These are the things that I hope you can forgive me for:
I hope someday you can forgive me for pulling out the demon mother voice on sunny Saturday mornings when it seems as though nothing in the world should be wrong. Forgive me for not appreciating the perfection of the ideal first-day-of-spring weather on the first day of spring, the Harry Potter marathon on NBC, and how the chores are not really a big deal. I am sorry for letting you stay up so late that you can't make your brain process simple things without complete meltdowns, and then getting mad at you.
I hope you can forgive me for not being able to listen to anything but the Avett brothers from December 2007 until ?. I have tried. I have dabbled elsewhere. It really is compulsive. It makes me happy, divinely happy, and when I am away from it, I come back remembering how much I love it. I don't know why this group of unpolished poets has so completely stolen my heart. Maybe it is just that my heart was so susceptible to stealing, and they were there. And they were safe. They weren't going to run away, or call me names, or find a more attractive audience. They are unconditional. I hope you can forgive my twistedness. I suppose it's not healthy, but it might be my only link to some version of sanity. Mom says that they don't love me back, the Avett Brothers, and she is right. They don't, technically, specifically, love me back, but they give me, in their lyrics and their melodies, the shoulder to cry on, the arm around me that I so much want. So in some way they do. In a way that is just as tangible as a bible bound god, or pink-church promises. Maybe it is my religion, this music. Maybe it is my link to salvation. Is it that much sillier than an invisible deity that somehow outranks the easter bunny and santa clause? I don't know. I don't know that anybody does. I know many people who think they do know. And kids, I hope you can forgive me if I ever made you believe I am one of the people who knows anything. The only thing that I am certain about is that nothing in this life is certain. I also hope you can forgive me for subjecting you, repeatedly, to the people and institutions that push their doctrines of so many shapes and sizes down your soft and pliable throats. But this is our world, and maybe then I should apologize for bringing you into a life full of judgement and ridiculous beings full of arrogance and ignorance. No. This is life, it is our life, and from all of these places and people we learn more about who we are and what we want to be. If we don't, then we are the judges that we despise. We are the arrogant ignoramuses who cannot see past the box we grew up in. Forgive me, girls, if I don't raise you to see over the edges of our box. I want to, so badly I can taste it.
I hope that you can forgive me for not giving you the solid platform of forever in one place, one lifestyle, one family structure. I want it so badly for you, for me. For us to be one thing forever. The same thing. The same every day. And we are, we will be, if we can live wherever we are, consistently, unconditionally, passionately, just like the music that is always the same regardless of where it plays.
Forgive me girls, for not having answers for you. Answers that I want so badly for myself. Answers to questions of heartbreak and wise choices. Questions of love and belonging and wishing. Right and wrong. For you I would find the answers and carve them into stones that would guide you. But the answers that are handed to me from all sides do not equal the evidence of this life. I have not found them yet. Some people think they have. I am glad they feel that way. I even hope someday maybe you girls will know the answers, or think you do. Then you can have the solidarity that I envy so much. I am sorry that I cannot give you that.
There are so many things that I am sorry for, so many things that I can only hope and pray to the god who is there, whichever one he is, that someday you will value as the color of your background that made you into the incredible people you are, and for all of the adventures you are having, you will draw from the drawbacks of your upbringing and bask in the light of the shadows of our darkest days. Some days I see this, I know that even the bad times serve us well. Other times I lose sight. But every day I try to remember to be grateful. Grateful for you four crazies. Grateful for my overflowing growler of unexpected twists and turns in life. Grateful that I can't look back and wonder how it could have been more exciting. Grateful for a roof while it is ours, food while we are full and music for as long as it will play. Life goes on, in spite of the failures and disappointments. It just trudges through, sometimes losing a shoe in the mud, or a hat in the wind, but it pushes on. And the stories to tell just pile up. And for that, I am not sorry.
20.3.10
18.3.10
Reasons that Today Sucks:
1) woke up feeling like crap. never a good sign.
2) proceeded to discover not one pair of my jeans would button. resorted to carhartts + the rubber band trick. and I am NOT pregnant.
3) face is possibly more broken out today than it was yesterday (which is hard to believe)
4) water in the shower would not get hot. enough.
