Venting ... Venting ...

I shouldn't have to do this 38 minutes into Christmas Day ....

My mom overtook Santa ....

I only get to do it every other year as it is .... this is the last year that my oldest probably even remotely still believes ... and I go upstairs to do it and she did like half of it already .... because it was "late" ...

I say, "we didn't even get home when I was a kid until well after midnight"

She says, "well I was twenty years younger then"

I say, "well I'm twenty years younger now"

.... I didn't lash out ... made one comment when she said she was going to dump Santa's milk in the sink and I said I was going to drink it ... and otherwise I kept my mouth shut ...

But ... I am seriously pissed off ... I know she bought the stuff, I get it ... but my grandma almost always bought my Santa stuff ... and my parents actually got to play Santa ... and seriously ... every other year as it is ... one more freedom, one more thing she tried to take away from me and did pretty much end up ruining ... I couldn't do it my own way ... couldn't just do it myself ... or even with her help because we worked together or I was asking her to .... she just did it ... on her own ... and acted like it was nothing ...

This is a big deal to me ... the Santa thing only lasts so long as it is and I only get half that time already ... like I said ... vicariously parenting my children ... undermining my parenting and my control over them ... and the things around them ...

I feel violated and like another freedom and parenting right has been taken away from me ... and now in the morning we go back to smiling so my kids can enjoy their Christmas, but my flipping goodness ... can this shit stop already ...

Elation ..

Elation ... there is no other word I can use to describe how I feel about being able to see my honey tomorrow and every single day for the next week ...

My kids are super excited too ... it means more to me than any present I could ever get ... and no, my warden didn't change her plans or rules or whatever you want to call them, but we found an alternative at least for a while ...

So, I will have a week full of love and support from him ... and then the social events that we'll be attending will add to more of that ... Christmas, New Year's ... his birthday ... a week of celebration ... a week of love and support ...

Totally and completely ... elated :)

Friends, Hope & Isolation ...

Before I turn in tonight I just wanted to take a minute to breathe, to decompress to find a way to get some of these feelings out and make the stress subside ... at least slightly ...

First off, I will tell you all that have been reading my blogs lately ... that I do smile, I do laugh ... I do love my life ... I love my children ... I love my man ... I love my friends ... the three of them together make my world whole ... they keep me going ... they validate my feelings (even the negative ones) ... I am not depressed as a whole ... I am pissed off over a situation ... over living conditions I can't control ... over my parenting being undermined ... my relationship being compromised ... I am pissed off about being treated like a delinquent teenager ... when I have no reason to be ...

I am sad that I am isolated ... sad that I feel like I live in a prison with concrete walls and floors and one solitary, underground window with a grate on it to complete the feeling ... I am sad that my children have to live this way ...

I thrive on my solitude ... I do ... I like love my alone time .... but I came across a quote ... that helps me come to terms with why I love solitude and hate isolation;

“Solitude vivifies; isolation kills”  ... Joseph Roux

For me ... that says it all ... I could go on with other quotes that mean a lot to me right now ....

“Isolation is a dream killer” ... Barbara Sher

                                          or

“Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.” ... Thomas Carlyle

... both of which mean a lot to me as well right now ...


I embrace the negative feelings ... they are as important to human nature as the positive ones ... and I would rather feel amazingly strong negative feelings than not feel anything at all ... I would rather be pissed off than indifferent ... I would rather be depressed than indifferent ... I would rather be in pain than indifferent ....

Indifference is (in my dimestore psychology) a trait of a sociopath ... someone that feels no empathy for others ... indifference ... is almost ... inhuman ....

I embrace my emotions ... throughout the spectrum ... sometimes I am a doormat ... because I am way too empathetic ... but why would I want to change that ... why would I want to scale down the level of empathy I have for others?

I have hope that there will be a brighter future ... I have hope that my children will never have to live like this ... and I have knowledge that if they do ... I will not degrade them or undermine the things they hold most dear ... I do believe I am a victim of circumstance ... a victim of other people making decisions ... a victim of people wanting to help ... and getting frustrated that things aren't moving fast enough and in the end just giving me enough rope to hang myself with ... of digging me a deeper hole ... I have moved twice because I had no choice ... I have left two jobs because I had no choice ... I chose to be a stay at home mom ... which is the only choice that I personally made that left me in this place ... everything else was the result of someone trying to "help" me ... but just because I feel like a victim does not mean I'm moping in a corner not doing anything
about it ... I am trying my damndest to overcome the obstacles that others, and life and a shitty economy has put in front of me ... to beat an obstacle course that even my parents and other biological relatives have no faith in me beating ... I am also pissed off at their hypocrisy ... they borrowed tens of thousands of dollars from their own parents to get by ... they lived in my grandparents' basement ... we ran out of propane ... we had our phones turned off ... because they couldn't pay ... my dad wasted all the family's money on his addictions ... and I somehow am worse than them in their eyes ... the hypocrisy pisses me off more than about anything else does ...

The thing that comes closest is the "ignore it and it will go away" philosophy which is all I have faced in the last few weeks and months ... I would rather fight it out than have her pretend that it doesn't exist ... to completely undermine the validity of my feelings ... of my wants, needs and desires ... to basically say "they don't exist" ... because that's what "ignore it and it will go away" does ... in fact it makes me lash out more ... it makes me keep talking ... keep expressing ... looking for something human to look back at me ... instead of this cold, heartless, indifference that I get ... I would rather see anger ... because to feel indifference for your own child's feelings ... well ... it's just wrong on so many levels ....

This Sunday I will have the opportunity to go out with friends, and my boyfriend ... it will be the first time I have been out like this in a very, very long time ... since well before I moved in to this place ... I have hope that I will probably have the best night of my entire year that night ... that for one night I will get to be me ... not someone controlled by someone else ... not somebody being treated like an out of line twelve year-old ... but I will get to be .... me ... with my friends ... that is my hope ... and it will for one night ... remove this isolation .... and for once I will be able to be myself ....

