March 2006 Archives

It became the 'joke' amongst them that I was an only child. I could have been for all the attention he paid to them. This made my mother protect them even more while I, as unaware as I could be, just thought I was a Daddy's girl. As time went by, though, I began to see that my dad was taking me places he should have been taking my mom, or even any of the other kids ... long Sunday drives, antique car shows, to the camp to go fishing. Thus I became the only child ... the only child my father could tolerate.

Then came the divorce. I was left in a house where everyone hated my father and everything to do with him. He picked me up on Sundays and holidays without as much as a hello to the other kids. Maybe he felt he didn't have to put any time or effort into them because he wasn't their biological father but, damn, it really would have taken the pressure off of me if he had been a little nicer to them.

He never thought that way, though. He was all about what was convenient for him. As I grew older, me and my pre-teen angst became less convenient for him and, eventually, my father left me behind for his new family. No big. At least my brothers and my sister couldn't throw him in my face any more.

Only problem was, they were long gone. My sister is 8 years older than me and my brothers are 10 and 12 years older than me. My other sister (dad's other daughter) was 13 years older than me and long forgotten by then. They all went through their teenage years with all the inherent drama and drugs and drinking and love and war and here I was, just entering puberty. The only thing I had in common with them was half of my genetic material and some very turbulent childhood memories.

Fast forward to freshman year in college: my mom's 50th birthday. I went to my sister's apartment, first time I had been invited on my own, where we were going to have a big party for mom. They all spent the better half of the night getting drunk and the other half of the night shutting themselves up in the bedroom doing drugs together. I watched the party going on around me, the party full of my everyone else's friends and family. I remember thinking I was getting buzzed off of a glass of wine (it was probably a contact high or 'special' brownies, this WAS the 70's after all), and I distinctly remember overhearing my sister say nasty things about me going to college and who was paying for it. And how I thought I was better than all of them, that I always had. And it kind of hit me, the reason for all that anger, all at once.

You see, I was lucky my father was a functioning alcoholic. He had a family business to run and he did it well, he just reserved his nasty alcoholic side for us. Their father, however, was an abusive alcoholic that couldn't keep a job (non-functioning), so our mom ran away from him when the kids were little. They were homeless for a while and had to start over. Why my mom married another alcoholic Irishman is beyond me. It seems that when you are in the throes of a disease, you don't want to recognize the symptoms in other people or you may find yourself looking in a mirror.

When my dad came along, he was the great white hope ... he gave them a roof over their heads and a future. He rescued them, which is just what my mom needed. He gave me more, however, when he divorced my mother, by saying that he would pay for me to go to college. They never had a chance to go and, apparently, at least one of my siblings held a grudge.

They shouldn't have worried, though. I went to a state college and majored in Theater Arts. It's not like I went and got a degree that would actually be WORTH anything. They all went on to make something of themselves, starting their own businesses, having families, making money and owning property. I'm the one that ended up destitute with two kids after a failed marriage, 800 miles away from home. And when I was hurting, I didn't get one call, one helping hand. I might as well have been an only child.

Our family troubles weren't only my dad's doing, though. He laid the groundwork but my x had a big part in my adult estrangement. He continually fought with my mom, putting me squarely in the middle. He stayed away from any socialization with my siblings (except to brag about picking up women in truck stops while he was on the road and I was home raising babies ... and WHY my loving family all knew about this but didn't tell me until after the divorce is beyond me!) so there, too, I ended up defending him stupidly against an increasingly hostile situation, one which we eventually moved away from. Yes, I married my father minus the alcoholism.

Needless to say, when my mom wanted to go back up north to visit my brother and my sister last summer, I didn't want to go. I'm just starting to make something of myself and, to make matters worse, I'm back in college again, something that they think is ridiculous. They don't get the whole "sacrifice years of your life to make your future better" mentality. I made excuses but she guilted me and put the pressure on until I finally said that my son could go. I don't have a right to keep my kids away from their family but I, honestly, didn't want to put myself back there. Any get together with my family always ends up like Mom's 50th birthday ... lots of alcohol and lots of misplaced anger. When the fighting starts, anyone and everyone near it gets hit with shrapnel.

Well, it's that time again. I dodged the bullet of one wedding last December and here comes another. My brother's gorgeous daughter (who I've always had a very soft spot for) is getting married in June. Because of my schedule, I can't go, but that didn't stop my mom from wanting one of the kids to go with her and this time it's my daughter. My very introverted, insecure daughter who totally didn't want to go to a huge party to meet half of her family for the first time. Between making me feel guilty for not being able to go and insinuating that I made the girl not want to go (and I swear, I had NOTHING to do with that ... she told her nonnie on her own once she got the guts up), mom has decided on a different tactic. Now she's trying to get me 'involved' in the whole wedding, so I won't 'miss out' totally on the 'fun'.

