Three Weeks Goes By Fast!

Wow! I've been really busy doing book work. Haven't been posting here too much.



Hey, can I just say something really amazing that keeps happening to me? It seems lately, when I have a question in mind, the answer will pop up in strange places.



Today, the answer came on an email list that I belong to. I was curious how people remain detached from issues surrounding their children when they are healing from codependency. I was going to post to the list, when I read down all the way to the bottom, and this one member had sort of like a tagline that she put at the bottom of her email. It has to be new, because I have never seen it before. It said, "~Don't see your child as a blank slate awaiting your pen, but as a written book awaiting your study.~Max Lucado." Whoa!



Although that did help with some of the question, the meat of the question still remains...where do my rights end and my children's rights begin? Do I have the right to confiscate an MP3 player with music that is complete and total trash?



My son downloaded more music than he will ever live to listen to onto his iPod. Much of it was stuff he never even listens to. I was sitting at the computer the other day and his "side" was loaded. The screen contained his music list. Some of the titles were really out there. I asked him to come downstairs so we could discuss what I was seeing. One of the songs was by The Dead Kennedys. I don't even want to say what the title was, it was so offensive. When I played the song for him, he was shocked that this band would play such a song. He actually had a visceral reaction to it and almost threw up.

Let me just say, I have worked a lot on this with Kim, releasing my expectations of how my children "should" act, look, and behave. I have such a hard time with releasing these things and letting the kids be themselves.

My middle child, the same one as above, has a giant rebellious streak. He grows his hair long (and sometimes wears it in liberty spikes), dresses in lots of black clothes, and listens to strange music. It's hard for others to know who he is, because he shows this tough guy image, but he's a really nice kid. He tells me it's a "test" to see who his friends are.

I know I shouldn't worry. He's very well liked by classmates and many teachers. And his friends are really good kids. I guess I just feel the judgement of the other parents when they see him. Thank God his two best friend's parents know me. The one friend is the son of the neighborhood pediatrician, the other is the son of the pastor of a church. And these are the things I am working at letting go of...appearances.

But what of the iPod? The stuff that is directly affecting their hearts. I can deal with the superficial nonsense of the hair and the clothes, but what about what they see and watch every day? Our kids are exposed to so much today, and so fast, it's really alarming. It seems I can't even protect them from this stuff, it comes at us so fast. The two younger boys (15 and 13) have both already seen 'R' rated movies with their friends at sleepovers and parties.

So, back to the Lucado quote. I guess I'm fumbling with not trying to rewrite the characters, while trying to ensure that the book has a happy ending. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!

Happy New Year!

Hey Anyone who is reading this!


Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, and all of the other good stuff I could wish you! I just figured I'd catch up on the past couple of weeks since I last posted.


My middle son is recovering very nicely after his back surgery, thanks for all of the prayers and well-wishes. He's my hero...he's been through so much this year, yet still maintains a positive outlook. What a kid!

Christmas Eve was spent with my parents at their Christmas Eve party. I don't understand why my mother hosts these things when all they do is stress her out. I've gotta tell you, her parties, from start to finish, usually are an enormous trigger for bringing up issues from my past. They always involve the cousin who sexually abused me, and they always involve drinking.

This year's party wasn't too much different, except I felt myself handling things better than I would have last year. I felt it begin the moment I received her invitation. She always sends it in her Christmas card to us. Here we go on the pity pot...why do I always get the crappy cards that she gets free from the Veteran's Association that look like they are about thirty years old? Other relatives speak of her beautiful Christmas Cards, but she saves the nasty ones for me. For years I thought she was just being thrifty and sent out the freebie cards to everyone. It even made me sad, thinking maybe she couldn't afford the nice cards. But visits with other relatives opened my eyes to what is going on. She is buying the nice cards for them and sending me the free ones that don't look so great. I tried not to let it bother me, but my self worth seems to be wrapped up in material things sometimes. Shouldn't it be enough, after all, that she remembered to send me one?

Anyway, the party went well. She argued about how much food was going to be wasted if people didn't eat. She was right...about fifteen pounds of cookies got chucked because there were too many. About three quarters of the way through the party, she had an allergic reaction to either the feta cheese or the balsamic vinaigrette on the pear salad. She refused to go to the emergency room, refused Benadryl, so I refused to pay any attention to the goings on. I figured if she fell to the ground, I'd call 911, but I wasn't going to stand there and watch her be a martyr and then insult the medical profession (yet again) that was trying to help her. And you know what? She didn't die, she was fine. Complained how my father did nothing to help her though.