I'll never find my heart
Behind someone else
I'll never see the light of day
Living in this cell
It's time to make my way
Into the world I knew
Take back all of these times
That I gave in to you

Lately I'm so tired of waiting for you
To say that it's ok, but tell me
Please, would you one time
Let me be myself
So I can shine with my own light
And let me be myself
For a while, if you don't mind
Let me be myself
So i can shine with my own light
Let me be myself

...  "Let Me Be Myself" ... 3 Doors Down

I Should Be Sleeping ..

I have to be up and getting ready for work in 8 hours ... I should be sleeping ... but I want to clear my mind first ... so that I can stand a chance of sleeping ... so I can stand a chance of not crying ... so I can stand a chance, well, of anything ...

I will say that I am grateful for the things I have been given ...I am highly aware that people have suffered greater losses, have lived under worse conditions and have suffered in general far more than I have ... and been given far less than I have been given ... however ... the wrongs done to them ... the suffering they endured ... does not justify the wrongs that have been done to me ... just because someone else "had it worse" ... doesn't mean that I'm not entitled to my own suffering, to my own angst, to my own disappointment and anger ...

Here is the thing ... in my last post about freedom ... I was emotional ... justifiably so ... but I admit I was emotional ...

Here is the thing about that ... I made one request for Christmas ... ONE ... I asked for nothing  material, nothing  monetary ... I asked for one single thing for Christmas ... to be able to spend some time, a week full of special moments, with the person I want to spend my time with most ... I made one wish for Christmas, one request ... and I was told no ... what made this all harder is in the "let me think about it" period ... she was sticky sweet, she bought me things I didn't ask for, didn't need ... like she was buttering me up to let me down ...

I have volunteered to give up things of monetary value ... I have offered to sacrifice things ... I have offered to do things ... I have done everything I can think of to make this happen ... to get my solitary Christmas wish ... and none of it was enough ... there is a lack of compassion ... a lack of caring ... a lack of loving ... a lack of
humanity in that denial ...

I could go into a list of things that were messed up ... he was going to help me fix my computer, and my kids' computer, he was going to help me fix my son's dresser ... we were going to do some stuff for a hobby we do together we do much better when we're physically with each other ... there were practical things that were going to be done, that now there is no time for ....

We have friends to visit, family to visit ... time  to spend with my children ... who love him dearly ... and it was all cut out of the picture ....



Now, I'd understand if there were principles of hers I was violating ... but I'm not ... in fact before I moved in she flat out said she expected and understood that these visits would happen ... and the first of them happened just before my son went into the hospital ... and it was much longer than we expected it to be, than she had agreed to ... because ... my son was in the hospital ... I wasn't going to drive 150 miles away and be that far away when I got a call that he was going in for emergency surgery ... so yes, he stayed passed the agreed amount of time ... but there were circumstances outside our control ... I didn't plan for my kid to end up with life-threatening pneumonia and end up on a ventilator ... I didn't plan for him to stay past the time ... and the entire time ... while I should have had all my focus on my son ... she bugged me about it ... about how he needed to leave, needed to go home ... let's just forget that my son wanted him there, that I wanted him there, that he wanted to be there for me and my son ... that he was really my primary source of support through the whole thing ... it was a relief for us to go spend the night in the hospital ... because we were away from this house ... away from the stress and the pressure ... that just the presence of her would bring ... the constant negativity ... the constant nagging on me that he needed to leave .... and he stayed so far out of her way .... hell, if I didn't tell her she wouldn't have even known he was here ... we were at the hospital so much ... and hiding away in the basement ... afraid of the stress that would come up if we left ... so yes, him visiting now would have stresses ... because I'm sure her attitude would be the same ... really she hates him ... putting me in the middle ... although all she's really doing is promoting my negative feelings toward her and creating a star-crossed lovers situation that is just making our relationship stronger ... so since she dislikes him so strongly ... it's not a real smart move on her part ...

I don't know if she has just forgotten what it's like to be in love ... I don't know if she has forgotten that he and I lived together ... we've been together for over a year ... and we've lived together ... this isn't like being in high school or something and it's just "some guy" I'm dating this week ... the only reason that he lives 150 miles away is because she wouldn't let me have my dog here ... so he sacrificed so much of his life, so that one of us could keep the dog ... so in his mind I know, and in my mind to some degree, it's because of her that he lives so far away to begin with ... I still put a lot of blame on the situation that made me move in the first place ... and blame on her in a secondary position ... but still .... had I been able to keep my dog ... he would be 15 miles away ... not 150 ...

And now, here I am ... with one single wish for Christmas, one single desire ... unmet .... and I can't meet those of my kids financially ... I wish I could skip Christmas this year ... but I can't and I won't for my children ... they will be okay ... they know this will be a light Christmas ... and they will have something to make up for it someday ... but even my children want non-material things for Christmas ... including for "mommy to be happy" ...

Well, that was pretty much flushed down the toilet at this point ... not that he, or this visit, are my sole sources of happiness ... but the denial of them hit me like a ton of bricks ... like a piano dropped off a ten story building ... my stomach went up into my chest and my heart sank down into my stomach ... I was nauseous and had palpitations, an instant headache and my entire body started shaking ... and now I can't even look at her ... I can't make eye contact ... I think I'm afraid of how piercing my eyes must be right now than I am of anything I would see on her face or in her eyes ... I am so upset, so hurt, so angry ... I feel like a child ... who is being punished for no reason ... like I'm grounded just because she felt like it ...

