Tag Archives: relationships

adventures in dating

I decided to start dating. Actually dating. First time at it (save for 2 absolute disaster blind dates) since the 80’s.

What am I thinking?

What I am thinking:

I have spent decades taking care of other people.
I have put other people’s needs before my own my entire life.
My life is never going to say, hey, you take some time for yourself now, we’ll all be fine. I’m going to have to take that time for myself.
I’m not getting any younger.
I’m a lot of fun.

Last week I joined an online dating site. I wrote a fairly irreverent and silly description of myself which included references to Monty Python, Shakespeare, The Princess Bride and a semi-naughty poem. I posted the insanely flattering professional photo of me that makes me look like a movie star. I also posted photos of me after a Warrior Dash, in a yoga class, messing around with my kids, and a couple of my feet in interesting places to make me look worldly and slightly mysterious. Then I started looking at the men the site suggested.

I am new at this, but I do have a few suggestion for men on the site:

Don’t say you’re athletic and toned if you’re not – seems obvious, but…
Those pictures of you holding the big fish you caught, all ten of them? Yeah, not a real turn on.
Posing with various weapons? Ditto.
Shots of you with animals you have killed? Double Ditto. (or I might not be your demographic)
I’m very flattered you think I’m hot, but maybe there could be a few more things you could mention in your note to me?
The picture with your ex where you’ve blurred out her face? Not so endearing. Get a friend to snap a picture of just you with your phone.
Selfies in the bathroom – just don’t, I’m not ready to see your toilet yet.
I realize you love your dog/cat/kid/kids but no more than a couple of pictures of them, they’re not why I’m here. (also your dog who died last year? why would you put up that one?)
Why are you wearing sunglasses in all your pictures? Where you burned by acid?
Why are you wearing baseball caps in all your pictures? Do you have hair or not, just let me know one way or another, I can deal with it, really.
That’s a very nice sportscar / motorcycle / sports utility vehicle, but maybe you could save all those manly photos for the guys who would probably be very impressed by them (again, I may not be your demographic).
Spell check, spell check, spell check. No, really, it’s important.
Don’t send me your address, I’m not going to come over to your house, even if you offer me presents.
Try to write something that doesn’t involve the words soulmate, sunset, long walks, holding hands, sensitive, loving, or true love (unless you’re quoting the Princess Bride, and then bonus points).

In spite of this list I have met several wonderful men. No soul mates, but I wasn’t looking for one. Something about dating in my 50th year has given me a freedom I never had before. If I like someone, I’ll have a coffee with them, if I don’t, I won’t. I chat with who I like, and don’t take it personally if someone decides not to see me. It has turned into great fun. I had a much better face and body in my 20s, but my 49 year old mind is a much happier and much more secure one.

Onto to week 2 and more adventures.

rules from the nuthouse

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The first rule of the Nuthouse is no one talks about the Nuthouse.
(they give you papers to sign saying the Nuthouse is nobody’s business)

The second rule of the Nuthouse is that you can’t call it a Nuthouse when Anyone Normal is listening, but you can call it that very quietly in a corner of your mind while your teetering on the edge of completely inappropriate laughter.

At night the Nuthouse is guarded by a small woman with a platinum blonde beehive and bright red lips named Jean. If you want and if she’s not busy, you can chat with Jean, and she will tell you all about her son and his tours of duty, his divorce, and the Polish woman she hired to take care of her mother after the strokes, and how she was sometimes mean to her mother. Jean will ask you the secret ‘password’ that shows you know someone in the Nuthouse, and if you get it right you get bright yellow Visitor’s badge so everyone will know you are visitor and not a patient.

Jean will always be polite and basically cheerful,because the third rule of the Nuthouse is everyone is happy, or at the very least, smiling, pleasant, and healthy looking.

Once you say goodbye to Jean, you wait with other people who got the passwords correct and have bright yellow Visitors badges on until someone efficient and smiling and carrying a clipboard comes collect all of you and escort you through the sets of doors that lock as you pass them.

The fourth rule of the Nuthouse is only people with the Special Cards can open the very sturdy doors.

To visit at the Nuthouse all pockets must be emptied, cell phones and jackets turned over to the very polite and efficient staff. If you bring anything for patients the polite and efficient staff will inspect it and if it is acceptable, bring it to the patient. You cannot keep the bag in the Nuthouse, also you cannot have drawstrings in your pants or shoelaces in your shoes.