Christmas afternoon, we went to my in-laws to visit, and that was good. My only trigger over there had to do with another childhood issue. My MIL bought my daughter used sheets at the thrift store where she works for her birthday, which was also this month. I can deal with used stuff, just not for birthdays or holidays.

It was triggering me because I never got new clothes when I was young. Everything was a hand me down. Thank God my very generous neighbor had taste that was in line with mine. My mom always shopped at the Nearly New store for me, but not for my sister. My sister refused to wear anything that wasn't new. Once, a girl at school said that I looked like I crawled out of the Salvation Army bin. I was mortified. I hated everything my mother brought home from that store after that. I remember the first Christmas I actually got a shirt that I had asked for. I was in eighth grade. It was a shiny white material and had a skinny light blue tie (it was the eighties, people). I wore that shirt at least twice a week until it didn't fit me anymore. Not only because I loved the shirt, but because I was taking it as a confirmation that I was loved by my mother. That she listened to me, and wanted me to be happy. And I wore it to reflect back the love that I was feeling, thanking her for finally proving how much she loved me. I think I'll always remember that shirt, if I live to be 100 years old.

So, this brings me to a question...how do you maintain a relationship with a parent that wants to have a relationship with you, but also wants to emotionally beat the crap out of you? I try to let this stuff go, because of times in my life like when she bought me the shirt, or the Barbie Perfume Maker, or the birthday card with the bubble bath inside for my sixth or seventh birthday (again with the material goods). There seems to be such an extreme in my thought pattern...she bought me a real birthday card...she loves me! She bought me a shirt in a size 22W...she loves me not! Does anyone else have this going on in their lives? The instability of not knowing whether you are truly loved? I had this a lot with my husband too before recovery. He didn't look at that supermodel...he loves me! He looked at porn while I was at work...he loves me not! This way of thinking used to define my relationship with God as well.

For now, I guess I have to treat it like I do with my husband, with boundaries and consequences. I just wish it didn't hurt so much.

On a very *light* note, I met our dear friend Lillian and her husband! What a great time my husband and I had. I must say, I had a strong suspicion it was her when I first saw her because she looked like I had envisioned, except curlier hair. There is a woman who works in our town that sounds a lot like Lillian, and every time I hear this woman speak, I think of Lil. The conversation was easy, the mood was light, the dessert was high in calories...it was awesome! And the company was fantastic!!! The time really flew by, though. Hope we can do it again very soon. And I hope they had a safe trip back to the Island and then back to Michigan.

So, for now, I want to leave you with a video that I love, by a band that I also love...peace and joy to all of us in 2008...

Update on My Son

I just figured I'd post a quick update on my son's post surgical status. Since it's been almost a month already, and I haven't been making my phone calls regularly, I just wanted to answer your emails regarding his recovery.


We brought him home on Saturday night 11/24/07. He spiked another temp while he was in the hospital, but we took him home anyway. During this time he's been on a LOT of pain medicine. He is taking Percocet, Ultram, and Skelaxin. Keep in mind, he weighs 112 pounds soaking wet with all of his clothes on. He's tall and thin, like my husband. I figured he'd just sleep in some kind of hibernative state for a few weeks with all of that stuff going through him. Wrong!

Amazing, the metabolism of a teenager. What is also amazing is the amount of pain back surgery entails. I can only imagine what Pam is going through right now. If you are reading, Pam, my heart and prayers go out to you. Monday, 12/17 was his first day without pain meds. He's started with his tutor two hours a day and seems to be on the mend.

Update: 2/4/08 - He's back in school, limited gym. Doing great! Thanks for keeping us in your prayers the past few months.

A Human Being, Or a Human Doing? Or Both?

This is going to be a strange post. Sometimes I think all of them are. I don't even know if anyone can relate to anything I write.



A couple of weeks ago, I happened upon a very good quote from some recovery material. It said to "be a human being rather than a human doing." I liked it. It was catchy and very easy for my simple mind to remember. So I began the process of thinking about this and trying to live this new found wisdom.



Unfortunately, it took me down a lazy river named "sloth." It wasn't the quote itself, but rather my interpretation of it. I guess I extended the metaphor a little too far and took it to mean "a human breathing," and decided to do just that, merely exist. As a result, nothing got done that week. Now I am also guilty of being a "human doing" when things get me upset, but that is another post entirely.