So, then I start thinking about my options ... I wonder if I could hide him in my basement ... how sad is that ... my kids are almost to the age where I need to start worrying about them sneaking people in and out ... and now I want to do it ... so what am I thirteen years old? or am I just being treated like it leaving me with little in options other than to act like it? ... I just can't handle this feeling of being isolated and imprisoned ... I have never felt like this ... in my entire life ... hell, when I was a teenager I had a boyfriend that lived 130 miles away and was three years older than me ... and my mom drove me to see him ... and let me stay the night at his house and let him stay the night at mine ... so when I was 14 it was okay ... but now it's not? ... and I'm supposed to believe that it's not personal about him ...

The other thing I don't think she has thought through is that I am serious about him ... this is a serious relationship ... I could see us getting married, I could see us having children ... more of her grandchildren ... and at this point when I move out ... when I have him back under the same roof as me ... I am feeling like we should make her feel just as welcome as she makes him feel ... which means not at all ... I don't think she's realized the effect this could and will have on her relationship with me in the future ... or her grandchildren .... I mean one of my kids has already expressed flat out hatred toward one of her grandparents ... I'm sure she's capable of feeling that way about another ... she had one take away her house ... one deny her her precious puppy dog ... and she feels just as strongly about this relationship as I do ... to the point that when I told her we were dating she started crying because she is afraid of losing him, and as a friend in her mind that was less likely to happen than as a boyfriend ... and that's just one of my three children ...

Parents are supposed to be supportive of their children ... unless they are in some way hurting themselves or others ... their aspirations, their goals, their relationships should be supported .... needs extend beyond physiological needs ... as humans we have a need to socialize with other people ... to laugh, to cry, to smile with people that are good for us ... as humans we have a need to be loved, to be surrounded by people who support us ... our parents, our families should be the main source of that ... I wish I knew what it was like to have parents like that ... but I haven't had that in a long time ... my parents both have had phases in time where they supported me ... but mostly all I have been is a thorn in their side ... and I wonder if I'm so awful ... if I'm worth all this negativity and control and power ... I wonder if they ever think about who shaped and molded me into this person in the first place ...

What's funny is they're all about helping my kids with anything and everything they want ... they need ... support coming out their ears for my kids desires ... it's a sad day when you become jealous of your own children .... but I think both my parents forgot that they had a daughter of their own when they decided to vicariously take mine ...especially my two daughters, that I have lost in many ways since I moved into this house, since they are two floors away from me and I can't be in two places at once ... but yes, I believe that my parents have forgotten that I am their daughter ... I'm just the mother of their grandchildren ... and that is what I'm worth to them ... so why would they be compassionate toward me ... why would they support the things I need in life, besides just keeping me alive ... and confined in this wonderful, unfinished basement I live in ... they have no reason to ... so again, as I have said before ... I will fight back my tears, bite my tongue ... and be there for my children ... pretending I am not being torn apart inside by all of this ... her philosophy is ignore it and it will go away ... but it doesn't go away ... it just gets worse and worse and worse ...

She was surprised when she said she didn't want her not wanting my boyfriend here (just to visit) to effect our relationship ... and she was surprised when I told her it already had .... I don't know how that could have possibly come as a surprise to her ... it is the main issue that we have period ... some of the other things are issues of power and control, where she exerts it all, knowing I have none, but so much of that could be overlooked if I could just have her support on this one thing ... I would be so much happier ... I would be more positive and optimistic ... if I just had her support ... if I just could have this one Christmas wish ... if she would just accept that he is a major part of me and my kids' lives ... that we need him ... if she would just accept that so many of the other problems would seem so small, but as it stands this is just one HUGE magnifying glass on the whole situation ... but why would she understand any of that ... I try to explain it to her and she tells me I'm crazy and I need to talk to a counselor and that she's not listening ...  just ignore it and it will go away ... I wish this was something talking to a counselor could change ... but when the hatred for the man I love stares me in the face every day ... that's nothing a counselor can fix ... I actually think I've handled the situation well, I rarely lash out at her ... I bite my tongue all the time, I find cathartic ways of dealing with my depression and anger over her attitude, her decisions ... this isn't a counseling issue ... this is an issue with her ... now maybe if we went and saw one together ... but I know that she has the upperhand ... she gave me a roof over my head ... so ... yep ... I owe her ... apparently I owe her more than I am willing to pay ... but the only choice I have is to go live in a homeless shelter ... and we all know that's not realistic ... so yeah ... she'll sit there and ignore there is a problem at all ... and I will continue to hurt ... and she, as the person in this world that is supposed to care about me the most, be the most compassionate, my mother ... will continue to not care ...

Freedom ...

So I asked the warden if my boyfriend could come stay with me for the week after Christmas ....which would allow us to spend Christmas, New Year's and his birthday together ... and allow us some time to hang out with friends, including his best friend that I have never met and he hasn't seen in three years since he has been serving in Afghanistan ...

The answer was he could stay for two days ... which is better than not at all ... I will say that ... although it's more of an insult than it is an offer to help ...

I am so over this all ... I would understand if I were some kind of addict or criminal, hell, I would understand if he was ... but neither of us are ... we are just two people trying to survive in an economy that sucks, in a job market that sucks ... and still maintain a relationship ....

Maintaining the relationship isn't really very hard ... but to be able to spend time together and to have to ask
permission to do that ... is something that nobody that is our age should have to do ... he doesn't ... but I do ...

... I shouldn't have to ... I should be able to say it as a statement ... "he is coming the week after Christmas" ... why do I even ask? ... because I'm polite ... maybe I need to stop being polite, and meet my own needs, my own desires ... after all it is my life ... not the warden's ... maybe I need to take the bull by the horns and just do what I want and not consider their wants and needs, since they don't consider mine ... or at least put their own set of priorities on mine ...

More than ever ... I need out of this house ... I can't even look at the warden without immediate feelings of disdain and near-hate coming into my body ... I physically react ...

It's not that nothing has been done for me, it's not that I don't appreciate having a roof over my head, food on my table, internet access, etc., .... because I do ... but then again ... I would have all those things in prison now wouldn't I? ... and the things that have been denied to me ... those I wouldn't ... so really this is a prison that I live in ... I'm over it ....