You can visit for an hour at the Nuthouse, sometimes twice a day, but only if you know the password. When you visit be sure you don’t laugh too loudly or the polite and efficient staff will come and ask if everything is okay. The fifth rule at the Nuthouse is everyone is calm during visits.

And then it is time for you to go home, and you wait for the person with a Special Card to escort you through all of the sturdy doors, and only when you make it outside, and that tiny part of yourself that wants to laugh until you cry is poking at your sleep deprived brain with a sharp stick, do you finally mutter out loud “The first rule of the Nuthouse is….”

and on the way home they will play Brain Damage on the radio because the universe is not without a sense of humour.

thankful

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Last weekend – if you’re Canadian – was Thanksgiving. We did all the usual things, making stupid amounts of food, eating stupid amounts of food, talking and laughing while eating the stupid amounts of food, and then digesting it for hours (days) afterwards. There was much talk and laughter during dinner. Both my daughters had their boyfriends over and also some extra friends. We had a wonderful time.

No one mentioned Graham.

Actually I suspect everyone was mildly grateful for the reprieve. To be honest the holiday was easier without him. There was no constant redirecting, or monitoring or having to keep track of the 6 foot toddler. It was easier in every possible way.

Except that it wasn’t.

Graham was on his own for Thanksgiving. He’s been on his own since he relapsed shortly after his sister came home from school for the weekend. He managed 8 days living with us before the expectations he had agreed to became too much. We actually had only about 2 good days with him before old habits started sneaking back.

He burned his bridges with the Marines and now has no life ‘plan’. He’s not in school, doesn’t work, and is homeless, not the sort of future you envision when raising your little boy. I look back over the last 18 years and wonder what I could have done differently, done better, not done, done more of, and my answer is it doesn’t matter. I did try everything thing I could think of to help him. He had mentors, role models, martial arts, fine arts, music, social workers, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, support groups, summer camps, youth groups, retreats, sweat lodges, and on and on. He had more support and resources in the last 6 years than most people get in their lifetime. Did it make any difference? Who knows? He’s still alive, and maybe some seeds were planted that may grow one day. Maybe, or maybe not. I suppose what is important is that we always tried, that we didn’t give up.

Except it feels like giving up right now.

Still, you have to do you best with what you are given. I have two daughters that deserve my love and support, and my time. I have had my own life on hold for more years than I care to admit, and it’s time to put some time and some love into myself, otherwise I will come out of this hollow with no idea who I was anymore. I deserve more than that. My daughters deserve more than that. My son needs to know what being a whole person looks like, what taking care of yourself and others looks like. One day hopefully he may even be able to take care of himself and have enough left to care for others. One day, maybe.

For now I concentrate on what and who is important. On the people I love and nurture and on those who have loved and nurtured me. I don’t have time for anything else. Living through difficult times provides a clarity that might not have been apparent otherwise. I have a limited amount of time and tolerance for bullshit or superficiality. I am begining to see my own worth and the value of real friends. The rest, is dross….

“What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage…”

– Ezra Pound, The Pisan Cantos

“Oh no, I’ve said too much…. I’ve said enough”

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So. I’m a bit overwhelmed.

I’m in that hamster wheel section of my brain where the thoughts spin faster and faster and get crazier and crazier. Not fun.

This is what’s spinning around:

I need to move on from where I am now – career, relationship, life…
I should get divorced. I WANT to get divorced. I can’t afford to get divorced.
I need to get a job that pays me enough to live on, has benefits, and sick days. (divorce = no health care)
I was trained as a nurse in Canada, but have to back to school to do that here.
I need to go back to school – see 4.
I need money to go back to school – see 1,2 & 4.
I have a daughter in University.
She needs money to go to school.
I need to borrow money – see 5 & 7.
I already owe money – see 5,6,7, & 8.
Going back to nursing would let me live on my own – see 2.
I need health care – see 2 & 3.
My son is making life very hard, mine and his own.
I can create. I can write, I can’t get organized, display or sell my work.
My office is an unorganized disaster that keeps me from getting anything constructive done.
I’m tired. see all of the above.
I need to get organized – see all of the above.
I have no idea where to start or what to do next – ditto.
I feel badly that everyone seems to handle their lives better than I do.
Other people have been divorced and remarried since I got separated.
Other people have kids in university and do not turn themselves inside out trying to pay for it and organize it.
Other people are in school themselves and have managed to pay for it, and organize themselves.
Some other people are in school and have kids in school.
Other people get organized and display and sell their art/writing/photography.
Thinking about other people doing everything better is making me nuts.
I need to see a neurologist.
My son ate up almost all of our new and unimpressive health insurance – see 13.
I want to take yoga teacher training, it will cost money – see 1, 5 & 10.
I don’t know if it’s just stress making my head hurt – see 13, 16, 25 & 26.
I don’t like getting head aches because they have already caused permanent brain damage and I’d like to keep what marbles I have left – see 26.
I don’t think I have enough marbles left to go back to school – see 1,3,4,5,6……

