butt in seat wasn't sinking in. Anxiously I waited for her to throw herself onto the floor, but eventually she sat. It took a bit of convincing, but I finally got my mom to relinquish her own cane for me to lean against my end-of-the-row seat. I really didn’t want people tripping over it. Or worse, Mom whacking somebody with it as she maneuvered around in her seat.

I sat simmering beside her, mentally berating myself for thinking this would possibly work out well. I’m leaving out a whole hissed back-and-forth before showtime where she let me know that she wasn’t happy about anything. I’ve kind of trained myself over the years to quickly dismiss these conversations from my mind. I can easily enough recreate one from the sheer volume if necessary, but I have made that commitment to being positive and happy. I’m positive that I’m happier letting go of what she said. So I sat silently looking to the stage as we waited. In the blink of an eye, as only my mom can, she turned to me and patting my knee, smiled benignly and told me to enjoy myself. Like the last 45 minutes hadn’t happened and I was being moody.

The show began.

In like a lion...out like a lunatic lamb

To the trees!

Twas the night before Easter... and I've got a dozen and a half hard-boiled eggs cooling and a 20 lb ham in the fridge. This is not a drill - I've got teenagers coming dinner tomorrow. Have you ever fed teenagers at a feasting holiday (or, you know, in general)? They're a cross between rabid hyenas and starving raptors. Pile it high and stay the hell out of the way. To be completely honest, feeding them keeps the passive aggressive (or blatant antagonism) back and forth between them to a minimum. So I'll prep a double-sized po-tate-er casserole and practice hurling asparagus spears aimed for their mouths without a second thought in the name of my own personal brand of holiday sanity. Mmmm, taters...

Visiting relatives, especially of the sibling variety, bring out a special blend of my mom's personalities. This is an evolving thing lately as well though. Most of my life, Mom's managed to hide a lot of what I've seen from my siblings, which made it easier for them to believe whatever stories about me she'd make up after I hit puberty (the magical age when everything turned to shit).

The trouble she's had day-to-day over the last few years has erased some of the magic she's used to keep the facade in place and now she's more flaky, less stable and sometimes down right weird around them. It's uncomfortable for my siblings but like a day ending in -y around here. I'll admit to some mixed feelings where my mom's illness and my siblings are concerned, but they grew up with her issues, and if I'm being fair, are entitled to however they deal with it. Or not.  And for at least one or two of them, there is some kind of resentment back my way for how close I am with our parents. Which I find hilarious, but that's a topic for another day.

Just kidding. Not really. 

Girding my loins for family drah-ma aside, I had a good day today. I got errands taken care of. I finished reading a good book. I wrote. I had a carefully crafted coffee beverage. I frenetically fangirled, babbled, and extensively critiqued chatted with a friend about the latest blockbuster movie we both saw with our respective snuggle bunnies. My husband and I sat on the glider swing on our back porch while it rained. He read & I worked on some French lessons. I nuked leftovers for dinner. Winner winner, leftover bbq chicken for dinner. It was a delightfully ordinary and completely wonderful kind of day.

What came to mind as I was driving home tonight is how nice it is, at this point in my adult life, to have happily married friends. People who understand venting is at worst a blip of a rough day or period and at best commiserating shared peccadilloes of significant others. When I was first married, all my friends were young and single, some not even sure who or what they were attracted to. If my husband didn't put the toilet seat down, or some equally goofy but annoying offense, they swiftly advised me to divorce the vile heathen. FYI, I can count on one hand the number of times my husband has forgotten to lower the seat in our entire marriage. #toiletseathero

Years and a fairly clean sweep of friends later, we graduated to married, in committed relationships or divorced friends. This seemed super cool to us. Couples dates! Shared experiences! We laughed at the newer couples' foibles - "What do you mean you've never left the bathroom door open? It'll happen, just wait until you share a stomach bug or get dicey takeout one night." We watched marriages/relationships disintegrate and nervously reassured each other it wouldn't happen to us. But even there, the people we hung out with the most, whose own relationship issues erupted in public and private, seemed to thrive on our run-of-the-mill rough patches. He's a butthead, I'm a harpy. You know, the snipey stuff that comes out when you both need Midol and a candy bar. It's not like he bought drugs with the mortgage money. (Hand to God, I knew someone...) It's not like either one of us ever hit or abused the other one. (Witnessed it. Made sure the abused party got out of the relationship.) We had what was our garden variety marital growing pains. You figure out and grow closer or you grow apart. But some 'friends' seemed strangely fixated on us splitting up.

So it's nice to start having more and more friends who are clearly good matches for each other. It's nice to be able to blow off steam about some silly nothing I won't remember happened in a week with another person who gets it. Group chats with wildly inappropriate gifs, dinner out, movies, theme parks, grabbing a drink. Really, this adult thing doesn't always suck. But it probably helps that I still laugh at poop jokes like I'm in elementary school.