*** edit afterthought ***

I also told the warden this was all I wanted for Christmas ... nothing monetary ... nothing at all ... that this request was my one and only single wish for Christmas ... I don't know where people put their compassion ... my kids seem to get it from everyone ... but apparently I am not deserving of it ...

Fake Plastic Mistletoe ... Archived From 11/25/2008 ...

The opening words of the song below :

"Great, fake plastic mistletoe, wrap me a in a great big bow, and tear me apart. . . It's Christmastime, so open up the floodgates, tell me that it'll be late, and rip me apart"

So, I don't know that I even need to write anything in explanation . . . but from the time I can remember, from the time my dad and his siblings can remember, my grandmother hung mistletoe over her and my grandfather's bed . . . something I recall even as a child thinking was terribly romantic . . . so when I was 15 (the first year I wasn't "single" on Christmas) I followed in tradition (even though I definitely wasn't sleeping with the guy lol) . . . since then I've spent a few Christmas seasons single or barely dating someone . . . but this year just seems
a little harder . . . a little less like tradition . . . I dread the sight of mistletoe . . . the Christmas love songs . . . all the emotion and sentiment that goes along with Christmas at all . . . I'm glad I have the kids to focus on . . . because Christmas through the eyes of a child makes the whole thing much more amazing, much more worth while . . . and then I think I have to focus on healing my spirit, because I can't keep going on with life with a broken spirit . . . there is hope in the song . . . which is part of why I like it . . . it starts out bitter and sad . . . but then leads to this . . .

"It's not Christmas if the snow don't fall, And I'm still standing here three feet small, Lose our troubles because after all, It's Christmas time"





*********************************************************************************
Added with the re-post:

I will say that while my reasoning has changed ... this song means a lot to me this Christmas as well ... being without the ones you love at the holidays, isn't much different than being without anyone ... but overall I still like the message that this song ends in hope ...

Yes, I Know I've Been Quiet ..

... so I'm going through one of those times right now where blogging is both my best friend and my worst enemy ...

I have feelings I can't explain ... feelings I can ... and then of course this blog is not anonymous .... so I have to be somewhat careful, guarded if you will, about what I say about certain situations, people, etc.,

The holidays are very hard for me for multiple reasons ... but mostly it's the pressure and the tug of war of both myself and my children .. and then I come off as uncaring and not wanting to spend time with people, which isn't true ... but I've spent a lot of time as a black sheep, and I emphasize a lot ...

I went through a phase right around my senior year of high school where I felt much the same way I do now ... but basically it comes down to this ... I play a very good black sheep from the sidelines ... so what is the purpose in joining a game, where further injury will inevitably be the only result? ... the bulk of my extended family has made it very clear to me that I am not in the "in crowd" through various actions & words ... I grew up as an only child and considered my two closest cousins (the third of my three cousins is much younger and always lived several states away) to be the closest thing to siblings I had ... it is clear that they never really felt that way about me (now mind you they had each other, they didn't have that only child thing going on) ... anyway, I included them in everything as I got older ... invited them to kids' birthday parties, baptisms, they
were among the very first to know that my children were born ... I have been included in nothing as far as events for the three children that they have combined .... and that is just one example in many about where I stand ... and a fairly calm one, for this not so anonymous blog I have going on ...

I've always been looked at as the "wild child" (I use that quote because it actually was used by them) ... the delinquent ... the one that didn't follow the right path ... although as I've gotten older I've realized that no matter what path I chose, it would be the wrong one ... in their eyes at least ...

What's funny is to the kids I grew up with, the ones I hung out with in high school, I was a goody goody .. I didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't do drugs, didn't have sex ... had many boyfriends but didn't get around ...
and the shortest relationship I ever had was six weeks I think ... even in jr high ... the few falling outs I had with friends was usually because I was standing up for something I truly believed in when it came to morals, ethics and fairness ... all and all I was a good kid ... but to them I was always a second class citizen ...

When my ex-husband and I split up I'm sure there was judgment, I'm sure there was gossip, but outside of one mention of it in an email about something else from a cousin ... there just wasn't any support ... nobody reached out ... nobody offered anything ... and now, much like I did after my parents were divorced, I feel like I need moral support just to visit my family ... to know that someone is there that actually cares about me, that cares about my feelings, my side of the story ... literal moral support ... and how sad is that ... I feel like I need moral support to visit the people that are supposed to be the most supporting of all ... my family ...

For a long time I think things were okay because my ex-husband was there ... he was my moral support ... he would stand up for me ... but now ... the idea of going to any family function just me, or just me and my kids ... is basically my idea of my own personal hell ... to sit there and face the judgment that nobody will speak out loud, but they certainly don't speak the opposite either ... and now after having gone through what I did with my father and stepmother in the past year ... it makes it all worse ... I know he and she both have made me out to be something I'm not ... made themselves look, again, like they did nothing wrong ... and not that I'm blameless ... I own the things I did, the things I said ... which is more than I can say for the people that are supposed to be more mature, and more wise than I am ... my dad made a decision that forever changed his relationship with both me and my children ... and his reasoning was that to not make that decision was "hurting our relationship" ... I honestly don't think he thought it through at all ... because the decision he made was more detrimental to our relationship than anything that happened up until that point ... but I'm off track ... my point is that my extended family, not a single one of them, even asked me what my side of the story was, what happened ... not one ... even when I tried to open up that door with several of them several times ... they don't want to hear it, for whatever their reasons are ... which makes being around them without that moral support even harder right now ....

Having my boyfriend be so far away ... I just don't have anyone that really provides that for me ... anyone that I know will have my back ... or be able to send me a comforting glance or gentle touch when words are said that they know sting ... instead I spend my time fighting back tears .... biting my tongue .... and letting stress and pain keep growing within me ... I can let it go ... but not when it's staring me in the face ... with nobody to comfort me around ... and I can't do that to myself .... I can't live in a personal hell ....