Right. Well there you have it. Take all of those, spin them faster and faster and that would be my brain right now. No wonder I have a headache.

morning coffee, logically and otherwise

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Last night was rough, but not as rough as I imagined it should be. I was surprised that I actually went to sleep shortly after my son tried to get in the house at 11. But I did and I’m not sure what that says about me. Earlier yesterday, it looked like he was headed for the shelter but at the last minute he found another friend to take him in. I think he may run out of friends who can put him up soon, and then his life will get more challenging, but I’ve been wrong before.

I observed all this dry eyed, and somewhat logically. I’m very surprised at my ability to sit in the dark on my bed listening while my son tried to get in. He didn’t try for long, something that seems very sad, but still, I could just sit and wait.

What this says about me I really don’t want to examine to closely, but this morning when I was buying my coffee I also paid for the person’s behind me. I wanted to do something kind, something that would hopefully make someone smile, and as I drove away from the drive through I burst into tears. Not lodgical at all, but maybe somewhat reaffirming.

how to save a life

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When he was four, I carried my son into the Emergency room while he screamed in pain. He had, as it turned out, appendicitis. For the hours leading up to our dramatic entrance he had been at home not feeling well with a stomach ache which had become worse and worse. I had called a physician friend of mine and gone over his symptoms, which were basically pain, no vomiting, no fever, no right sided tenderness. I was worried it was appendicitis, but I wasn’t sure and wanted someone to tell me what to do. My friend ended up saying it was likely just a GI bug, but it could be appendicitis – ha ha!! Well it was, and his appendix burst that night before they could operate. He had peritonitis by the time they opened him up and they cleaned him out as best they could. That was the longest night of my life. I sat alone in the waiting room while the surgery they had told me would be 90 minutes stretched out for hours with no word to tell me what was going on in the OR. A week later he was sick, his stomach bloated, his incision oozing. They took him back into surgery and cleaned out the peritonitis again, this time leaving the incision open to drain. For weeks afterward the wound oozed and had to be debrided daily. There was no pain medication that helped and these sessions were essentially me holding him down while a nurse pulled out the gauze from hole in his abdomen, irrigated the open wound, repacked it with new sterile gaze. Eventually he healed, and all that is left is an impressive scar.

That was an exceptionally difficult thing to go through. When they finally took him into surgery I didn’t know for sure what was wrong, or what would happen. I was terrified and could do nothing but sit with it for hours in a small waiting room by myself. Difficult and terrifying to say the least, but at least there was something to be done. I took him to Emergency. I jumped up and down like only a mother whose four year old is in agony can until they got the on call surgeon in to see him. I held him up to, and right after surgery. I never left his side in the hospital, and when he had to get up and walk for the first few times after surgery and he cried and he screamed, I held his hand, and made him walk with tears pouring down my own cheeks. I held him down during the painful dressing changes and sang to him. I read him story after story to pass the time and to distract both of us. I felt helpless in the face of his pain and would have taken on myself if only I could have.

Now he is in pain again. He has been in pain for years. I have done everything I can think of to help him. There have been countless doctors, specialists, counselors and therapists. There have been expensive in hospital treatments, year long out patient programs, support groups, and meeting after meeting after meeting. There have been successes, and there have failures. We have watched his peers struggles, sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, and sometimes they die. I can’t say it hasn’t worked. He’s still alive. He’s graduated from high school. Those are successes. But he is struggling more and more and now there isn’t a surgery they can perform to take the poison out of him. There isn’t a song or a story I can tell him to get us through this. I’ve sung all my songs, and he doesn’t like my stories any more.

There is another way we can help him, it is loving but also it is difficult. It is not an easy way, but may be the only way to get through to him and help drain the poison himself. It won’t be any less painful that before, but it could save his life.

On facebook today there was a picture of a young family. Two happy looking parents, three young beautiful children. The caption was “Father needs new cancer drug to stay alive”. You want to help this man, his family. Cancer is an awful disease and we all know and love people it has harmed or killed. There are fund-raisers for beautiful children ill with cancer. Everybody wants to save them, and they should.