5) almost hit a car that almost hit a crazy ugly dog running wild on the highway this morning on the way to work.
6) opened the store to discover that a skunk has taken up residence somewhere very near, or under, or inside of this building. unpleasant. it smells like 6 hippies broke in and smoked bad weed in here all night.
7) oil tanks for BOTH heaters are empty, space heater #1 is broken and space heater #2 is getting a hernia trying to keep me from going hypothermic
8) I HATE PROTEIN SHAKES
9) my car was frosted over
10) aspen wanted rice cakes with nutella, now both are completely covering the kitchen to front porch zone and I just realized rice cakes smell like cat shit
11) the cat possibly shit in the house somewhere but I couldn't find it and blamed the rice cakes
12) protein shakes suck
13) three words: pre menstrual suckiness
14) 26 degrees
15) I yelled at my kids. because I didn't know what else to say.
16) I gagged on my supplements. sick.
considering it's not even 8:30 AM yet, I should probably see about an attitude adjustment or this is going to be a very long day.
reasons today is a good day:
...the coffee is almost done?
2) proceeded to discover not one pair of my jeans would button. resorted to carhartts + the rubber band trick. and I am NOT pregnant.
3) face is possibly more broken out today than it was yesterday (which is hard to believe)
4) water in the shower would not get hot. enough.
5) almost hit a car that almost hit a crazy ugly dog running wild on the highway this morning on the way to work.
6) opened the store to discover that a skunk has taken up residence somewhere very near, or under, or inside of this building. unpleasant. it smells like 6 hippies broke in and smoked bad weed in here all night.
7) oil tanks for BOTH heaters are empty, space heater #1 is broken and space heater #2 is getting a hernia trying to keep me from going hypothermic
8) I HATE PROTEIN SHAKES
9) my car was frosted over
10) aspen wanted rice cakes with nutella, now both are completely covering the kitchen to front porch zone and I just realized rice cakes smell like cat shit
11) the cat possibly shit in the house somewhere but I couldn't find it and blamed the rice cakes
12) protein shakes suck
13) three words: pre menstrual suckiness
14) 26 degrees
15) I yelled at my kids. because I didn't know what else to say.
16) I gagged on my supplements. sick.
considering it's not even 8:30 AM yet, I should probably see about an attitude adjustment or this is going to be a very long day.
reasons today is a good day:
...the coffee is almost done?
11.3.10
If playing megatouch video monitor games alone at a bar is the epitome
of loserishness, then count me in.
of loserishness, then count me in.
There's this job. In prineville. An archaeology job. I want it. So bad
I can taste it. It makes the fact that everyone else is outside
passing around a joint almost bearable.
Gotta get out.
Sent from my iPhone
2.3.10
sick day
Last night I sort of went on a date. With a nice kid. It was more like just a hockey game with a friend who happens to be a guy. Of course Bill Gothard would call that a date. He would also call my wednesdays at work a date, since I work all day alone with Steve. We had a good time. The Smokies lost, but we still had a good time. There were some great fights. And only a little bit of guilt for being at a hockey game without my kids. And a little bit of guilt for leaving them with their paternal grandmother who apparently can't handle them after the age of 8. I called to let her know the game was going long... she said Kizzie had taken off and probably walked home. To my house. In the Dark. Across the highway. But she didn't know, and since she had all the little kids (cousins included), she couldn't be bothered to go and find out. So all the way home, I was preoccupied with whether MacKenzie had been run over, picked up, or how she would survive me KILLING her for leaving like that, in the morning. Turns out, the whole time, she was in Donna's basement sulking. So, no more grandma babysitting. That one backfired.