Then you add the stress I have from my current living situation ... the fact that it's not even my decision if I spend Christmas or New Year's with my boyfriend, none the less the birthday that he and my daughter share just a week after Christmas ... it's not my choice ... I can't make that decision for myself ... I have to ask for permission ... and will honestly be heartbroken if the answer is no ... but I have no choice ... I have a roof over my head, a furnace that runs, internet and many other things ... and my freedom and independence is part of the price I pay for that ... and apparently heartbreak may be as well ...

I am grateful to have my kids with me for Christmas Eve/Christmas morning this year, as they weren't last year ... but there is so much pain and so much stress ... so much heartbreak .... this holiday season is so incredibly hard .... I still feel like I am not complete ... like my holiday is not complete ... I want the Rockwell painting, but have always been too realistic to know that will exist ... but I would take being able to spend the day with the four people I want to spend it with most ... and to have the other people give me the gift of letting that happen without the additional stresses, pressures and heartaches ... but I doubt that will happen ... so I just have to do what I've been trying to do all along .. fight back the tears, bite my tongue .... and pretend for my children's sake that I don't feel completely torn apart inside ... while not lashing out at the people that make me feel that way ... I am strong enough to do it ... but I still don't know if I can ...

15 Days ... My Reason for Taking a Break From Blogging ...

Last fall with an O2 tank bigger than him!

My five year-old son spent 15 days in the hospital, including two surgeries, six in-room procedures and countless tubes, IVs, pokes and other fun things ... so here is the entire story.

First off, I will preempt this by telling all my lovely readers that my middle daughter has a history of chronic illness, and usually when these kinds of things happen, they happen to her. My son does have a history of Reactive Airway Disease (RAD) and has had pneumonia three times, but two of them weren't bad at all and the third was associated with lab-confirmed H1N1 last fall. He did end up on in-home oxygen with that one, and they talked about hospitalizing him, but never did.

So, here is the story of our little adventure this fall ....

On Wednesday October 13, my cute little five year-old boy started off a cold with some sniffles and a little bit of a cough, but nothing seemed too bad, according to his dad (sidebar- my kids go every other month and every other weekend between their father and me, October was their month with their dad). Saturday morning his dad started getting more worried about him, he was spiking high fevers, throwing up almost everything he ate (including medicine), and had a really good, unproductive cough ... Sunday morning my son was taken to urgent care, they said that he sounded clear, his O2 Saturation was in the low 90s, which isn't bad ... they told my
ex-husband to take him home and get him some rest, that it was just a virus, the normal thing that us parents here over viruses, and of course; if he's getting worse or not better in a few days, take him to his normal pediatrician ... well Tuesday, October 19 I had the kids for dinner, and he was just not himself, he was lethargic and coughing almost constantly, his dad and grandma told me he was actually doing better than he had been ... but that night he took a turn for the worse, a fever spiked again, his breathing became rapid and labored ... so Wednesday morning my ex took him to the pediatrician ... where he was bouncing around the office, and his lungs sounded clear, but the pediatrician didn't like his respiration rate and sent him for a chest x-ray .... what they found looked something like this:

This isn't my son's x-ray, but one that was remarkably like his ... it's called a white-out, and basically means that his right lung wasn't really working at all ... the pediatrician called my ex-husband and told him to drive him straight to Children's Hospital that he might need surgery, but he definitely needed to be at the hospital, he then called me ... about 10 minutes later I received another call from him, telling me the pediatrician had called him again and that our baby boy needed to be taken by ambulance, instead of driven to Children's ...



So, that's what they did, they went by ambulance to the hospital ...

Whether luck or fate played into the fact that my boyfriend was here visiting during that time I don't know, but he came up to visit me on the nineteenth, and was able to drive me and be my main source of support through all of this, and I am grateful he was here ... so he drove me to the hospital where we actually beat the ambulance ...

In the ER

In the ER, his vital signs were okay, the doctor said he "didn't sound that bad" after listening to him breathe ... he said he would have the nurse come in and start an IV, go check out the x-ray and be back in twenty minutes or so, he came back about a minute later and said "ok, that x-ray is impressive" .. and told us he was going to arrange for a room for him on the pulmonary floor and called in surgery for consult ... surgery came and looked and decided it wasn't "bad enough" for surgery right then ... a few hours later we were moved to the pulmonary floor ...

Over the course of the night, he became worse and worse, he was sweating constantly, coughing constantly, his O2 sat kept dropping and an early morning chest x-ray came back worse as well, it looked something like this .... you could no longer even see his ribs on the right side ...

The PICU team was consulted and he was moved to the PICU ... within an hour of being there the PICU team decided not to wait on surgery and to insert a chest tube themselves to see if they could get some of the fluid out of his pleural sack ... so he was intubated and put on a ventilator ...

Smiling through the pain just before moving to the PICU

They tried to get fluid out of a chest tube, but weren't successful, so they called in pulmonology ... he then had the first of two bronchoscopies ... where they looked at the inside of his lung and sucked out some bad junk from the inside, but they still knew there was stuff on the outside as well ...

While he was on the ventilator, he would "choke" ... the ventilator and his airway would become clogged with mucus and such, they would have to bag and suction him ... that was the hardest thing for me, of everything he went through ... watching his entire body rise and fall when they bagged him ... watching his eyes water when they suctioned him .... knowing it was all for his good and saving his precious little life ... but still scary as all hell

In the PICU ... he had a ventilator, the feeding tube, two IVs, one central line, an arterial blood pressure monitor, a foley catheter, EKG monitors, suction for the ventilator and his O2 monitor ... a lot of tubes and gadgets for such a little boy

His two chest tubes

... the next morning his chest x-ray wasn't any better, after boat loads of antibiotics, and all sorts of other things they had done ... so they took him into surgery and did a procedure called VATS (video-assisted thoracopscopic surgery) ... they cleaned out what was a large empyema (basically a large abscess between the pleural sack, or lung sack for layman terms, and the lung itself ... a large pocket of pus and other loveliness, from the pneumonia in his lung draining out into the sack) .... they left in two chest tubes to continue to let fluid drain ..

