What If....

Woman to Woman this week is about TIPS & TRICKS: Facing Your Parenting Fears.

It's difficult for me to separate my parenting fears into individual fears; they are mostly all smashed together in a huge boulder that rolls over me every couple of months or so. I cry myself to sleep.

It doesn't help that I get to experience the trauma of a teenager-cum-adult and a Kindergartener at the same time. I envy those parents whose children are close enough in age that the problems and fears (and frustration) are, at least occasionally, similar amongst their children.

What I get to live is the "What is he going to do with his life?" and the "What will I pack in her lunch?" dilemmas. It's a leap from one to the other. No wonder my jaw is clenched and I don't sleep well.

Things were simpler with just the Toad, too. When he was born, he seemed so safe. And cuddly. (Now, however, he's smelly and annoying.) It was so easy back then--love him to pieces, and sleep soundly at night. I still don't worry all that much, although, of course, it's a lesson in letting go to do so. I know where he'll end up, so I don't worry much about that. Sure the road to get there is rough, but, my jaw hurts like hell anyway, right?

The Howler is a totally different scene. She terrified me from the minute they handed her to me. Some primal part of me is utter terrifed OF her, and FOR her. Perhaps it's being older and, hopefully, wiser, but somehow, I think it's HER.

Something about her is heart-stopping. Wispy, transient, temporary. Adorable, delightful, wonderful. The girl has been poised for launch since she was barely a year old. She's going to fly...she's going to soar...she's going to go down in a ball of flames, taking as many spectators as she can with her.

I'll be one of them.

I spend a lot of my time breathing, or concentrating on breathing these days. I can't say it enough--family planning isn't just a trend, IT'S A REALLY GOOD IDEA! That 13 year age difference between my children leaves me, every breathtaking day, with the same thing:

All the attitude I can take at any given minute.

But I'll still be in the audience, staring raptly at the blaze...

Here's the Thing

At this point, I so desperately want to participate in Woman to Woman that I'm willing to ignore the *rules* (again) this week.

There's scant little I feel unequivocally thankful for. But here goes (and, as a deal-breaker, there's not 11 of them.)

1. Kevin, my husband. My life began when we met. How pathetically sappy is that?

2. I am grateful that I will never be expected to live with two teenagers in the house at the same time. Once is enough, but, God help me, I'll be doing it again in 8 years. Pray for me.

3. I'm thankful to still be sucking air. Sometimes, (okay, right now) that's as good as it gets.

Did I Stutter?

Woman to Woman: Learning to Say NO

OOOPS! I'm early, because we've been on vacation and I was convinced it was this week! No wonder Mr. Linky wasn't available! lol.

As females, we are raised to be helpers--to make others happy. Even if it's against our basic natures; even if it means sacrificing ourselves on the altar of "greater good".

I have never been that great at that--the whole square peg-round hole bit. I never liked the feeling of being manipulated, and unfortuneately, most of the time, that's what others' would do to get me to do whatever it was. (According to my mother, though, I was just an idiot; but I can site many many times she did the guilt or manipulation thing to get me to do what she wanted). Even at it's best, I was miserable.

I am not a maternal person; nor do I find all things under 4' tall adorable. That does not mean, contrary to popular belief, that I am not a good mother--it simply means that I do not find motherhood to be the end-all be-all of my existance. But I digress.

Learning to say "no" to those people and things that I do not want or need to do or be involved in.

I remember a time, many years ago (ack! I can say "many years ago" with a straight face!) I would agree to do things I didn't want to do. And I would be desperately miserable--mean, nasty, and miserable. I don't remember the last time, though. Why? Because I figured out, after the traumatic year of '99-'00 that there are things I'm just not willing to sacrifice my sense of self for.

One of the biggest things in my life in which this was important was my wedding. I didn't want an huge blow-out. I wanted fewer than 30 people invited--I settled for fewer than 50. I wouldn't budge on it, no matter how much my mother tried to guilt and nag me into inviting cousins I wasn't that close with. Even when the one little troll jerk called me two weeks before the wedding and gave me hell for not inviting him. (He came anyway, and I did get mad enough to inform my mother that if the little fat *$@#* was in the hall afterwards for the reception, I would not be. Yes, at my own wedding, I would boycott the reception. He drove something like 6 hours to attend a 60 minute wedding service, take some pictures and hump my leg in the reception line. Ewww. I shredded all pictures of him afterwards.)

Needless to say, my mother tried, repeatedly, to convince me that this person was worth my time and energy. (He showed up, yet again uninvited, at a Memorial Day picnic during which he ate an exorbitant amount of food that left others who were invited NOT getting even a sniff of some offerings.) At that point, I decided that Dear Abby be damned, this was not a person I want or need in my life. I'll die never regretting saying "No" to this person and all that involves. And the greasy little troll will no longer give me full body hugs that leave me desperately wanting a shower in hot bleach with a scrub brush.