The good news is that I won my bet with Curt that we wouldn't get searched coming back down across the border. Since he has a couple of minor "indiscretions" on his record, he hasn't been through the border crossing without a full and extensive search. Remind me never to assault an officer, even if he is an undercover cop beating the snot out of a poor innocent drunk. Anyway, forgetting Curt's felonious past, I bet him a growler of Steve's beer that we wouldn't get searched. I will admit, I was pretty nervous when I pulled up and it was a CDP officer I didn't know, and Curt had bought a case of his favorite beer, which was rattling guiltily in the back of the 'hoe. Of course, it's perfectly legal for each person to bring 6 bottles of beer back over, so we were fine, and told the officer about the beer. We had previously agreed that if they took a cursory glance in the back at the beer it would not count as a search. In some amazingly awesome twist of fate, the didn't look at the beer. They didn't search anything, even though I gave them my wrong (old) ID, because I like the picture better. I mean, we basically gave them every excuse to search us, but since we weren't in Curt's meth-head truck, they waved us through. And I was victorious. The gloating was only perforated with momentary panic attacks about Kizzie's whereabouts and how mad Donna would be at me... Or I at her if anything had really happened to Kiz.
The renegade was lounging on the couch at my house when I got home at 10:15, Donna had had enough and dropped them all off to put themselves to bed. Kizzie smiled bashfully at me when I told her what I had thought happened, and I gave her crap about not getting along with her cousins. I was relieved. And a little pissed at grandma. Not that I will ever say anything. I'll probably make Kizzie apologize to her for something. Because I am all about a life of rolling over and playing dead, taking responsibility for things that are not mine to own, and basically just eating shit.
I called in sick to house cleaning today. It wasn't so much that I was sick, although I feel pretty crappy, but I couldn't face the toilets today. They mock me. They laugh at me and my desperate reliance on them. And honestly, the few dollars I get from them, can't help me where I am at. (Yes, prepositional end. bite me.)
Yesterday I decided that I want to try to take the kids to Quincy California for the High Sierra Music Festival. It's right after out family beach trip and we could just keep heading south. TAB will be there, and it's the closest they will be this summer, and I promised the girls we'd have a chance to wear our Team Avett shirts this year. When I told the girls what I was hoping, they went nuts. Natalee has talked about nothing else since. Wondering if we can take truck, and if there is dancing, and how many tents we will camp in. It would be so, so, so much fun. 4 days of bluegrass music, camping, and just doing fun stuff. We could go see Lake Tahoe, one of my favorite places on earth. Drive through Lassen Volcanic National Park - amazing. I could show them where my fire was. Where I hit a deer, got a flat tire, got another flat tire, and where I got to see flogging molly. I know I am fantasizing about a road trip that would probably be predominantly hell, but maybe, maybe if we did something fun together, for maybe the first time ever... but the cost. We've been talking about having a car wash to raise money. hehehe. I feel like it would be worth moving out of the house next month and saving the rent money for the trip. Of course then the girls would have to live with Donna and that won't work, obviously. And I am not sure we will have the rent money to save anyway, so the move may be inevitable. Ahhh the glory that is my life.
Today eBay has half price auction listings. As if that makes any difference in the scheme of things. For heavens sake. A drop in the bucket. And if every nickel and dime really helped, I should be cleaning toilets right now. Screw them. Screw the toilets. Screw the whole houses. Today I am sick. sick of cleaning houses for a pittance. Sick of caring. Sick of trying. So I will lounge around on eBay and keep applying for the jobs that might save my life. The 12 or 13 I applied for yesterday have to help up my statistics, right? Something's gotta pan out... right? Then again, this is my life we're talking about....
The good news is that I won my bet with Curt that we wouldn't get searched coming back down across the border. Since he has a couple of minor "indiscretions" on his record, he hasn't been through the border crossing without a full and extensive search. Remind me never to assault an officer, even if he is an undercover cop beating the snot out of a poor innocent drunk. Anyway, forgetting Curt's felonious past, I bet him a growler of Steve's beer that we wouldn't get searched. I will admit, I was pretty nervous when I pulled up and it was a CDP officer I didn't know, and Curt had bought a case of his favorite beer, which was rattling guiltily in the back of the 'hoe. Of course, it's perfectly legal for each person to bring 6 bottles of beer back over, so we were fine, and told the officer about the beer. We had previously agreed that if they took a cursory glance in the back at the beer it would not count as a search. In some amazingly awesome twist of fate, the didn't look at the beer. They didn't search anything, even though I gave them my wrong (old) ID, because I like the picture better. I mean, we basically gave them every excuse to search us, but since we weren't in Curt's meth-head truck, they waved us through. And I was victorious. The gloating was only perforated with momentary panic attacks about Kizzie's whereabouts and how mad Donna would be at me... Or I at her if anything had really happened to Kiz.