Apparently, my brother (father of the bride) does not want my sister (aunt of the bride) to come to the wedding. Just a continuation of the feud. This puts my mother in a touchy situation because she will be staying with my sister AND going to the wedding. And this puts me in an even touchier situation ... I get to listen to all sides of the story without letting myself take sides at all.

It's really an interesting balancing act but, never fear, I've had lots of practice. My strategy is to just not care about any of them all and then I can't help but stay neutral. It's not that I don't want to care, I just can't invest myself emotionally in people that don't have my best interests at heart. I'm the reluctant Switzerland of the family, using my black sheepishness as my excuse.

I'm having a hard time understanding this mentality, though. My siblings' inability to just grow the hell up and get along for the wedding is unfathomable to me. They are both in their 50s and I would think that they would one day just sit back, take stock, and realize that family is too important to let petty differences tear it apart.

My mom wants me to email them. I didn't say no but I won't. I'm not getting into the middle of this. Switzerland, remember?

The worst thing about this whole thing is that I would love to see Kelly get married. I would love to go to the wedding ... just not that wedding, with those people. Going 800 miles away from home with my two kids and without T is NOT how I want to spend a week. Anyway, I just can't. I'll still be working. Yeah, I actually have a legitimate excuse to miss this reunion.

Because that's what it really is. A family reunion back home. My brother from California will be there as well as his two kids (who I haven't seen for 14 years - I won't know them!), two of my uncles, my mom, and my arguing New Hampshire siblings. And I can't help but feel that I don't really belong there, in that state, with that family.

My family is here. My home is here. During the flood, all I had to hold onto was my kids. Through the divorce, the depression, the breakdown, the recovery, they have been there for me. Not that they had a choice, really, but they have cared for and loved me through it all. Everyone else? No where to be found.

It's too bad, too. All I've wanted, my whole life, was to have a family. A family that loved each other unconditionally, that forgave weaknesses and protected each other. A family that gathered together on holidays, not because they had to but because they WANTED to. A family that enjoyed taking time together and enjoyed hanging out and just talking, just being a family. Since I wasn't born with it, I've realized I'll have to build that for myself.

It's really not so bad being an only child. If I could just get my mother and my siblings to understand that I'm fine with it, maybe they will leave me alone.

Bearing that in mind, there is also something to be said for companionship and therein lies the crux of my dilemma. There is a little matter of 150 or so miles between us. Yes, this is a long-distance relationship which, normally, would be intolerable but, somehow, we have managed to make it work for coming up on 2 years now.

Yes, it's hard. Yes, I get unbearably lonely during our time apart. Yes, it's horrible depressing to roll over and into a depression left on a pillow that still holds his scent but will not hold him for another month. I often resort to burrowing myself into and under the covers, even though I have an unnatural fear of being smothered, just so that I can be a little closer to where he last was. Yes, I suffer withdrawl which starts before he even leaves .. I am trying to be better at hiding that. BUT ... and this is a HUGE BUT here (even bigger than mine ...) ... it is most wonderful when we are together.

I would say it's nirvana but they are overrated ...

Between our monthly visits, we are in touch almost constantly. At work, I can email him and vice versa. From the time I get home from work until I go to bed every night, I can reach out and message him. If one of us has something to do that will take us away from internet access, the other is only a phone call away. That reassurance, that connection, does wonders to ease the cold sweats of withdrawl. We don't call and email constantly ... frankly, sometimes I think the break away from the computer is a welcome relief for us both but, inevitably, something will happen that will make one of us laugh or cry or just wish we could share it and the phone will ring, not because we HAVE to call but because we WANT to share. That's nice.

At this point, I feel I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this is not my first long distance relationship. The other, thought it lasted longer, was not nearly as successful and definitely not as healthy. Nightly conversations that lasted hours, that sometimes felt like a chore and most times were emotional trainwrecks, would leave me depressed, grumpy and sleepy the next day. I neglected my needs and my health, along with those of my kids, to try to bring happiness to someone that did not know how to be happy, all on the promise of an eventual someday, That someday, like the horizon, never got any closer, no matter how hard I swam for it and, frankly, I very nearly drowned trying to reach it. I swore I would never let myself be led on for so long without some kind of hope. I have too much to offer, too much potential, to waste away waiting for someone that could never get out of his own shit-hole long enough to realize that there is more to life than living in a bottle, staring at a screen.