After several days of this slacking, I became very irritable. Things weren't magically getting cleaned or paid the way I expected they would if I just existed, and stopped all that "doing" nonsense. I found myself secretly thanking God for things like paper plates when saying Grace.



This wasn't working for me at all. I couldn't even remember if my daughter had gone potty that morning, but all sorts of crazy clutter from my past was right there in the front of my mind. Like that song, "Up, Up With People," from something like 1976. Every word, too, not just one verse. And how I got in trouble in third grade for the escape of the class gerbils, even though David R left the lid off of the cage. I was in this trance from my past. Not a good place for me, even though the song was okay, and brought up good memories of class snack and those half pint chocolate milks that cost only two cents.



Fast forward to my hair appointment (which lasted four hours). I started and finished Dr. Weiss' book, Get A Grip. I'm happy to say I have. I don't know what I was thinking, but reading the book snapped me out of it. I know you are all wondering what the heck my hair looked like for someone to fuss with it for four hours. Trust me when I say, it was worth every minute.



I have to remember to balance what I want to do, and what I need to do. This is definitely a place where I struggle. It goes like this...I do things all week long for the family, friends, etc., forget all about the self care, get resentful, go on strike and do nothing, throw a pity party and overindulge in food.

I think it all started with my son's recovery from surgery (no blame, just info). Although it has been a busy time, I haven't made much time to do anything to take care of myself. It's been pretty much all about him for the past three weeks, understandably so. But I made no moves to ask for help from family members that could have easily given me an hour or two. Ah, foolish pride!



I finally think I get it!!! The self care is so important!!! Repeat after me...I will not forget my self care. I will not forget my self care. I will not forget my self care....

Caution: Watch Where You Step

Oooohhhh...I am putting it all together in my mind right now and I have no idea where the recovery stuff I learned is in all of this nonsense. Where did it go? Which exercise was it again? I do not remember. Where to begin?

I'll start somewhere in between and let you try to sort it out. If you don't understand, don't worry, neither do I. I'm just a ranting and raving fool at the moment.

As some of you may know, my husband has been actively seeking different employment, partly because he detests his boss, partly because he feels that his workplace is full of bad choices he made, not the least of which was another woman he had an inappropriate relationship with. He has worked there for sixteen years, but I am in full support of him finding something else. I really just want him to be happy.

Today, he got a very good offer from a much smaller company that is just starting to expand and needs a few more people to pick up some of the increased volume. It sounds amazing and he has done nothing but *gush* about it since he interviewed there. It is really wonderful news!

On the way home, he was talking to me from his cell phone and I mentioned that I was getting a little nervous because they will probably be giving him a going away luncheon that she will more than likely be attending. So the conversation went...and went...and we began talking about the annual office Christmas party. And somehow the subject came up about a gift that she had given him one Christmas. This was not a gift that was a part of the office's Secret Santa exchange. It was from her to him. It was just some picture frame.

The fireworks began when he told me that the gift was not a joint gift, which he originally said it was, from her and another member of her department for working on some project for their department, but a Christmas gift from her alone. Which started my Dr. Jeckyll and Mrs. Hyde routine going. I asked him if he remembered telling me that this was a joint gift from her and a coworker as a token of appreciation for working on some extended project. He didn't remember. So I started wondering why she would buy him a gift, considering she wasn't even involved in the Secret Santa, but I guess I already knew the answer to that one. So I moved on to the next logical question, but the one that was going to hurt me most, "What did *you* buy *her*?" Of course, there were more exclamation points and question marks in there, but I'm trying to be nice here. And all the while, I'm imagining all of the personal gifts he could have given her, the lingerie, the jewelry, the perfume. The answer to the $20,000 question..."I don't remember."

Following about fifteen minutes of interrogation that would make Olivia Benson and Elliot Staebler proud, I finally gave up. Believe it or not, that was pretty tame compared to how I used to be. Nine months ago, it would have lasted until the wee hours of the morning when he would have confessed to the Manson killings if I would just let him go to sleep. Progress??? No.

I am so confused as to *why* I am jumping back into the pit. I was completely unsatisfied with the "I don't know" answer. I wanted the details, I wanted to be hurt, I felt the old adrenaline rush coming over me again. I don't know why I would choose to cloud such a great moment in our lives with this same tired crap. And that's what it is, just a big fat steaming pile of crap. And right now that is what I feel like too.