But I digress again.

I suppose it makes me a hardass to say "no" the way I can and do. Even to family. I don't have the self-sacrifice gene that seems to be a requirement for having a uterus. It always seems to shock people that I do have a uterus and I don't have to say "yes" to everything and anything that makes others think I am a "nice" person.

I think the two things, too often, go hand-in-hand. Never say "no" and you are a "nice" person. Basically, being easily manipulated, regardless of the personal cost, in an effort to be seen as "nice" or to be "liked." I'm not a nurturing caretaker kind of gal. I have identified and embraced the dark side--and I see no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed by that.

Give me respect and OP distance any day.

Ages ago, I suppose, I would be considered "unsexed" by my attitude. If it comes to that, they can have my uterus (and all the crap that goes with it) and I'll be happy, smiling and saying, "NO, but thanks for asking" as often as I need to.

*Please forgive my unadulterated siting of previous blogs. It seemed easier than boring you all to tears in repeating myself.

Bread USED to Cost a Nickel

Woman to Woman: Dealing with Aging Parents

I wasn't going to write for this one, but considering that my grandmother (and therefore, my mother) is, yet again, in one of her snits, I decided to write.

My grandmother is close to 90 years old.

She's also a bitter and angry woman--and paranoid to boot. If her phone rings, and it's a wrong number, it's "them bastards" harrassing her. There is a short list of who she normally blames, and much to my amusement, George W. is on it. Somehow, in her 90-year-0ld brain, W. doesn't have enough to do. He's actually sitting in the White House, thinking how funny it is to crank call old women along the East coast.

My grandmother, needless to say, is starting into the well known phase of aging called "slipping."

She'll spend hours telling you about people who are long gone--and the stories are not even close to being factual. They're generally a mishmash of several persons and stories that run into each other and while seeming to be coherent and lucid, aren't. If you ask questions--even for clarification, it'll only piss her off worse. And the language she uses! Little old ladies aren't supposed to talk that way!

Other days, she is in a rage about things that either never happened, didn't happen to her, or that happened 50 years ago: hence the title about a loaf of bread being a nickel. She spent about 6 weeks, last time the minimum wage was raised in our state, ranting about how bread used to cost a nickel and that bastard--our governor, Ed--has been on the take and that's why groceries cost what the do these days. (Yes, folks, Ed was a baby way back in the day, but even when he was in diapers, he was working on his political agenda of stealing from Social Security and robbing old ladies of their meds.)

She also doesn't take her meds the way she should, and she ended up in the hospital and nursing home for a brief stint because of it. Of course, she will take ALL the meds the doc has prescribed her--even if he told her to stop taking one because he was changing it due to side effects or newly announced research of dire consequences. But then, it balances out, I suppose, because she refused to take things that may actually help her feel better or keep her eyesight.

She's still lucid enough, often enough, that forcibly placing her in managed care would be impossible--and, in all honesty, my mother can't afford it. My mother's sister is the one who has access to her money--what she keeps in the bank, anyway. (We have a sneaking suspicion that if we truly cleaned her apartment--dismantling it--we would probably find hundreds, if not thousands of dollars hidden in pockets, boxes, old calendars, etc.)

In our state, the person signing you into the home is the person who is responsible for anything you can't pay and that the government (through Medicare and other programs) won't. It's expensive. Minimal care in a warehouse--even one rated "good"--isn't my idea of where anyone should be, even if she's a cranky old crab.

It's a no-win situation. She won't co operate if she can help it; her paranoia, and single-minded drive to be non-reality based (I believe that she CHOSE this several years ago--it's not just dementia, it's willful defiance in the face of reality) and her anger at the things in her life that didn't turn out the way she wanted them to, while keeping her going, are also making it harder and harder for her to live in this world and life.

The worst is, I see my mother going this same route--albeit in a slightly more manageable way (and bread will be a dollar by then).

Regardless of how hard the decision is, it takes a certain amount of self-awareness on the care-giver's part to know when too much is enough.

I don't look forward to my mother needing to make this decision regarding her mother--I'm sure it will be heart-wrenching and difficult. But in all honesty, the old woman is a cranky, irate, bitter thing who will certainly make it as traumatic for everyone else (and I do mean every one she comes into contact with) as it is for her. I also know that we will probably someday need to make this decision regarding my mother, and while I'm sure my brother and sister will do what they can, but I'm not looking forward to it.