The renegade was lounging on the couch at my house when I got home at 10:15, Donna had had enough and dropped them all off to put themselves to bed. Kizzie smiled bashfully at me when I told her what I had thought happened, and I gave her crap about not getting along with her cousins. I was relieved. And a little pissed at grandma. Not that I will ever say anything. I'll probably make Kizzie apologize to her for something. Because I am all about a life of rolling over and playing dead, taking responsibility for things that are not mine to own, and basically just eating shit.
I called in sick to house cleaning today. It wasn't so much that I was sick, although I feel pretty crappy, but I couldn't face the toilets today. They mock me. They laugh at me and my desperate reliance on them. And honestly, the few dollars I get from them, can't help me where I am at. (Yes, prepositional end. bite me.)
Yesterday I decided that I want to try to take the kids to Quincy California for the High Sierra Music Festival. It's right after out family beach trip and we could just keep heading south. TAB will be there, and it's the closest they will be this summer, and I promised the girls we'd have a chance to wear our Team Avett shirts this year. When I told the girls what I was hoping, they went nuts. Natalee has talked about nothing else since. Wondering if we can take truck, and if there is dancing, and how many tents we will camp in. It would be so, so, so much fun. 4 days of bluegrass music, camping, and just doing fun stuff. We could go see Lake Tahoe, one of my favorite places on earth. Drive through Lassen Volcanic National Park - amazing. I could show them where my fire was. Where I hit a deer, got a flat tire, got another flat tire, and where I got to see flogging molly. I know I am fantasizing about a road trip that would probably be predominantly hell, but maybe, maybe if we did something fun together, for maybe the first time ever... but the cost. We've been talking about having a car wash to raise money. hehehe. I feel like it would be worth moving out of the house next month and saving the rent money for the trip. Of course then the girls would have to live with Donna and that won't work, obviously. And I am not sure we will have the rent money to save anyway, so the move may be inevitable. Ahhh the glory that is my life.
Today eBay has half price auction listings. As if that makes any difference in the scheme of things. For heavens sake. A drop in the bucket. And if every nickel and dime really helped, I should be cleaning toilets right now. Screw them. Screw the toilets. Screw the whole houses. Today I am sick. sick of cleaning houses for a pittance. Sick of caring. Sick of trying. So I will lounge around on eBay and keep applying for the jobs that might save my life. The 12 or 13 I applied for yesterday have to help up my statistics, right? Something's gotta pan out... right? Then again, this is my life we're talking about....
1.3.10
Down with the Shine
I get took for a ride, every time.
Though we've searched, we've found no fountain of youth...
So here I sit, aging, minute by minute. Fighting a morbid preoccupation with the tantalizing promise of rest that death holds. Harboring guilt for bringing four lives into a world fraught with disappointment and let down. Praying that they will find themselves at 32, surrounded by love and light and happiness, and somehow escaping this vicious legacy of despair that I might leave them.
Today, I will overcome the hopelessness that mangles my will. I will force my feet into a forward shuffle, however slight, in the direction of the life I want. There's gotta be light at the end of the tunnel. I just can't see myself ending up like all of the local meth-heads who were exchanging hugs with their favorite cops the other day at the community center. I want to be full of light and joy and giving. With enough spilling out of me that I make a day brighter without even trying. I hate the thought that I might have to rely on the stupid drugs I have weaned myself off of to do that. I feel like the drugs just mute the natural light. If only somehow I could find a way to turn the light on without the chemicals. I know it's just a matter of circumstance, and ultimately, it's a matter of ingratitude. If I could really grasp how much I have and how everything will be ok, even when it doesn't feel like it, I could keep the light burning. But at the moment, I quell my hopelessness with only the knowledge that eviction and repossession won't kill us, we will survive, and somehow, I wish we wouldn't. It's so silly. I love life, I don't really want to be done with it. But I am so very very tired. And at this point I don't see a rest stop in the near future. Psychologically, emotionally, I feel like I did when I was in the middle of my physical agility test, and even though I was spinning with fatigue, trying to hold back the vomit because I couldn't take the time to throw up, and every inch of my body was screaming with pain. That is where my mind and my heart are at. Understanding that the test would have been easier if I had been in better shape, I look at how I can work out my insides to be fit enough to handle the perpetual agility test that is my life. It just pisses me off, you know. I shouldn't have to shoulder all of this shit alone. I just want to be able to laugh at the ridiculousness that is my world with somebody. To wiggle my toes under his leg on the couch while I do my homework. To listen to somebody's stories of growing up, going to work every day, what kind of a crap he took that morning. To put my head on a chest and hear a heartbeat, strong and even. And alive.