We're a little more cabbage patch and a little less tango.

Writing: Wrote more days this week than not.

Reading: Finished 2 books, picked up 4 at the library and promised a nibling I'd start reading his/her newest favorite book. In other words, I've fallen off the careful self-pacing wagon and reverted back to picking up too many books at once. :-D

Foreign Language: I have met my daily course goal for more than 20 days.

Coffee: Happy medium. Less than I could be drinking, but enough to keep me going.

Nap: Not nearly enough.

Positivity: Not too shabby. I'll be dreaming of ab-a-licious super heros for the next few days, so that doesn't hurt.

Revenge of March

Spoke too soon. Or I wrote too soon, if you want to get technical. March is officially in full swing in my home, tears and all.

As I was about to get ready to head out and take one of my niblings to an appointment, I heard my parents raised voices. Well, let’s call it like it is. They were shouting back and forth, clearly frustrated with one another.

That’s my cue, one of many really, to put on my referee cap. Long story slightly shorter, Mom was upset because my dad only had time to run out to the nearest quick service food restaurant to grab them a quick lunch before I needed to run. We live a good 15-20 minutes away from the nearest drive-thru, which is good for our health but not exactly convenient when you’re in a hurry. She didn’t want the healthy, fresh sandwich option. She wanted a burger, fries and a shake - at least that’s the safest assumption of what she was after. 1950s malt shop/5 & dime counter service. My mother operates under the constant belief that life, liberty and the pursuit of junk food is being withheld from her. Oh, and that we’re going out partying instead of running errands. Cha-cha-ing the afternoon away sipping on boat drinks as I stand in line for the third day this week at the pharmacy, like the rest of the world does. You know how it is, hiding the secret ice cream and sneaking out for secret corn dogs and hidden onion rings under the guise of ‘adulting’.

I send Dad off, casually watching the clock. I had a teenager to pick up, which was only the beginning of my afternoon errands and appointments. I quickly realized my own grab & go lunch just fell off my to-do list. Mom started in. We were mean to her, it wasn’t her fault, we kept our schedules or plans hidden from her, etc and so forth. Bottom line? She thinks subs are healthy and are to be avoided unless she’s determined that she’s being left out of subs. It makes sense on an emotionally stunted level. This stems not so much (as far as I can tell) from being abused in her childhood as from feeling like her baby sibling was spoiled and ruined a lot of her own fun. You didn’t think horrific child abuse stopped things like sibling rivalry and middle child syndrome, did you? A book I read recently about another woman’s journey as she investigated the abuse of her mother and aunts confirmed that my mom’s 60-year sibling jealousy isn’t exactly uncommon in families like this. So maybe it does have to do with the abuse after all. Or just shitty family dynamics.

There’s only two ways things are going to go when I’m deflating Mom’s not so solid arguments when reality is far from her grasp: the soldier’s going to come out with sword ablazing and let me know in no uncertain terms what an evil, horrible, shitty person I have been and will always be OR painfully woebegone tears of the deepest self pity, wondering why she is as reviled and unloved as she is and what she could have possibly done in her life to be this way. Today was tears.

Lest you think from my… shall we say… snarky tone that I’m a complete dick to her, contrary to her own view, I’m not. I patiently reminded her that what was wrong with her brain was a mental illness and while she wasn’t a victim in this lunchtime bruhaha, she was casting blame with laser precision where perhaps no blame was needed. Dad returned then, both of us more grateful than a certain local grocery chain will ever know that a brand new store opened at the nearest intersection. His grocery bags caught Mom off guard. Goodbye tears. Warily, she remained where she was and watched him unload a few deli sandwiches, chicken tenders and chips. She had to be coaxed to sit at the table. Her mind couldn’t rework her arguments about what was for lunch when the picnic fare before her wasn’t what she was expecting. It took a few minutes of gentle arguing to get her to understand the ham sandwich she was demanding was the one I was handing her.

Food procured, set up and in hand, Mom’s mood vanished in a swirl of confused mist, her bravado deflating. I told her to color, something that has a very positive impact on her mood but she fights doing a solid fifty percent of the time, after she was finished eating. She argued that she was tired and needed to nap. I agreed that she needed the nap and likely an extra half of one of her medicines, but she needed the mental activity as well. Eat, 10 minutes of coloring, medicine, then nap. 20 minutes later, as I was racing to the door with a container of cantaloupe for lunch, she told me to drive carefully as she colored in her paisley coloring book.  