Nobody has fund-raisers to help pay for an addict’s treatment. Nobody puts photos of their addicted son, daughter, spouse, parent, or friend and asks for support. They just aren’t that likable. You don’t get the same good feeling about helping them, and addiction is every bit as much of a life threatening illness as cancer. It is an illness, (more about that here) and it affects more people that most of us realize. There are treatments, and people do survive. People who become profoundly grateful and beautiful, in the way only those who have been through hell and made it back can be. They go on to help others going through this nightmare. This isn’t something that people generally share because of the stigma associated with the disease of addiction.

So. There is another program, in Utah, that would help my son. One that could save his life. And I don’t know how we will manage it. I am so overwhelmed I don’t know how to begin to figure this out. I still want to pretend this isn’t happening, but t is, and I will have to figure this out too. And one day, maybe, we may save his life.

“How To Save A Life” – The Fray http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF0zefuJ4Ys

Step one – you say, “We need to talk.”

He walks, you say, “Sit down. It’s just a talk.”
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you cameWhere did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
‘Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you’ve told him all along
Pray to God, he hears you
And I pray to God, he hears you

And where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you’ve followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he’ll say he’s just not the same
And you’ll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

How to save a life

How to save a life

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life

How to save a life

just for today

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“…I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children…”

This line of poetry has been going through my head for hours. It’s from The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. This morning I nearly couldn’t get up after the night and do what I have to do. This morning all I wanted to do was curl up with my aching head and broken heart and forget. I wanted to pretend last night didn’t happen. This is how grief works I suppose. This being the denial stage of Denial, Anger, Bartering, Depression, Acceptance (according to Kübler-Ross), or maybe I’m doing it wrong and I’ve skipped anger and bartering and gone directly to depression (do not pass Go, do not collect $200). I know I’m tired. I know I’m not up for this again. I know having a small taste of what life could be like without this fucking disease (is that you, anger?) makes loosing the hope again really painful.

Pema Chödrön tells us to “lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away”

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”
― Pema Chödrön

So, when I woke up at 1am I spent the next several hours leaning-the-fuck-into it and it was nearly unbearable. Cursing Pema, not for the first or last time I’m sure, I spent the hours that I would have rather been spending in amnesiac sleep feeling like Oscar Wilde’s nightingale from The Nightingale and the Rose, (read at your own risk, Oscar never pulled his punches). I leaned. I meditated, I said the mantra my old crush yoga teacher gave me, I prayed to God, Ganesh, my higher self, St Francias and to anybody who might be listening. And I survived the night. I’m up walking and talking today and on the outside I look just the same. Inside is not so pretty. Inside I’m replaying my conversation with my son. My son who was thrown out from where he is staying, my son who has relapsed in body, mind and spirit. My son who is killing his own future, his own dreams. My son, who is ripping everyone who loves him to pieces.

You make tough decisions, actually you make gut retching, heart breaking decisions, but unlike the movies, that doesn’t fix things. There will be no soft swelling of music, no neatly wrapping up of things, no wistful and knowing smile that shows you made it, you got through it, because this is real life, it’s not a movie and you don’t get to go home now, now you get to make more of those gut retching, heart breaking decisions and instead of music and scenery you get more pain. So here I am. The light I glimpsed at the end of the tunnel just got smaller and further away. The plans I had dare make will be shelved once again as I am sucked once more into this cycle of addiction.

Last year I read a blog from a man who said he wanted his kids to be addicts. Wanted his kids to be addicts because he worked with a remarkable young woman who was a recovered addict. What he didn’t realize the reason recovered addicts and alcoholics are so damn grateful is because we have been to the funerals, we have watched those around us fall, over and over, we have witnessed unspeakable pain, and we have walked to the edge of our own abyss and stared into it and only then, those of us who recovered, pulled back and rebuilt ourselves completely. We’re grateful because we’re not in constant pain anymore, because we found a way to live life on life’s terms, because we came to believe in something bigger and more profound than our own ego and our own pain. So many do not make it back and those of us who did only get a daily reprieve. This disease has no cure, only a daily discipline and a with that a profound gratitude. There is also profound pain with this life, because when you give up your crutch – alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, food, gambling – you actually have to experience the emotions your crutch was protecting you from. You will ‘feel better’. You will feel pain better, sorrow better, and also love and joy better. I wanted to tell the man who wrote the blog this, but I didn’t.