I know that I do not have the soul-sacrificing gene that my mother has--my tolerance levels are lower. While my sense of humor and of the ridiculous are highly developed, I don't see me putting up the unexpected rampages and manipulative games my mother tolerates from her mother. I do not have the sense of duty that seems to require being put through hell every year or so with medical emergencies that could be avoided; I do not tolerate others' irrational rages being directed at me; I do not think that my blood pressure and stress levels should be elevated because someone else, who is for all intents and purposes in their right mind, has decided that whatever has upset her--today or 20 years ago--is my fault.

I doubt that my grandmother will go quietly, and I suspect that my mother won't either. It's why I hope and pray that I go up in a ball of spontaneous combustion well before the time comes for me. I simply don't have the patience or the nerve for it otherwise.

Woman to Woman

Well, I missed the announcement, and since I had already written in in preparation, I posted it anyway.

ON BEING SOMETHING/SOMEONE YOU ARE NOT

My whole life I have been a square peg being edged, cajoled, poked, prodded, begged, ignored, and forced in a round hole. My whole freaking life!

I was never pretty enough, smart enough, good enough, quiet enough, loud enough, tall enough, athletic enough, happy enough, lady-like enough…pick anything that *everyone else* is, and it was NEVER me. If I tried to be like *everyone else*, I failed miserably. I was frustrated and miserable and, in all honesty, mean.

One bad ending to a relationship once I hit 30--old maid status, after years of listening to my mother (and practically everyone else, too) go on and on about how I *needed to find a good man and settle down*...WTF was wrong with JUST BEING ME?... and I had great big sobbing pieces coming off me daily.

It’s convoluted and confusing to me even now, almost 10 years later.

At the time when I fell apart after this (even though I was the one to break it off), I started seeing a counsellor, hereafter known as the "the Nut Guy." btw, he kinda liked that I referred to him as such.

One of the things the Nut Guy helped me to discover is that I was, indeed, a square peg being jammed into a round hole. And that I had hitched my little red wagon to a fairy tale star that defined who I was supposed to be.

He taught me to realign my thinking. He taught me to twist my point-of-view away from what *everyone else* seemed to be, or what they told me I was to be. He taught me to carve my own square hole. One just for me.

If the world doesn’t have a place for you--and you’re right, it doesn’t--then it’s up to you to make a place in the world for yourself. Be who you are and don’t worry about every body else; they aren’t worried about you. You make them uncomfortable because you don’t fit who they are.

If I never remember anything else he ever said to me, THAT’s what I remember, and that’s what got me to the point where I say what I think, regardless of language (I swear like a sailor in RL--actually, sailors swear less than I do), or idea, or emotion. It’s why I don’t have the time, patience, or inclination to deal with bleeting hearts, I don’t play *nice* (I play fair, but not nice), why I make up my own rules about who and what I will be.

It’s also why I wear comfortable shoes, clothing if I like the way it fits and feels, and why I color my hair what my aunt and mother deem “hussy red.”

It’s why I am a happier person--still tough to live with and to work with, still determined, and why my mistakes in life have been more bloody than most people’s.

I won’t go through life being what’s safe--what’s comfortable--for someone else. I won’t mince words, I won’t tell you what you want to hear. I’ll be brutally honest--and I expect it (and respect it) from others. I will not accept that being a woman makes me *less* than anyone else--whatever I am, it’s because I AM, not because someone else thinks, feels, or allows it.

It comes across as vain, and I suppose on some level it is. I am smart. I am funny. I am clearly and wholly defined as myself--no one thing about me is any greater than any other thing. Wife, mother, woman, friend, lover, thinker, writer, farter. It’s all me, and it’s all real. And not one tick of it is on someone else’s terms. I won’t be bullied into being anything that isn’t me. I won’t be manipulated into thinking, feeling, or being anything that isn’t what I choose--on my terms, and by my terms only.

I did that gig--and damned near lost pieces of myself for it. There’s no thing, and I mean flat out, no-holds-barred NO thing on this planet that’s worth it.

If that offends you, if it bothers you, if it makes you angry, that’s your deal, and since I have a clearly defined self-image, no amount of your bile and rant and spew will stick--like teflon, it’ll slide right off, usually onto your own shoes.

And the next time I see the Nut Guy (remember, I work retail, and even the Nut Guy has home improvement needs on occasion, I suppose), remind me to just say, “Thank you. You did more than save my life.”

Woman to Woman

TIPS AND TRICKS Keeping your marriage alive

Kevin and I have been together 7 years this November, and married 5 of that this October. It's embarrassing to say, but I've never been in a male-female relationship that lasted this long. I was a little in awe of making it to the almost 2 year mark when we got married.