By the time I got home several hours later, she had settled into sitting alone staring out the window in unsettling silence while my dad took a nap. Creepy Mom is kind of her idling setting when she's in one of these roller coaster periods. She joined me & nibling #2 in the living room while homework was being worked on, not interacting with us in anyway, just there. She ended up taking a nap until dinner was ready. I made the safe choice and fixed one of her favorites, spaghetti with meat sauce, because God knows I wasn't about to go down a food meltdown twice in one day with her.

It's a good sign that this late at night she's sleeping. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for Mom not to sleep for days at a time in March, her brain spinning increasingly more bizarre stories that get her more upset and confused.

March Madness

It occurred to me today that in just two more week's we'll be a quarter of the way through this year. Time flies when you live paycheck to paycheck, am I right? In all seriousness though, I've decided that what makes time seem to speed by so quickly as an adult is swinging from one moment/set of bills/responsibility/drama-filled meltdown/appointment/etc to the next. When I was a kid, the things I waited for felt like months or years away and time crawled across a partially inflated air mattress to get there. Christmas was always f-o-r-e-v-e-r away. Now that I'm the one in charge of holidays, they appear with no apparent warning, as though not clearly marked & advertised well in advance. 

Point being, the pace certainly has not slowed down as we skid past the Ides of March. 

My sniffly-ness has been (fingers crossed) cast aside. Although that thought reminds me that I forgot to pick up a refill on my now-empty new allergy medicine. Let's hope I remember to pick that up tomorrow. My back and I have reached an uneasy truce. I still walk funny & it hurts like a bitch, but I'm able to get around more or less and even stand up straight a little each day. I'm sure I'll push it a little too far too soon, but I'll complain about that when the time comes. 

Feeling the year racing away with me should make me feel like I'm running out of time to accomplish what I wanted to this year. And if I'm being honest, there are moments when I wonder where in the hell my life has run off to. But, however, not withstanding, so on and forthwith... Er... BUT, I feel like I'm starting to gain a bit of traction. I'm declaring the beginning of this year to be framed by the act of learning to accept what you can't change, adjust and do what you can. Decent advice in general obviously, but I'm stubborn and grumpy when it feels like life is going off the rails. It doesn't matter if I had a plan, if this is a seat-of-my-pants kind of time then go with it. 

So while life happens, writing is getting back on track. Had a minor setback when my hard drive bit it, but that set back was quickly overcome, my computer now in better shape than ever (knock on blessed, virgin wood). A few extra writing nights out to save my sanity over the last week or so helped as well. I will find a workable, productive rhythm. I will start producing enough material in order to get feedback to ultimately produce more material to publish. Deadlines here I come. You know, hopefully.

I've got to say, finally working on renewing my acquaintance with a foreign language I enjoyed learning 20 *coughchokesnort* years ago has been awesome. I am a quarter of the way through the program after 17 days of moderate use. It makes me feel good and I'm anxious to start a list of other languages offered. This is 100% just for me. It serves no definable purpose other than fulfilling a personal aspiration. And I love it. 

March is traditionally a difficult month for my mom, which in turn is a difficult time for us. She hasn't escaped the busyness of the year, be it a slew of her own doctor visits or just being discombobulated from the constant changing of schedules and coming and going of grandchildren lately. The extra chaos bothers her, but it's almost been too busy for her to have the usual DEFCON 2 level of problems. Not enough to need to be committed, but enough that day to day you know something's going to happen. Today was moderate passive aggressive martyrdom regarding my dad because he wasn't paying attention to her while he was reading. She didn't cry or become hysterical, though I think we were nearly there, but then again she had two pieces of pie today so that may have been what saved us. I'm completely serious.

I've got fun plans later on in the week, I'm productive, I may have binge-watched the Full House reboot while re-installing software on my computer & I'm almost finished with one of the two books I'm reading. Now to figure out how to humanely persuade the mockingbird outside my window to find a new home - somewhere I can't hear it's chattering from sundown to sunup. 

Doggie Update: Good days and enh days. He had been eating less and less, down to a few bites at most. And then the other day, after eating three bites of dinner and walking away, he started barking at my dad later in the evening. He ate part of a can of wet dog food and has been cleaning his bowl ever since. Today he got up and greeted me when I got home from the pharmacy. The cancer is still there. The end is still coming. But he continues to do it his way. Today goes down as a good day for him. I'm sure he would consider it a better day if he'd gotten a bacon cheeseburger. He's funny that way.

Writing: Writing several days a week for the last two weeks. Working my way back to where I want to be.

Reading: Averaging about a chapter a day, more depending on doctor appointment wait times. Ready to move on to new books I just so happen to have already picked out. Shocker.

Language: Getting.it.done. 

Coffee: Synapses say thumbs up. Not too much but still room for more. 

Positivity: Still on board. Life is beautiful. Life is difficult. Still believe it's worthwhile to practice & share positivity. Basically, yeah, still trying to be positive and happy.