In 1989 I was 14. I had an adorable baby boy. The above picture was me and him on my graduation from high school 5 years later. September 1st my eldest child will be 33. He has two babies of his own. I just wanted to drop a happy birthday to that little boy…and maybe try not to feel old today.
As many of you know, I just took a vacation. The vacation was fun…and it was miserable. I will explain. My daughter and I went to visit my mom. We enjoyed the visit…but there were snide little digs that my mom made that we did not enjoy. I don’t plan on going into details. When we got back we were both upset and trying to get back to the happiness that was home. Then today we were talking about it.
“It wasn’t that bad” “I just exaggerated it” “I am just ungrateful.” “I blew it out of proportion.” “She probably didn’t mean it the way it sounded.” “I was just looking for reasons to hate the trip.”
This often happens to me when I deal with my mom. I end up feeling guilty because I take what she says the wrong way. I told my therapist about a thing that my mom had said that had my daughter upset. I told her that I had told my girl “My mother loves me, but I don’t think she likes me very much. The difference Is I love you and I like you just how you are. I would not change anything about you.” My therapist asked me a question that has been bouncing around my head ever since. “Are you sure that your mom loves you?”
The question becomes how are we sure if anyone loves us? When my parents got divorced, my mom told me something that stuck in my brain. She said that Daddy loved her, but not in the way she needed. Perhaps the demons eating at my brain are doing so, not because I am unloved or unwanted, but instead because I need more than those who have loved me were capable of giving. So my internal war today is the question – Am I too needy? Is everything I do stemming from the desire to be loved more than anyone is possibly capable of? And is my inner voice just looking for an excuse to be miserable?
I am at war with myself, and to be frank, I doubt that I am going to win.
I am fighting the demons within, and it looks like I am losing again.
The words that whisper in my brain are getting real loud within.
Teaching me that I am failing seems to be the goal,
Leaving me there to somehow the answers know.
Yeah, I guess I am going slightly mad,
For I find myself doubting even the truth I had.
Instead of knowing that I am whole and hale,
I find doubt behind every thought, everywhere.
I don’t know if I will get every day this week posted. I am not able to get the week scheduled today. I am busy fighting that war inside me.
I will never Marry…but I came really close once. He was a handsome lad, who truly acted like I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He had dark hair and pretty blue eyes. We had dated for a while when I was in high school. I had gone to a special camp for occupational therapy. He was there and we hit it off. He was so cute, with a little bit of a problem with authority…yeah I know I have a type where men are concerned. Almost all of the men I have actually been attracted to have had that same issue with authority. I left him and the facility. Then a year or so later he and I met again. We hooked up. He asked me to marry him. You know what…at the time I had an awful amount of stars in my eyes where love was concerned. I wanted that damn white picket fence with six children. I wanted happily ever after like the poets speak of. (Says the poet) He made me think I was worth that love.
I was nearly twenty-one. I was an old lady to my mind. Thirty was an impossible dream. I had one child already. My best friend was engaged to a charismatic stoner. We were a group. At the time I thought that the traditional monogamy route was the only way life was. I also was quite deep in the metaphoric closet. I had girlfriends, but I was hiding them and our relationships because I was convinced that being myself was a bad idea. So, I was convinced that I would marry him. We would be together and there would never be a reason why we would not.
Then I walked in on him and my best friend on my couch. Yeah. He apparently had different dreams than I did. I had a one night stand with her fiance as revenge. That was an incredible memorable night. We are still friends, that one night stand and I. The best friend and the husband to be…well I haven’t seen either of them in 26 years now. I left the area and joined Job Corps. I met my boyfriend. He was unlike any guy I had ever dated. Yesterday is the anniversary of the day we met.
He is my best friend. He makes me laugh. He and I will never marry. We don’t want to. He and I had an open relationship from the first. It worked because we were able to be honest with each other. He closed it off when I found someone I could actually have considered getting close to. He realized that he wasn’t able to find anyone else who was even remotely like what he had in me. I still am able to find a girlfriend because there is things that a girl can provide that he cannot. But I have the only man I will ever have. And I am okay with that. (If he was gay the situation would be open there, but he is not.) I had in my youth figured that I needed to marry. I needed to have the house with the three-car garage and white picket fence to be normal. I was so foolish. At forty-seven I have learned a lot. I have carried to term 3 children. I had to give one up for adoption. I miscarried 2. I have found my home. It was not in a building. It was at the side of a man that loves me. It was being Mom to a neurodivergent Girl who thinks I am some kind of hero…and I still am trying to convince her she is mine. It was allowing myself to be me.
I have some definite opinions about Roe vs Wade. This story has a lot of family intonations in it. If I had grown up without the option for an abortion, it would not have mattered to me. I would have not aborted any of the three. However, I miscarried. Twice. Both were emotion killing moments. I wanted both babies. I barely survived having my beautiful neurodivergent girl. The doctors told me if I got pregnant again I would die. I can never carry another child to term. Roe vs Wade means I have the choice. I hate the idea of getting one. I still want that choice. I was raped after my son was born. If I had ended up pregnant I would have wanted that choice. I didn’t report it. I was terrified of the idea. I had told about the sexual abuse I endured as a child. I was told I had lied. Why would anyone believe me if I said that this had happened?