During his bronchoscopy

Immediately after he came back from surgery he was given another brochoscopy ... to, again, check the inside of his lung and suck out what they could ... the pulmonologist was very satisfied with what they were able to get out this time, saying that they were able to free a bunch of plugs and that it should help him a lot to get air back in the lower portion of his lung ....


He spent the next twenty-four hours in and out of consciousness, he would be awake and alert and nod his head and squeeze your hand, and follow directions ... the nurses were all amazed they said adults would never act like that while on a ventilator ...


Less than three days after being put on the ventilator, the decided it was time to extibate him, he was taken off the ventilator the evening of October 23 ... he was exhausted and drugged up, but the fact that he was no longer on a ventilator was very relieving to me ...

Off the ventilator looking at his ABC book with my honey

He was moved back to the Pulmonary floor the next afternoon .... where he remained the rest of his stay at Children's ...


He was making very good progress and on Monday October 25, they took out his chest tubes, giving him the freedom to walk around his room, they were encouraging him to get up and move, saying that exercising and working that lung would help him get better ... he spent some time decorating his room, and blowing marshmallows with a marshmallow gun (a clever device to get them to exert lung power) ... he also was blowing on party blowers and spinning pinwheels ...

Up and moving around his hospital room

His x-rays and bloodwork still showed signs of pneumonia/infection, and it wasn't getting better ... so there was discussion about what to do ..


But then something else happened ... Wednesday October 27, his morning chest x-ray revealed that he had suffered from a tension pneumothorax ... his lung had collapsed due to air pressure from outside the lung ... his pleural sack that they had cleaned out from all the pus and gunk had filled with air and collapsed his lung ...


They tried to re-insert a chest tube in his room, but couldn't get his lung to re-inflate ... so he went in a few hours later for emergency surgery to place the chest tube and re-inflate his lung, by bagging him ... which I already told you all I loved so much ... I went with him into the surgery room and held his hand as the anesthesia hit him ... and then left him in the hands of skilled surgeons ... less than two hours later they were done ... and he was out and conscious ... and hungry ... he had ordered breakfast that morning, but between when it was ordered and when it got to him, he went NPO (nothing by mouth) ... because they knew the surgery was coming .... so all he wanted was the waffles he had ordered, so we ordered him fresh waffles, and he was able to eat ... but he was back to being confined to his bed ...

Things were pretty stable for a few days .... and then his bloodcounts revealed that his infection may actually be getting worse, so on Friday, October 29, they put him on two new antibiotics, one was Vancomycin, which is literally considered the drug of last resort in the antibiotic world, it is the broadest spectrum, strongest antibiotic available, and the other was an antibiotic designed to kill anaerobic bacteria, which is bacteria that live in low to no oxygen environments, which, for a while now, the bottom of his lung had been ... the combination of the two or one or the other was helping him greatly ... but he still wasn't going to leave the hospital in time for Halloween ... so he laid in his hospital bed, in his Batman costume, all day on Halloween, he was a great sport about the whole thing, and his sisters did extra trick-or-treating for him ... I had to cut holes in his costume so that the nurses could get to his IVs and his chest tube could sit properly, but he still got to be Batman all day ...

Up and eating lunch on the couch/bed in his hospital room

By Tuesday, November 2, he was doing a lot better and they decided to remove the final chest tube ... he was now on oral antibiotics, room air and had nothing attached to him, except his EKG wires and oxymeter ... so he was somewhat free ... we were told they hoped he would go home by the weekend, but they wanted to be able to make sure he was keeping his oral antibiotics down and that his bloodcounts and x-rays were getting better ... we expected maybe Friday or Saturday, but on Thursday morning they decided he would be discharged Thursday afternoon ... so at 4:45 on Thursday, November 4, he was discharged from the hospital ... he had to continue taking an inhaler and his antibiotics at home, and saw his pediatrician on November 8, who said he seemed like he was getting better, not healthy, but getting there ... he will see the pulmonology specialists at Children's at the end of December to determine his long-term care .. because it's not just about him getting better from this ... it's about making sure it doesn't happen again ...

All packed up to go home ... he acquired a lot of goodies at the hospital

He is lucky he is young, the pulmonologists say in post-pubescent people that something like this would leave them with diminished lung function for life, but at his age, it will probably all resolve itself within a year or two ... provided he stays healthy ... he was told to return to school as tolerated ... he went to school Monday for a half day, Tuesday he stayed home, Wednesday he went for a half day, Thursday he went for a whole day, but then Friday (today) he said he was sleepy and his stomach hurt, he stayed home, and slept until almost noon. So, his stamina is coming back slowly, but it is coming back.


It is very hard to see a child go through all this, and he was amazing and brave and strong, and he is very sick of me telling him that, but outside of a few break-down moments, he really, really was ...


He has a road of recovery ahead of him ... and hopefully will be healthy the rest of this winter, but the thought of him getting sick right now is definitely frightening ...

Home with his kitty, Loki ... they missed each other a ton!

You Know What's Hard? ...

... changing shoe laces in your kids shoes, in a house with seven cats ...

... just sayin' ...

Compassion ... A Message For All ...