We had company for dinner last night, great people, with great kids. We had a good time, especially after I banished MacKenzie and Natalee to their rooms after 37 warnings to stop beating the crap out of each other. We played Gin Rummy. I think that's what we played. Me and cards don't go very far together, so it was a monumental thing just getting me into a card game, especially since the only deck of cards we could find were some insanely oversized ones, about 5x7" to be precise, which added a sense of absurdity to the whole thing. But it was fun. I had a good time. But I was sad. Sad and a little bit angry that I didn't have the wherewithall to get through a good evening with all of my kids and some company. We couldn't just be a nice, laid back, comfortable family for just a couple hours. I fantasize about quality family time. Outings, vacations, just me and the girls, but the reality is always so brutal. And it hurts. I just feel so flipping outnumbered!
I still blame Walt Disney. Maybe that's the reason it's so hard to wrap my brain around going to disneyworld to blow about three years worth of income over a week. Frickin' disney ruined my life. Disney and Bill Gothard, Marble, every preacher that stood in front of me telling me what a princess, a gem I was, and how I deserved to be treasured, how god would reward the desires of my heart, how I could transform from the scullery maid of my family into the queen of a small country with a beautiful, strong and amazing husband. That that is what I deserved, what I would get. I believed it. I bought it. And here I sit, a frumpy 32 year old with an ex husband who sported a fondness for barnyard animals, a gazillion dollars of debt, a life I cannot afford emotionally, financially, psychologically, physically, mentally, religiously, professionally, academically, or any other -ally you can name. And somehow I am supposed to raise 4 girls. Beautiful, smart, talented girls, believing the same lies. That there is a prince out there. That they can be anything they want. That they can do anything they want. That they are royalty. And I lie awake at night, in terror for the inevitable future I see for them. One of betrayal and emptiness and loss. Dammit. I am so freakin' jaded. I really think I need a break. Like a real break. For awhile. But then they are gone, the girls, and after a day or two I miss them like crazy and I start to worry that somebody else is screwing them up worse than I am. Ha. Right. I am losing it. Jeez. Is summer too far away? Can I make it until June, assuming that David even plans on having them, in Arizona, or wherever he will be? Married to the poor unsuspecting girl he is engaged to, or putting it off since he still owes thousands of dollars of child support...
Maybe it's just that I woke up again with a hurting head, back, stomach. Everything. Maybe I should restart the damn prozac. Maybe I need to be functional for my kids. Not that I am not. My grades are great, I haven't missed a minute of work, to the contrary, I have gone above and beyond... I cook dinner every night, and commandeer through the chores. But I still feel like such a failure. What the hell? Where are you now, Walt Disney, when I need a pat on the back? Where's my award for making it through another day, another week, another year, and we're all still alive and kicking. Sometimes literally.
So tired. It's too early in the day to be this exhausted.
Though we've searched, we've found no fountain of youth...
So here I sit, aging, minute by minute. Fighting a morbid preoccupation with the tantalizing promise of rest that death holds. Harboring guilt for bringing four lives into a world fraught with disappointment and let down. Praying that they will find themselves at 32, surrounded by love and light and happiness, and somehow escaping this vicious legacy of despair that I might leave them.
