Pity Party

Tonight little man and I watched Lilo and Stich for the first time. I was surprised to learn, that in my grand tradition of Disney movies, I could still bawl like a baby over a cartoon. Lilo and her sister have a small broken family. And so do I. But unlike Lilo, I am responsible for my little broken family.

Several people have told me that I disclose too much on my blog (and in person as well). Speaks to my lack of self-control I guess. Anyway, the point is that I identified with the movie because hubby and I no longer live together. We are on our way to having new lives, forever connected through our wonderful, sweet son but now apart. Tonight was “my night.”

We are still working on working together and I think we’re both rather proud so far of being able to hold it relatively together. But I am frustrated about my baby’s lack of schedule because it was a nice form of continuity (for both of us) and seemed to ease us both in this rocky life. But tonight after having spent time at dad’s for the past few nights, my kiddo had no interest in climbing easily into his little race car bed. He refused the things that normally soothe him like his blankie, his binkie and his bottle. (Yes, he still has those things despite pushing age 3. Dis me if you will, but the “experts” say not to try to take familiar items away during a transition, i.e. a divorce.) Finally at my wits end, I sat him in bed, shut off the light and closed the door. As my son screamed and cried, “I want my daddy, I don’t want you, mommy!” I collapsed on my bed and sobbed. This is becoming a more commonplace occurrence than I had hoped it would be.

Through my tears, as I often do, I chastised myself for wallowing in self-pity. This situation is my doing; I’ve chosen to sacrifice the happiness of my son for my own selfish chance at a better future. This guilt and shame is mine to bear and I don’t deserve to feel bad for anyone but the people I’ve damaged by deciding to pursue a different path from the one that kept my son and his father and I under the same roof.

I work with so many very amazing people, and one very perceptive friend, an older gentleman, recently told me a personal story. He said that his wife had left him years before. In their specific case she had met someone whom she fell in love with. He tried to do all the things that he should have done throughout their marriage, but it turned out that it was too little too late. He was bitter and upset. He was angry of course with her, for "taking" his family away, but he was also very angry with himself for not putting much effort into his marriage and into the woman he loved. I wondered why he decided to share this with me. He then said, “Don’t ever feel like you don’t deserve to be happy. You do.” He realized that his wife had a right to pursue something for herself—happiness. At first I found the story encouraging. It might be okay that I tried to find something more than what I had. This was before nights like this.

I pulled myself slightly together, made a warm bottle and went into my baby’s room. I tried again to calm him and asked if he would like to come lay with me a while. He said he was scared of the dark and that his room was foggy (?) and so we went and got into my bed where he accepted the bottle. He didn’t seem tired at all, perhaps due to his crazy schedule and constantly being shifted back and forth. I could only think of Lilo and my broken little family and continued to cry as silently as I could. At one point I got a little sobby again and my angel rolled over and put his tiny hand on my wet cheek gently and said, “Mom, I’m okay. I stopped crying.”

We lay there a bit longer and I finally picked him up and put him back in his bed once he had decided it was no longer “foggy.” But I couldn’t help but wonder if he was really okay. I guess only time would tell. One thing was for sure though, I knew I would have a chance at happiness that I didn’t have before but I sure the hell don’t feel like I deserve it. The pity party is gonna be a long one.

Letting Go of Toxic Love

What makes someone remain in a relationship that isn't right for them? Perhaps there are a number of reasons but I think the strongest ones are fear and laziness. Perhaps the fear allows for the laziness—I’m not certain, but I believe I can convincingly argue that fear is to blame.

Recently I lost a loved one. She didn’t die or move or anything like that. She was married to my dad—she was my mom. Well my step-mom anyway. And while she never fit the role I’ve often talked about the ideal mother fulfilling, she had some good qualities and we had 15 or 16 years together. Being close, hugging, talking, loving, and she became a grandmother to my son. Not a step-grandmother, a grandmother. (Grandparents need not be quantified as “step” anything.) While this isn’t the topic, I think it is worth adding that she had a son. And he was special in both senses of the word. He was a new brother for me at the age of 15, who had William’s syndrome, and who very likely taught me more than I could have ever taught him. Anyway, so I lost two loved ones.

So am I sad? Of course.  And no. As with so very many things in my dysfunctional world, I am at odds with myself and my feelings. My step-mom was toxic. She hurt my dad, and my family, and me. Many times. For many years. But she loved my son. And I still believe to the extent that she could, that she loved me. That makes it hard to let go. Even though I know that letting go is the right thing to do. History matters, right? How we once felt and thought matters right? Or is it our own fear about what might lie in the future that forces those things to have the gravity that we perceive that they do?

Early on, I’d say around 6 years in to my “parents” marriage, I would have been around 22 years old ish. We were on our way camping without my step-mom as she had thrown one of her famous “I’m staying home” fits over some inconsequential defiance committed by my pop. And nobody has ever let me forget the ensuing conversation. Dad said something to the effect of, “I just don’t know what to do. Maybe I should just get out.” And I, wanting to hurt my dad as his previous divorces, not to mention the 3 of my mother’s, had hurt me, said, “You said, ‘I do. Don’t you think one of them should count?”  For the last 10 years, I’ve been reminded of that statement, even blamed, by multiple parties for the recent, long overdue situation.  Aside from the sharp words spoken in my youth, what made my dad hold on for 10 more years? Fear.