And so it is for me with my son. I watched this disease kill my father. I’ve seen it tear apart families and now I am watching it tear apart my own family, my own son. I know there is a way through this, but I cannot do it for him, and as a parent this is what hurts the most. My own ego is upset that the break I was starting to believe was coming is not going to happen and I am profoundly tired. I want the easier, softer way, but it does not exist. The only way through this is to go through this, not over it, not under it, not around it, but straight through the fucking middle of it, again. Leaning into it, again. And I can’t imagine doing it all. I can’t imagine walking the path that is in front of me. So I will just do today. Just for today I will do the next right thing. I will go through the middle of this mess. I will lean into the discomfort and not look away.

Just for today.

try a little tenderness

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Twelve years ago today I was at work. My children were 8, 6 and 4 years old and were at school when a patient came into the office and told us someone had flown a plane into a World Trade Center building. The rest of the day unfolded in horrifying and heartbreaking images It was a terrible day,

For many people it still is. A day full of pain, heartbreak and fear. This article The Falling Man – Tom Junod – 9/11 Suicide Photograph – Esquire is going around social media sites today. It is a very powerful photo and a very powerful article.

“They began jumping not long after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. They jumped to escape the smoke and the fire; they jumped when the ceilings fell and the floors collapsed; they jumped just to breathe once more before they died. They jumped continually, from all four sides of the building, and from all floors above and around the building’s fatal wound.”

It bears witness to the horror and heartbreak of that day. I think this is important and necessary that we have these images, and the stories that go with them, but I believe it is more important to be respectful of people’s emotions surrounding the events of September 11th. For some this is too much to look at. For some this hurt is still too raw, and these images are still too painful to look at.

They are important, they should never go away, but maybe it is still too soon. Years from now when my children are adults, when their children are adults and the events of September 11th are not a memory, but a story told to them, then the videos, and the photos will be crucial, they will make what happened real for those who never experienced it. They will bear witness in perhaps a similar way as artifacts from the Holocaust keep that from becoming just a story. These images will not, and should not ever go away, but who sees them and when should be a matter of choice. It has been suggested on one facebook page that not showing the image of the Falling Man is “Political Correctness and it’s sniffling sanitation to protect people (keep them ignorant) who will not deal with truth and what needs to be done.” I don’t agree. I think when someone finds an imagine too painful to look at it indicates that they are not ignorant of the events, on the contrary, that the events are very real to them and still very painful. It is not the same as someone denying an event occurred or sanitizing how it did. It is very real people dealing with very real and powerful emotions.

I think we could all do well to treat each other with a little more tenderness, and a little more compassion, today and always. We’re all fighting our own battles and our own demons and absolutes and judgements do nothing but isolate and cause more pain. I may be wrong, I may be missing the point of absolutely everything. I may be naive and do not understand the nuances and implications of the situation. All of these things may be true, but in the end I believe it is more important to be kind than it is to be right, that people are more important that news. I believe that whenever possible I should be kind, and as the Dalai Lama says it is always possible.

“Try a little tenderness (that’s all you gotta do)
It’s not just sentimental, no, no, no
She has her grief and care, yeah yeah yeah
But the soft words, they are spoke so gentle, yeah
It makes it easier, easier to bear, yeah…”

(thanks Bilbo)

I just got home from a 3,368mile (5,420kms) drive (there and back again) from my home in Naperville, IL to Wolfville, NS. Two days driving there, one day stop-over, Two days driving back. About 54 hours driving time. It was the longest drive to and from school I have ever taken one of my kids on.

I spent the days leading up to the drive randomly being gripped in terror. I would suddenly feel the ground drop from under my feet and my stomach would leap into my throat, my heart would pound and I would want to cry. I felt certain that I was making a huge mistake, or at the very least doing absolutely everything wrong.

I get angry at myself for remaining in situations that do not serve me, my marriage, my job, my home, okay, my life in general, but then I’ve always had that terror and painful certainty that pin me down. With any major, and most minor decisions I am generally quite certain I have, or I will make the worst possible choice, and that sitting and doing nothing is my safest option. I assume that everyone else on the planet, or at least my peers, or my betters (which is where I put most people), would be handling this, or have handled this so much better, or have, at the very least, been better organized about it (my disorganizational skills are legendary). Other people, I dangerously assume, have the support of a partner, of parent or if they’re insanely fortunate, parents, or at least some close friends to reassure them they are making good choices. I have none of these and as a result am left with the really not nurturing voices in my own mixed up head. It’s a motley crew, the voices in my head. Part my mother (appearances are everything), my father (appearances are bullshit), my step-father (you’re utterly worthless, stupid and will make utterly worthless and stupid decisions unless you think and act as I do), ex-partners (I didn’t love you and I will leave you shortly so you better get that wall up to protect yourself), the occasional friend (hey, you’re awesome! *but if they really knew me they would get over that notion pretty quickly), and finally, in the back ground, usually jumping up and down like a far away but hyperactive 3 year old, is a small fierce voice that is the part of me who hopes and tries for something better. That small voice is the one who talked me into the 50+ hour road trip, it’s the voice that took me scared shitless to surfing lessons, the one that had me running around London and later the Dominican Republic on my own while presenting this brave adventurous face to anyone looking. Inside I thought I was an idiot, and doing everything wrong.