While this relationship is a universe away from that one, I have many insecurities from that relationship and most others before it that still rear their ugly heads occasionally. One is the need to be reassured that I matter. I've been inconsequential most of my life and, while I matter to my kids in a dependant, clingy sort of way, it's nice to know that my existence matters to someone else, someone that has my best interests at heart. This manifests itself, often in an ugly way, when I feel I'm being used or taken for granted. Luckily, it's usually only the people at work and my family that have to face my wrath when they start trying to walk all over me. T is very conscientious of my feelings, more sensitive to them than I am used to, something that I wonder at and appreciate more than I've ever been able to tell him.

Another insecurity is a very real fear that I'll be forgotten, left waiting alone, loving someone that has long moved on, hoping for an eventual togetherness that will never happen, that was never going to happen. I couldn't stand pretending to have a future, to have happiness that only exists in this electronic world while outside of it I was totally alone and lonely. The desperation if I could not get to a phone or computer (or pay my bill which was, sadly, one of the worst things about sustaining a long distance relationship ... I paid Sprint more every month than I paid for rent some months) was immeasurable. How I was so irresponsible, I don't know, but in my defense, I was in the grips of a desperate, toxic addiction.

I have to say now that the worst thing about a distance thing is the reliance we have on technology to sustain us (me) between visits. I'm grateful that we live in a world where distance shrinks magically with a keystroke but IM conversations can not convey tenor and emotion. An emoticon just does not do justice to how I'm feeling, ever. I have no choice, it's all I have. I rely on those damn little smiles and hugs and when I go to bed without one, I feel unsettled. It becomes habit to sign off the same way every time and, while I'm usually the one to send them along, every once in a while, one will come my way (or not) and I'll just fall apart. Silly, I know. Beggars can't be choosers, as my mom would say.

Which brings me to my last point. Yes, the sigh of relief was felt from here. I don't really think I'm a beggar, not like I used to. I'm seeing that I have something to offer, not only to the world, but to another human being that might make their life better, happier, more fulfilling. I'm smart, sometimes funny, coherent (once I've had coffee), and I have a good heart. I'm loyal and loving, selfless to a fault, and I think I make a good partner. At one time, I thought I deserved to be hurt, to be forgotten, to be cheated on, to be used, to be left waiting alone. I thought I deserved what I got with my last relationship, as well as what I got with my marriage.

I don't think like that anymore, not most of the time. I'm not a beggar, grateful for any attention paid to me. I know I deserve more and I'm willing to wait for what I think is worth waiting for but I'm not going to lie and say I'll allow myself to be strung along or hurt again. If I ever get clingy, or impatient with this virtual existence, it's only because I've tasted love IRL and I know how great it can be. I'm anxious to keep that going now that I've had it.

I'm grateful, yes, that I have a wonderful man in my life but I think he may think I am pretty ok, too. Every time he lets me know in some small way that he is thinking of me or that he feels even a bit of what I feel for him, I'm reminded of how lucky I am and how far I have come and how, maybe, just maybe, I deserve happiness, finally

I could have gone over, made her happy while I sat there miserable, stressing over my homework, knowing that my Saturday was a goner because of a workshop I have to go to and suddenly my weekend was down to Sunday and when was I going to do homework, nevermind laundry and clean the house and sleep late and watch movies and play video games and read and do ANYTHING that remotely resembles having a life? When I mentioned my homework, she said she thought I was doing too much, even going so far as to say that I was ignoring the kids for my school work.

Well, I'm really sorry to say that did it for me. I cracked. I pointed out that while, yes, I am busy, I'm never too busy for my kids, that everything I am doing right now is so that I can get a better job and give them a better life because no one, NO ONE is responsible for making our lives better but me. Sure, someday, things might be different, but I don't count on somedays. I can only count on myself, today, and what I can do today to make tomorrow better.

In my head, I was thinking of how hypocritical she was being. When I was little, she didn't do anything to make our life better. She worked hard, yes, but she didn't try to get a better job or go back to school to improve her skills. She just went out to singles dances trying to meet a man that she could marry who would make everything better. Each of these men came and went and never made anything better, they only helped push the emotional rollercoaster we lived on higher and faster.

I understand the divorced dating world but I date one person, one stable person. We don't go out drinking and carousing until all hours, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. We don't drop the kids off alone at the movie theater or the mall with $10 so that we can have a drunk afternoon alone in bed. We actually come up with things that we can do WITH the kids rather than try to pretend they don't exist. We actually take them on trips with us so that they aren't left behind to fend for themselves.