What if we never find love again? What if we live our lives alone? What if our children hate us for our failures? What if we find everything we ever wanted…and it changes everything we know to be true? I’m not sure what my father convinced himself of, but I imagine these to be the questions. I’m certainly empathetic to this line of thought. He comes from a tiny town. I told him once in order to change his life he would need to reinvent himself completely. Move. Perhaps a new career... abandon the town he’d spent his entire life in and everything he knew.  I could sense the hesitation at the very thought. And I don’t blame him. But if we only have this singular life, what could we possibly use to justify wasting any one moment of it? Fear is the only emotion strong enough. That is my theory.

I miss you crazy step-mom. But I can’t waste my precious minutes in this place any longer. I’m scared about what might happen. Even as an adult I don’t want to deal with another momma or my dad’s dating life, or advising him on where to live an how to carry on. I get SOOOOO tired of being the one who supports everyone else. Just one time, I want to lean on someone instead of a line of people waiting to lean on me.  But, in the end I’m happy that my dad was finally able to let go of his toxic love. Because everyone deserves the kind of love that helps you flourish and thrive. Everyone deserves a conversation that touches your soul, a touch that makes you tingle, and nobody deserves to be infected by toxicity constantly. I guess there is a balance that fear can tip toward the toxic…but if you accept that you deserve to feel loved and be happy. You have to let go. Be rid of the toxic, morn, and move toward a brighter future. Accept that positive things can be yours. If you are brave, and if you want it badly enough, I’m thinking it might all work out for the best.

Martyrdom and Motherhood

It took having a child for me to realize that mothers are also people. Sounds silly, I know. My own relationship with my mother was hampered by my expectations of what and who a mother is, or at least what I perceived they should be. I’m not sure what led me to have those expectations. I’m not even sure I exactly remember what they were. I’m certainly not the only one. I think children, despite their age, always have a hard time seeing their mothers, and possibly their fathers, (but mostly their mothers,) as thinking, feeling independent beings with needs and desires outside of their commitment to serve the children. Despite what children, young and old think, your mommas are in fact, people just like you.

But some of us, me specifically since I’m writing this, have a hard time accepting that once we become mothers, we still get to be people. Maybe it is by design that we put aside our selfish ambitions in order to produce the fittest offspring for insurance that the species might flourish. And it does indeed seem, at least to me, that those mothers, who are the best mothers, are the martyrs. They are the women who put their children first and foremost at almost every single moment of every single day.  And if they don’t, the cruelest punishment known to mothers awaits for those women who buy into the martyrdom and motherhood but fail to abide by it, mommy guilt. For me, mommy guilt started before I left the hospital when my little was born.

One of the strangest feelings I had after giving birth was the confusion that came from the lack of immediate transformation into super mom. I was still me, with the same flaws, the same habits, the same issues, the same wants. It sounds stupid to have expected, well something, anything different from what I was before. It was, of course, stupid, but I did end up with the mommy guilt. Now 2 ½ years later, I still have it. If I go somewhere without my kiddo on the weekend, I count the hours I’m gone and feel just rotten about it. After all, since I’m working we don’t get to spend much time together during the week. So I owe it to him to spend every waking moment I’m not at work nurturing him and giving him the absolute best of me, right? And it isn’t enough to just be with him, we have to be doing an enriching activity that will make him more able to achieve his potential. Once he has been bathed, read to, sung to, and snuggled sufficiently for optimal future success, I have a few hours to clean the house, exercise, hang with the hubby and pups, and have personal time. As you can imagine, I’m lucky if even one of those things gets done. Then there is more guilt that my kid is growing up in a messy house or some other personal failure I deal with. While my son seems happy, well adjusted and all around awesome, I’m left wondering if I’m doing things the right way. And many times I feel very lost and I simply can’t figure out what my problem is so I conclude that I’m failing everywhere.

Do martyrdom and motherhood necessarily go hand in hand? Is sacrificing a great deal critical to successfully rearing a great kid or great kids? I recently watching a program which stated that human babies are by far the most helpless of all infant species and that evolution made up for that by providing both a mother and a father that help raise the human infant (in many cases). Well, I don’t see dads killing themselves mentally every time they ignore the kiddo to watch football. But it is obvious that their presence still contributes significantly to their kid’s successes. Of course, not all moms get mommy guilt or feel they must spend every waking moment surrendering what makes them who they are in order to make their children the best kids possible. But it seems like lots of really good moms do. I want more than anything to be a really good mom. I still want to feel okay about going shopping, or reading, or writing, or working. I still want to be able to consider my own happiness and feel okay to pursue something that might help with that sense of being lost without feeling like the slightest little change will ruin my son. For now, I’ll keep playing the martyr because it is my role, I’m used to it, and the bottom line is that our kids are always worth every benefit we can give to them. 