So, my monster drive, that I still can’t decide was brave and meaningful or crazy and stupid, or maybe it was all of these. I can present a very believable case either way. It did allow me meaningful time with my daughter, to process her going onto this next important stage in her life, to honour what she has done, and to be present for part of the transition which was painful for us both. That was important and I’m very glad we had that time (not sure if we needed so many hours of that time, but that’s done now). I brought several books to listen to, and was lost in stories for much of the drive. I drove past and through many landmarks of my life, in places I’ve lived and by people I have loved. So many places, so many people, so many memories.

In the end, truth be told, it wasn’t really that brave a decision. I could not afford a plane ticket, my husband, who could afford one, would not discuss it, so I did what I thought I had to to get my daughter to school. I could have pushed the issue, but decades of experience have taught me that I am on my own with this sort of thing and I rarely bother anymore. Now, of course, he is organizing for her to fly home for breaks and is the hero, where I am the one that took her on the never ending car ride. Part of the reason he is adored by both our families and I am not, that and he is a much better schmoozer than I am (to be honest I suck at schmoozing, alas…).

I try not to listen to the less than caring voices in my head. To focus on the little fierce one. I don’ t know if this is wise, or how much wisdom that voice has. In many ways it is a toddler with very basic and primordial needs, so I’m not sure if this is my Id jumping up at down, or at least my ego, but has kept me going when there was nothing else that would, and for that I’m grateful. It has kept me moving forward even when I am certain I will fail, it kept me driving all those hours, it help hold my my head up (even when I’m looking like a complete idiot), and it, usually, keeps me from curling up into a ball and giving up.

I think I need to be kinder to myself, maybe even forgive myself for not having this whole life thing figured out. Maybe even let the kind voice be heard among the rabble-rousers carrying on in my head. I think this is a rather poor ending to this blog, that I could have done better, but maybe this one will do.

not okay

Everything he wanted went into one large duffle bag, except for the two baseball hats he wore so they wouldn’t get bent.

“What’s it like to move out mom?”

“It’s really hard” is all I manage. To say more would have me crying as I picked up his McDonald’s meal and gift card.

I don’t manage this for long and soon enough I’m bawling in front of the man who will be housing my son, his duffle bag, two hats and his McDonald’s gift card. Later tears pour down behind my sunglasses as I walk my dog round and round the dog park.

He was so quiet. So mild mannered. It made it more difficult. I told him I didn’t want this, but this is what we have now, a void in my home where my son used to be.

When I was 16 my mom told me one Monday that I would not be allowed to live with them anymore and I would be moving up north to live with my father. Five days later I was on a plane to a completely different home and life. I didn’t hear anything from my mother for over six months. It was not the first, and certainly not the last time she cut me off, or decided she didn’t love me. It shouldn’t have been as big as a surprise as it was, but that first major rejection was a shock. For months things had been getting worse with my step-father. One bad day things were bad. I tried to run out the front door and he had caught me by the hair and hauled me back in. Then he really lost his temper. My mom stood in the doorway holding my little brother’s hand watching. Afterwards when I was crying in my room she came and told me I was to come downstairs and tell my step-father that I loved him because he was so upset. Something shifted then, and I realized my mother would stand with her husband no matter what happened. This has been the case for over 30years now. Mothers are suppose to defend and protect their children, mine protected her husband. That was the most physically violent episode, but certainly not the last. Names I can’t repeat, taunts, slaps, fistfuls of hair and every time I deserved it. I simply would not play the part they wanted me to and eventually she wanted me gone, and she kicked me out.

It doesn’t matter that I am not my mother, or that the circumstances are utterly and completely different, I have done to my child the single most painful thing that I have ever experienced, and that is not going to be okay. I did it with compassion, my son knows how much I love him, but at the end of the day I sent my own child away, and that will never be okay.