Today, I will overcome the hopelessness that mangles my will. I will force my feet into a forward shuffle, however slight, in the direction of the life I want. There's gotta be light at the end of the tunnel. I just can't see myself ending up like all of the local meth-heads who were exchanging hugs with their favorite cops the other day at the community center. I want to be full of light and joy and giving. With enough spilling out of me that I make a day brighter without even trying. I hate the thought that I might have to rely on the stupid drugs I have weaned myself off of to do that. I feel like the drugs just mute the natural light. If only somehow I could find a way to turn the light on without the chemicals. I know it's just a matter of circumstance, and ultimately, it's a matter of ingratitude. If I could really grasp how much I have and how everything will be ok, even when it doesn't feel like it, I could keep the light burning. But at the moment, I quell my hopelessness with only the knowledge that eviction and repossession won't kill us, we will survive, and somehow, I wish we wouldn't. It's so silly. I love life, I don't really want to be done with it. But I am so very very tired. And at this point I don't see a rest stop in the near future. Psychologically, emotionally, I feel like I did when I was in the middle of my physical agility test, and even though I was spinning with fatigue, trying to hold back the vomit because I couldn't take the time to throw up, and every inch of my body was screaming with pain. That is where my mind and my heart are at. Understanding that the test would have been easier if I had been in better shape, I look at how I can work out my insides to be fit enough to handle the perpetual agility test that is my life. It just pisses me off, you know. I shouldn't have to shoulder all of this shit alone. I just want to be able to laugh at the ridiculousness that is my world with somebody. To wiggle my toes under his leg on the couch while I do my homework. To listen to somebody's stories of growing up, going to work every day, what kind of a crap he took that morning. To put my head on a chest and hear a heartbeat, strong and even. And alive.
We had company for dinner last night, great people, with great kids. We had a good time, especially after I banished MacKenzie and Natalee to their rooms after 37 warnings to stop beating the crap out of each other. We played Gin Rummy. I think that's what we played. Me and cards don't go very far together, so it was a monumental thing just getting me into a card game, especially since the only deck of cards we could find were some insanely oversized ones, about 5x7" to be precise, which added a sense of absurdity to the whole thing. But it was fun. I had a good time. But I was sad. Sad and a little bit angry that I didn't have the wherewithall to get through a good evening with all of my kids and some company. We couldn't just be a nice, laid back, comfortable family for just a couple hours. I fantasize about quality family time. Outings, vacations, just me and the girls, but the reality is always so brutal. And it hurts. I just feel so flipping outnumbered!
I still blame Walt Disney. Maybe that's the reason it's so hard to wrap my brain around going to disneyworld to blow about three years worth of income over a week. Frickin' disney ruined my life. Disney and Bill Gothard, Marble, every preacher that stood in front of me telling me what a princess, a gem I was, and how I deserved to be treasured, how god would reward the desires of my heart, how I could transform from the scullery maid of my family into the queen of a small country with a beautiful, strong and amazing husband. That that is what I deserved, what I would get. I believed it. I bought it. And here I sit, a frumpy 32 year old with an ex husband who sported a fondness for barnyard animals, a gazillion dollars of debt, a life I cannot afford emotionally, financially, psychologically, physically, mentally, religiously, professionally, academically, or any other -ally you can name. And somehow I am supposed to raise 4 girls. Beautiful, smart, talented girls, believing the same lies. That there is a prince out there. That they can be anything they want. That they can do anything they want. That they are royalty. And I lie awake at night, in terror for the inevitable future I see for them. One of betrayal and emptiness and loss. Dammit. I am so freakin' jaded. I really think I need a break. Like a real break. For awhile. But then they are gone, the girls, and after a day or two I miss them like crazy and I start to worry that somebody else is screwing them up worse than I am. Ha. Right. I am losing it. Jeez. Is summer too far away? Can I make it until June, assuming that David even plans on having them, in Arizona, or wherever he will be? Married to the poor unsuspecting girl he is engaged to, or putting it off since he still owes thousands of dollars of child support...
Maybe it's just that I woke up again with a hurting head, back, stomach. Everything. Maybe I should restart the damn prozac. Maybe I need to be functional for my kids. Not that I am not. My grades are great, I haven't missed a minute of work, to the contrary, I have gone above and beyond... I cook dinner every night, and commandeer through the chores. But I still feel like such a failure. What the hell? Where are you now, Walt Disney, when I need a pat on the back? Where's my award for making it through another day, another week, another year, and we're all still alive and kicking. Sometimes literally.
So tired. It's too early in the day to be this exhausted.
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