Resolute

I think that there are several interesting and probably equally valid ways to think about New Year's resolutions. I've read recently that they are a way to make one feel better about their personal disappointments or failures in the past year. There is the common sentiment that New Year's resolutions only last a week to a month before the resolute fall into previous habits that demolish their good intentions. I also recently read that a great way to look at New Year’s resolutions is to set a lot of them as a guideline for things you’d like to incorporate into your life and set up small changes that might lead you to accomplish some of your goals. While I find all of these thoughts pretty intriguing, I like the last one. You see, recently I’ve been doing some work that leads me to believe that the expectations for ourselves, for many of us I should say, are so drastically different from the reality we live, that we are almost certain to fail to achieve the expectation. And so year after year, we either laugh at resolutions or set them religiously to deal with shattered expectations. So for me, I intend to adapt the list of resolutions with no expectation that all of them will be realized. And I’m putting it out there into the world hoping that my goal of making small changes toward the achievements I would like to make will be easier if people know what I’m working on.

1) Learn to relax—Hopefully my approach to this year’s resolutions is a start. I am high strung about EVERYTHING. I’m almost always excruciatingly tense, both physically and mentally, and so far, it hasn’t done me any great favors. If I can make strides in this area I imagine it will help me accomplish the following goals:

a. Get more sleep

b. Get along better with others, specifically my immediate family and my co-workers

c. Reduce picking (I pick. At everything. It is uber OCD style stuff that needs to stop.)

d. STOP multi-tasking and live in the moment, in other words, concentrate on one thing at one time. Multi-tasking making one more productive is a myth when you deconstruct specific instances. But that is a post for another time.

How will I accomplish this? By reminding myself that it is impossible, and frankly inefficient, for me to control everything and everybody. Other people, well some other people, are capable, and if they’re not, it isn’t my problem to solve, it is theirs. And second, I must accept that the things that are out of my control are as they are, and just let those things, events, etc. run their course without feeling some personal fault. And last, I have to stop speculating and horibilizing (a term I owe to my mother), about the future and the present. This amounts to doing my best to not believe or imagine the worst case scenario as the likely result.

2) Do better at living healthy—This one addresses my overeating problem, my lack of motivation to participate in physical activity and my food choices. I envision this one to help me achieve these important objectives:

a. Feel, well, better. I feel like junk A LOT of the time. It is no fun.

b. Increase confidence and self esteem. ‘Nough said.

c. Set a good example for the people I love who are also suffering whether they know it or not.

I will work toward these ends by becoming more self aware about what I am doing in the moment. A lot of habits are things we do mindlessly. If you actually catch yourself before you make the choice to engage in the habit, you can think about the result and make an informed decision about whether or not the activity is going to make you feel better ultimately, not for just a moment. Then you simply have to make an alternative choice that you believe will make you feel better long term.

3) Address my financial, aheem, issues—I don’t even know where to start on this one. I’m a flipping shop-a-holic to the umpteenth degree. Spend less, maybe? Sell some stuff? Address my needs vs. my wants? I guess a combination of these will help me ultimately hit these targets:

a. Decrease my gianormous debt.

b. Simplify my life by not accumulating so much stuff I end up on the TV series Hoarders.

c. Venture back into the scary world of real estate which I do miss in many, many ways.

I will start by, gulp, unsubscribing to half (or more?) of the flipping emails I get which call to me like sirens with promises of bargains on designer merchandise. Be more careful about my purchases making sure I look at price tags, ask myself how I’ll use the item and how often, as well as if I need it vs. just want it to hang in my closet with the tags still attached for a few months. Perhaps I might even get super assertive and have that yard sale I've been considering at some point. The bonus of many of these actions is that they will lead nicely into the next.

4) Spend less time online and other media and more out in the world—Not that there isn't some high quality time to be spent online. I’m talking about the fluffy stuff, specifically online shopping which I do like, 2 hours per night. I know, it is sad. If I can do this it will help me with these aspirations:

a. Spend more quality time with my family—our time together now sometimes feels like a chore. We could be enjoying each other and building so much more enriching relationships.

b. Write more—I like facebook but I should spend more time blogging because it is therapeutic and will hopefully lead me to writing more of what I really want to be writing.

c. Accomplish more around the house and get (and stay) organized and clean this dump up.

As mentioned, the unsubscribing should help me with these aims along with setting aside specific time as well as a limit on time spent online and with the TV on should help with this one. Another way I might delve into controlling the online beastie is to either shut off my phone or leave it behind more often. I lived without at one time I bet I could do it again. The other thing is to make sure I realize that procrastinating around the house is only making it worse and is not adding to my relaxation goal. It takes a minute to address messes as they happen and a weekend to address what didn't get taken care of when it happened. I also want my son to feel like I’m involved in his life. Recently he has told me a few times to put the ‘puter away. You’re right, little man, you’re right.

Well kids, brevity didn’t make the list this year. I guess there is always 2013. I hope everyone is resolute that this will be a great year and that our collective achievements make our homes, our workplaces and our world more relaxed, healthier, economically stable and a genuinely (as opposed to a virtually) better world.