Ending RvW will not stop abortions. It will stop safe abortions. There was abortions before RvW. There were no safe abortions. Women have been choosing to slip pregnacies since the dawn of time. We are supposed to be an advanced society…so why are we discussing this again? It was solved in 1973…
sitting on my porch, watching the chicken that my daughter has…(she’s cleaning up it’s cage) and it is letting her opinion of my porch be known…well if it wasn’t pouring rain we would be walking around the yard…
So aside from the terrible allergies that I suffer every year…the trouble with Spring is the weather is actually nice enough to get the yard cleaned up. That is for me in the form of hiring people who are able to do the work I cannot.
well I have to supervise and direct. So I am staying busy today. Add in the first of the month errands and I am likely to be super busy all week. I will try to post some interesting stuff as permitted by my schedule.
today I am posting from my phone while I am waiting for my kid to come back out of the gas station.
This week I have been sharing some of the stories of my book. A lifetime of stories lived. Some of the stories I have lived will never be shared – for various reasons…some because they are not my story to tell(I am a mother after all) Some because the trauma prevents. So many lives are books stuck on dusty shelves. Never shared for various reasons. I need to share my stories. As a survivor of childhood sex abuse I felt like my voice was taken from me. For me, telling my stories is empowering. For others it is not. I would never try to force the telling of a life.
However, I also want to be clear. I am always willing to hear the story of the lives you have lived. I devour books like the dragon I am…and if you choose to present me with more to read I will revel in it.
Thank you for allowing me to share the stories this week. For me, it is the best form of immortality. I when I am gone will remain due to the book written by my words.
Today my youngest turns 18. The first picture was of her at around 6 months, the second at 16. (She still looks much the same) I was given the gift of a lifetime in her. I am grateful. Happy Birthday Gabrielle, and may you enjoy many more.
Many years ago, my first kids book was Pip the pup. I illustrated it with my own drawings and clip art. One of my young readers – Dante, asked for more of Pip’s story.
I couldn’t refuse him. Releasing December fourth is the next chapter of pip’s adventure… Done in the same style. My own drawings and clip art to illustrate what I hope will be a good continuation of a cute story.
And with characters I plan on writing more of.
Links to come… Soon. (I swear)
Lyrics –
[Verse 1]
Thought I’d bite my tongue
Just this once, maybe twice, but the harder I bite
Now it’s drawing blood
There’s a trace on my lips, leaves a taste when we kiss
Try to cover up
All of the lies and all of the lines that I
Bottle up
To keep you safe and sound
[Pre-Chorus]
But echoes of warnings
Like whispers of morning, like
It creeping through cracks in my memory
It’d make me lose my mind
[Chorus]
But every time I close my eyes
It’s calling in like a siren
Threatening to comе alive
Unless I pay the pricе, yeah
But if my heart is right this time
And I can finally bear my secrets
Maybe you won’t run and hide
But love the monster inside me
[Verse 2]
Maybe all the love
Is a switch that we flip when we’re losing our grip
And it’s close enough
Taking good with the pain, go a little insane
All we really want
Is someone to hold until we grow old
And no matter what (No matter)
Can’t be scared away
[Pre-Chorus]
Echoes of warnings
Like whispers of morning, like
It creeping through cracks in my memory
It’d make me lose my mind
[Chorus]
But every time I close my eyes
It’s calling in like a siren
Threatening to come alive
Unless I pay the price, yeah
But if my heart is right this time
And I can finally bear my secrets
Maybe you won’t run and hide
But love the monster inside me
[Bridge]
Beauty in the chaos, all that’s left to save us
Now
Beauty in the chaos, all that’s left to save us
Now
Beauty in the chaos, all that’s left to save us
Now
Echoes of warnings like
Beauty in the chaos, all that’s left to save us now
Echoes of warnings like
Beauty in the chaos, all that’s left to save us now
[Chorus]
But every time I close my eyes
It’s calling in like a siren
Threatening to come alive
Unless I pay the price, yeah
But every time I close my eyes
It’s calling in like a siren
Threatening to come alive
Unless I pay the price, yeah
But if my heart is right this time
And I can finally bear my secrets
Maybe you won’t run and hide
But love the monster inside me
My 2 Cents –
I have always fought the stigma of my mental health. I am a survivor. That being said, sometimes the labels are easier to fight than others. Now I am trying to help my teenager fight them. She wants to write horror. She is into the creepy and dark. When she told her therapist that (New therapist) the therapist tried to claim that she was homicidal. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She is a gentle soul with a rich imagination. She wants to write dark stories so she is apparently Homicidal. I raised all kinds of hell with the office. The supervisor talked to my daughter and agreed that the therapist was way off base. So I am left with a wonderful beginning writer who is struggling because of labels. Seems to me that the world wants to label madness too easily and the monsters that truly exist are allowed too much leeway. so today at least I think I love the monster inside me and will revel in the beauty in chaos.
Those who follow me probably noticed that I have been awol for a few days – nearly two weeks… That is because I went on a vacation. I visited my parents, my brother, and my son and his youngest son. The poem in the picture is one that I wrote as a child and my dad held onto. Next week I will be back to posting, and I am hoping to be back on track… But I wanted to enjoy the family time, as it is a rare beast.
Pattimouse 