Most men got on my nerves long before the first year mark. I'm difficult to live with, and I assume, viewing the wreckage of my past love life, I'm difficult to love, too. I want to say that it had more to do with HIS preconceived notions of who I was, and less to do with ME, but that would be unfair. It'd be at least 50-50 on the rose-colored glasses angle. Most of the time, I didn't even know I was miserable in the relationship until it (or I) had blown up.

Even though that's not really the point, it is important in maintaining a healthy marriage--if you don't understand where you've been and why you went through it, relationally speaking, how do you maintain a good thing when you get it? It'd be like passing the Algebra final by good guessing--don't know how you got the answers you got, but you got them, so Hallelujah! and pass the cake, but then you're surprised at your failure in the next course.

I don't like living that way--although I'm really good at winging it, I'd much prefer to actually know what I'm doing and why.

I'm lucky that Kevin got kicked around in the love department too. Miserable as he was, I'm lucky because it made him into a more compassionate & understanding husband and lover.

From the beginning of our relationship, we didn't do the "best foot forward" thing. We were honest with each other about who we were, what we'd each been through, and what we expected. No-holds-barred, we also had both been hurt enough by manipulators and liars and our own misconceptions that neither of us would settle for less.

It requires being adult all the time. It also requires large amounts of honesty, maturity, self-awareness, and restraint. Fair fighting, although I have to say I don't know if we actually fight. We disagree; we argue. Passionately.

We also finish each other's sentences, and most of our disagreements stem from forgetting that we don't actually read each other's thoughts--we approach a topic from two distinct separate angles, and assume the other *gets* what we're saying. And we miss it. We don't *get* it, and have to go back through the words, sifting, stepping carefully, explaining. Frustrated, things get elevated--volumes, tempers, blood pressure.

Even though we do know each other well, and our moods feed off each other (i.e. I'm stressed so he gets stressed, then I stress some more because he's stressing because I'm stressing...), we don't assume that the other one *knows* what's going on inside our heads. I don't expect him to *just know* what to do to help me figure something out, and he doesn't have to *make* me happy. Our happiness, as individuals and as a couple, is fueled by our being individuals who have to reach out to touch each other, and by our being a couple who is willing to expose those embarrassing and sometimes ugly parts of our separate selves. It's hard to do, but always worth it. Unconditional Love isn't lip-service, a catch-phrase, or a pipe dream here in Mumple Land. It's a Truth, as wholly and freely given as two separate people can have.

The biggest factors in our *success* (I wonder if 5-7 years is too early to claim success) is the honesty, our faith that we are supposed to be together, our friendship. We determined, by the wedding, that divorce was not an option for anything less than infidelity. THE Deal Breaker, if you will. Having dealt with it in our pasts, it was the thing that would not be worked through, not tolerated, not survived. Knowing that draws a clear and determinate circle around us. It is the boundary of Mumple Land--it defines us as a couple. Either we are together, or we are not We. And there is no room in our relationship for third, fourth, etc, persons (children not withstanding--they make us a family: they do not define US, or our married/love relationship.)

He is my best friend. Even if I'm angry with him, I still want to be with him. He is always the first person I want to tell when something happens, he's always the person I most want beside me.

I also thank God every day that I met and married this man. The fact that he still makes me laugh, helps me, takes care of me, surprises me, respects me, loves me, and thrills me just makes me all the more grateful that I found my soul mate, even though I don't believe in that sort of thing.

It sounds corny, but it's like my life pre-Mumpledom is someone else's story. If there were no Kevin, there would be no Us, and therefore, no ME today. A clear line has been drawn through my life.

I am still myself, and he is still himself. We just have this other thing, this mutual thing, that we can lean on, take from, give to, and in the end, be better because of. In a world of conflicting messages and demands, I have a safe-haven in Mumple Land, and at it's heart is a man named Kevin. I just hope and pray that in this, I give him the same refuge, love, and safety that he has given me.

Tips and tricks? I don't know if this is what you want to know. I can only try to sum up what Kevin and I have, or do, in our relationship: It's a conscious decision to know and not repeat past mistakes; to be truthful with ourselves and each other; to be strong (or weak) and to allow the other person to be strong or weak; to always keep the relationship, our couple-ness, forward in our minds and hearts. Trusting in each other and in God to be here, as US.

One last thing: We do have a version of most sitcoms' "I Insist". For any decision that involves work in any form from each of us, we ask, "Who is it most important to?" and then, we ask, "Who will be doing the work or cleaning up the mess?" The latter trumps the former, and it's been amazing to realize that while I am a control-freak at heart, I am a lazy control freak--I don't have to have my own way nearly as often because I don't want to do the work or clean up the mess.