I was raised in a church where we were taught compassion ... where acceptance was taught as one of the main principles of scripture ... where empathy, love and compassion for our enemies, for those of different faiths, or no faith, different cultures, different political views were to be respected, as fellow members of the human race .. we were taught to show love and empathy by example ... and not force our views or scripture on to other people ... we were taught to examine other religions ... we were taught to do this in an academic and respectful manner ... in my confirmation classes we read pieces of the Torah, the Quran, the Aqdas, the
Book of Mormon, books on Wiccan and Pagan beliefs, we were taught about the missing and hidden books of the Bible ... and then we were taught different versions of the Bible ... the way things were worded differently depending on whether you picked up a King James, an NIV .... or one of the hundreds of other versions of the Bible that exist ... we studied the views of atheists ... the views of scientists ... we discussed whether or not we individually felt that science and scripture could coexist ... and we were not judged by our pastor or each other regardless of where we fell on that belief spectrum ... and finally when we finished the confirmation class, it was very clear that it was our choice whether we wanted to confirm our beliefs in that church, in that religion, in those teachings ... two of the sixteen chose not to ... and they were commended for their honesty and their ability to be upfront about how they felt ...

I was taught as a child, in a church that I miss and cannot find an equal to ... that we were to be examples of God's love, God's compassion .... God's empathy ... and in that we were to fight for all humanity to have respect, understanding and compassion .... the message that this organization is putting out there is exactly what I was raised to believe ....

I have compassion for all humanity, empathy for many situations, empathy for all ... I think discrimination of any form is completely uncalled for ... whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, occupation, age, economic status, marital status, familial status, disability, culture, weight, height, hairstyle, body art, or any other thing that people find wrong with each other ... we must see ourselves as one united human race ... before anything else ... and only then can this world, this country, this city, begin to exist in a manner of peace and equality ...

Labeling Our Children ...

I think there is a fine line between encouraging and nurturing the strengths of our children and labeling and pigeon-holing them into something, somewhere that is unfair to them ... so here is my confession/struggle ...

Hi, my name is Erica and I just came back from parent teacher conferences, and this is where I find it very hard to not "label" my children ... those of you that have read my muses page, know that I do it somewhat there as well ... so let me start out by saying that all three of my children are bright ... all three of them have areas they stand out in and areas they don't do so well in ... but ... here is where the issue lies ...

My oldest is "the creative one" ... she naturally draws better than I did when instructed by high school art teachers ... she is musically inclined, I have never heard her sing horribly off pitch ... not always perfect (and I'm a tough judge with three years of vocal music major fun stuff in college) .. but she is a decent singer ... she is interested in musical instruments and drama ... and writing .. which is about the only academic thing she is interested in ... she has already had plenty of F's and D's and I's and "needs improvement" and "below grade level" and other such negative comments on her report cards ... I fear her parent teacher conferences ... and
today ... was no different ... below grade level in two major subjects ... at grade level in the other major two ... problems with responsibility, problems with focus ... although she is a social butterfly ... she is, in my mind, and in the minds of many others ... an artist ...

Academics are not something she cares about ...and even I, the queen of the run-on sentences and the "..." in my blogging (which I know drives some of you nuts), ... am very, very OCD about formal and academic writing ... I was a straight A student (except the semester I had mono ... and that semester I got a D in PE ... and then the semester we thought I had thyroid cancer ... so sans three semesters ... I was a straight A student) ... I was a TAG kid (Talented and Gifted) ... I was in AP classes ... I was in sophomore math classes in the 8th grade ... this not caring about academics is something I don't understand ... but then again ... I am not my daughter ... she is an artist, she is creative ... she has talents that I do not possess, nor will I ever possess ...

Now on to the middle child, "the smart one" ... this is my child that I almost dread going to parent teacher conferences for, for the opposite reason ... praise up, praise down, not only is she amazingly academically inclined, with "above grade level," "exceeds expectations," etc., etc., etc., ..... she is a "role model student" ... I fear for her from the bullies that hate the smart kids who are good role models later in life ... because that was me .. and from about the fourth grade through the seventh grade I endured way  more than my fair share of bullying ... which is a blog for another time ... this is my child, that schools would fight for to have her be on their standardized tests ... the child I pick up from slumber parties and the parents can't stop praising how polite and wonderful she was ... this is the child that loves to read, loves to go to school to learn and yet still ends up being one of the most liked kids in the class ... this is ... the perfect child  ... from the school's point of view ... from her friends' parents points of view ... now she has her issues, when she is bad, she is by far the worst of my kids ... she negotiates everything ... "love and logic" says give your kids peas and carrots choices (so they feel like they have power, but the choice doesn't matter ... they're still eating vegetables) ... well this is my middle;

Me: "Would you like peas or carrots?"
Her:"How about corn?"
Me:"Well corn isn't an option, would you like peas or carrots?"
Her:"Well, I'll take carrots, but only if you promise we can have corn tomorrow"

Everything is a negotiation ... everything is a chance for her to see if she can push the limit, out smart, out think ... out do ... everyone ... school is competition ... and after every parent-teacher conference, after every report  card, I have to have a discussion with her about not bragging and making her sister feel bad ... but I am proud of her, outside of some of her issues at home (behavior, negotiating monster, etc.,) she is an angel ... and I understand her much better, because she is more like me ... like I was ...

But here's the thing ... by labeling, even in my own mind and the minds of others that know them and choose to label them ... "the creative one" and "the smart one" .... and before you all hate me ... I do not say these things to their faces ... by nurturing the creative side in one more, while understanding her downfalls ... and nurturing the academic side in the other while understanding her downfalls ... am I doing them a disservice ... my child, who is a bookworm, well, my mom and I bought her five books at the book fair, while my oldest got two ... a book about Justin Bieber and a fashion design book ... are we, am I pigeon-holing them? ... or am I recognizing their likes and dislikes .. their strengths and weaknesses, and not pushing them to be something they're not ... and trust me, my "creative one" ... gets plenty of academic help ... and my "smart one" ... gets plenty of access to creative outlets ... but by even allowing myself to think that way ... maybe I am somehow harming my children ... it's at least something to think about ....