I wish I could wrap this one up with a big shiny ribbon, but I'm afraid it requires yesterday's newspaper or a roll of paper towels. Sorry.

Weekly Encouragement

Hey Ladies,

If you haven't guessed it by now, I am missing everyone terribly. Thanks for all of your calls and emails and for being there for me when I call and email. You have no idea how much it means to me.

I'll probably be MIA for a while, on the blog anyway. Today at 2:15 pm my friend and her husband are dropping their four children off at our house for the weekend. They are going to a Marriage Encounter(ish) weekend. I am not sure exactly which one it is, but it is something like Marriage Encounter. It should be fun, though, because all of the kids get along really well. The person I worry about is my husband who will be alone with them from 7:00 pm on Saturday until 8:00 am on Sunday while I am at work. Pete versus seven children. It'll be like some strange episode of "Survivor." One man, seven children, half a gallon of milk, a golden retriever (that is in heat right now), two cats, and one roll of toilet paper. Who will survive??? My money is on the cats.

Then on Tuesday, my middle son is having his scoliosis surgery. Please pray for him if you think about it. And for his surgeon too. It is a LONG procedure, and I am sure I will be flipping out that day. He will be in the hospital through Saturday, so he won't be with the rest of the family for Thanksgiving. But at least he will be up and functional for Christmas. I will be spending the nights and days at the hospital with him, so if anyone wants to reach me, I'll have my cell phone with me.

Thursday

It was another crazy busy day yesterday (Wednesday). I had to be up at 5:30 to get my son to a 9:15 doctor appointment in Westchester before his upcoming surgery. It started with him not waking up to his alarm and went downhill from there. I lost the directions to the place, the internet was down so I couldn't get the directions from Google Maps, no gas in the car. Okay, it wasn't the worst, just pain in the buttsky stuff. I got there in one piece, it just took some creativity to do it.


The day dragged on with more preadmission testing in areas of the state that I am not entirely familiar with, so I was out of my comfort zone.


Afterwards, I went to pick up two of my other children at my mother's house. We had lunch, which was nice. My head was pounding from the stress of driving. During lunch she wanted to remind me what an incredibly smart husband I have. He was able to take a picture with her camera phone. Well whoop-de-doo, mom, so can my four year old! I guess that makes her Marie Curie!?



Before I left, she tried to send cookies home with me. I politely declined and told her I don't want junk food in the house or else I will wind up eating it. So she said, "You are having seven kids in your house this weekend. I figured maybe they could have them." I told her, "That's good mom. I'll just give them all straight sugar. All seven of them. Better yet, I'll go shopping, and you can feed them cookies and try to watch them. And I'll take Pete with me." "Oh no you won't!" she shot back. Okay, whatever, you want my husband, mom. Best of luck.

This creeps me out so much. It's like living a bad episode of Jerry Springer. "Mah momma stole mah man." Anyway...


On my husband's way home from work, he told me he was going to meet with "Barrie" that night at our house. This was the woman he failed the polygraph test over with the question, "Are you flirting with other women?" He told me she stands very close and talks for a long time and looks directly at him when she talks, never breaks her gaze. He said he wasn't flirting, but he thought she was, and as a result the question made him very upset. Mmmm. Anyway, she got here and our internet was still down, so they had to go to her office to do the work. Grrr....

So last night I was grumpy and schlumpy and frumpy (my three dwarfs of coaddiction). And I started thinking about something my private duty patient said to me. Her pajamas were covered in little lint balls, and she said , "It's amazing how one errant piece of Kleenex can cause so much damage. It can really ruin your day if you let it." And I wished I had paid more attention to the last four words of that sentence..."if you let it." As I thought about it, I realized I had let this stuff ruin my day. I gave control of my feelings to something outside of myself, and now I don't get those twelve hours of my life back. I wasted them on indulging myself in self pity and anger.

I know I am being brutally honest, and that it may turn some of you away from reading. These are my struggles, not my strengths. These are the areas I fall short, not where I measure up. I need to get them out. If I write it out, it's no longer inside of me. It doesn't belong here in my heart, love belongs there.

I've decided to post my check ins seperate from this page. I'll set that up later. This is quickly becoming a dumping ground for my hostility. I don't want it to trigger people.

As long as I am reacting to this stuff, it still controls me. The best I can do is to look at it, figure out why it made me so mad, and then release it. Release it to God, who can work this out much better than I can and who can lead me through this desert called anger.