Of course, by this time, I was in tears. I had already had a very emotional day and this was the last thing I needed. In a short 5 minute conversation she had cut me to the quick on the most sensitive subject she could and I would be damned if I went over her house for dinner after she did that to me. That would only give her the message that using emotional manipulation would get me to do whatever she wants me to do and, while that is true, I don't want her to know it.

Our St. Patty's Day was low key. I drove to work listening to the Dropkick Murphys (thanks, Skillzy!), spent the day trying to keep my head above it all, spent a huge wad of $$ at the bookfair for the library, went grocery shopping, baked brownie bites and watched The Empire Strikes Back with the boy while the girl went to her youth group. Dinner was pizza. Not a drop of Guinness or green milk in the house.

A rather anticlimactic day. And now I have to get to bed so I can wake up early tomorrow and go to work. On a Saturday. So I can make our lives better.

Sláinte! Have one for me.

As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago, T and I had the opportunity of a lifetime to see INXS and the Lovehammers live in Norfolk, VA. It was a cool experience, from the trip there to the hotel to the venue to the visceral experience of seeing 'the boys' live, probably one of the most memorable of my life. While we stood in line waiting for the doors to open that night, we kind of laughed about how that concert was the one I was really excited about but the next one was the one HE was really excited about.

Motley f***ing Crue this past weekend at the Richmond Coliseum. (yes, I do have to call them that, even if it's only inside my head.)

I was excited about this concert because 1) I don't go to many (any) concerts and 2) because it was a chance to see T very happy. However uncomfortable it made me to be in a huge crowd of rowdy drunk people, it was worth it to be able to glance sideways at him as he sang Home Sweet Home.

It was extra special to me because I was going to meet two of his friends, M & J, a couple he has known since before the divorce. This put me in a unique (and frightening) position, almost as bad as when I met his parents for the first time. Though I have never experienced this myself, it's customary for friends and family to be fiercely protective of someone who has gone through a rough divorce. Any subsequent dating is put up to much scrutiny so when, almost 2 years into this, I finally got a chance to meet some of his friends, I felt panic.

No really. I knew we were all going to the concert together, I had known that for months. But it didn't hit me until he mentioned dinner before the concert that this would be a double date. Suddenly, I felt nervous and self-conscious, painfully aware of how inadequate I am in many respects ... and then the panic set in. It's been a long time since my last panic attack but this was a solid 7.

Silly reaction, really, but I find myself in unchartered waters. I never double-dated while I was married. I hosted get togethers for his friends but the women were kept in the other room for the most part. The last time we got together as a couple with another couple, the x humiliated me during dinner. This incident escalated quickly into the "Big Fight" where he uttered the famous "I will kill you" ... just what I needed to convince a lawyer (and a judge apparently) that I needed protection.

Anywhooo ... I knew my fears were irrational but I couldn't help feel intimidated. I'm painfully shy when meeting in social situations. I don't 'do' small talk and these three friends have history together, a history before me. I know it's self-defeating but I find myself trying to compare myself to what made him happy before and I can't seem to get a gauge on it ... I don't know why I feel I need that, though, since what made him happy before ultimately made him miserable. What's important is what makes him happy now.

So we went by their house to meet up before dinner and I almost immediately felt at ease. I didn't talk much but that's normal. Dinner at Chili's was relaxed, even when J said that we acted like we had been married for years ... nothing makes T curl up in a ball like the M word. He did admit that we do have so much in common and that we have a great thing going, which is saying a lot. The friend loyalty came out when T excused himself and both M & J leaned in and told me, basically, that I'm good for him. According to them, he is happy now, happier than they have ever seen him. Deep inside, I was thrilled when they told me that. I hope I can take credit for a tiny bit of it.

The rest of the night, going to the venue, waiting in line, mocking the guys, and the whole concert experience, was phenomenal. I have more details but I'm in no shape to write about it yet. Sorry, I thought this was going to be a review but, as usual, I get lost in so much emotional minutae of the experience that I can't help but get overwhelmed by the scope of some of these posts.

I'm extremely introverted, with lengthy internal dialogues filling every moment, every blink, every breath. In my desire to understand myself better, to convey just what it's like to live in this extremely chaotic head of mine, I sometimes get lost. In trying to convey the experience of being in my head for one night, I end up writing freakin' War and Peace. Hah, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, indeed.

Let's just say I'll save the review for another post and the post-concert reflection on the rest of the weekend experience (including church and being at the farm) for another day. Each one is hugely complex and sufficiently wrought with emotional quicksand ... and I'm kinda tired.