In the Middle ...

This is actually something very hard for me to blog about ... I feel like I am standing naked in front of all of you that read this ... but I had to do it ... I had to share the truth about the past ... and my feelings about the present ... and right now ... I only have like eight people that read my blog on a regular basis anyway .... so maybe that helps?!?! ....


Throughout my marriage I had to deal with a lot of drama with my in-laws ... from the day they found out we were engaged, my sister-out-law was horrible, and my mother-out-law had her issues too ... they made my life, and to some extent my marriage a living hell ... always with their disapproval, always with the pessimism, avoidance, passive-aggressive behavior (like refusing to ever even take a beverage in my house ... none the
less eat anything) ... always pointing out everything wrong with me ... up to and including an "intervention" with my ex just before our first anniversary ... where they sat him down as a family to basically tell him how horrible I was ...

Here's a sidebar of sorts ...

Now ... I will admit that I am not perfect ... that I did things on rare occasion to antagonize ... but for the most part ... all I wanted was acceptance ... or at the very least ... to make life easier on my husband ... who wants that? ... Who wants the love of their life and their family to not get along? Who wants to constantly be told that they're married to the wrong person ... that they should have made a different choice? ... Yes, these were people that outside of him I just would have walked away from ... not cared what they thought and gone on with my life ... but there wasn't an outside of him ... this all hurt him ... it was hard on him ... and it was for his sake that I tried everything within my power to be the bigger person in the situation ... no matter what they said or did, I was always polite to them ... no matter how they hurt me in both aggressive and passive-aggressive ways ... I was always polite, always trying to cater to them ... always trying to make it easier on my ex-husband ... I was beyond civil ...

... sure he and I would have our conversations after the fact ... I would run things by him, because he knew them better than I did .... we would talk ... nicely ... to each other about the issues that were there ... but I tried with all the power I had to be the bigger person ... to be the adult in a situation where I was the youngest ... to be the one that didn't instigate or make anything harder or worse ...because this was the family of the man I loved ... the only family he had ... so I tried ... constantly overlooking things ... constantly smiling through things ... constantly asking God to keep His arm around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth ...

... end sidebar ...

So, back to this "intervention" .... he came home from this discussion with his family with a whole bunch of statements of how they were right ... mostly saying that I was a snob and looked down on them (the only thing I ever looked down on them for was their complete and total lack of compassion and empathy, and the way they treated their own family) ... but he had a laundry list of things I had done wrong .. things I should apologize for ... things that made his family hate me ... and I remember asking if he was serious and if they took responsibility for the horrible things they had done and said (from his sister telling me the morning after our wedding that she thought we shouldn't have gotten married, to completely disrespecting our home with criticism and a refusal to eat or drink in it) ... he told me they had their reasons ... at that point in time I was not in a good place ... my thyroid was way out of whack ... I had been searching for a job (I had one, but I needed a better one) ... and getting not much response ... I was having to borrow money from my family ... and basically it came down to I felt like I was nothing but a burden to anyone ... to my family .. certainly to his ... and to him ... well, he agreed with his family ... so ... I took an entire bottle of beta blockers (which slow the heart among other things) ... and called my sister-out-law and told her she wouldn't have to worry anymore about me because I'd be gone ... I threw the phone so hard against the wall when I hung up ... that I broke through the drywall completely ... I was by far at the lowest point I had ever been in my life ... then ... I realized what I had done and ran to the bathroom and tried to make myself throw up ... to no avail ... so an ambulance ride ... a whole lot of charcoal and 2 days in the ICU later ... I actually had saved my own life in multiple ways ... it turned out from blood work that I was in the middle of a thyroid storm ... for those of you that don't know what that is ... it can kill you ... and it presents itself as delirium and psychosis ... on top of physical symptoms that aren't very noticeable ... people in thyroid storm are often thought to be on hallucinogenics among other things ... but ... by taking all those beta blockers ... my endocrinologist believed I had saved my own life ... how is that for ironic .... and not only that I was in a hospital where they took my blood ... and they treated me for it ... but also ... I think that it made me realize who I lived for ... it wasn't for anyone else ... it was for me ... I wasn't here to make my family happy, or his family happy, or to make him happy ... I lived, I walk each day of my life for me ... I turned into a much calmer person .... and my ex ... well ... when his family showed up at the hospital he asked them to leave ... his sister stopped talking to him for more than three years after that night ... and his mom, well, she still talked to him, until another fight that happened between my ex and his brother drove her away ... and she didn't talk to him for about a year and a half ... I never understood the kind of people that could cut off their own family that way ... but that's just because I never really could ... I can avoid, but I can't cut off ...

... five months after that wonderful ICU stay ... I found out I was pregnant with my oldest ... and my life changed again ... I now did have someone else to live for ... someone else that I wanted to be happy (although as a parent it is far from my job to make sure they are happy) ... but through all of this I think I became a better person ... more capable of love, more capable of empathy, more capable of compassion ... and actually much more capable of being the bigger person ...

So, now fast forward to today ... I stand in the shoes of my ex-husband ... and to be honest it's even worse than being in my own shoes that many years ago ... when the person that you love, the person that is your world doesn't get along with your family ... it just about kills you ... every snide remark from either side, every comment, every moment of uncivil behavior ... is like twisting a knife that is dug so far in that it hurts all the time anyway .... so now ... I stand helpless ... not wanting to be in the middle ... not wanting to hear one more negative thing from any of them .... just wanting everyone to step up to a place of civility and realize that if they all want to be part of my life and care at all about me ... that they need to care about me enough to stop ... because I don't need anymore twists of the knife ... and the last thing I need in my life right now ... is more negativity ...

The Delivery ...

Sometimes it's the delivery ... not the message ...

If someone gives you the best news that you could have ever heard ... but in the wrong way ... or the worst news you have ever heard but in the right way ... it can change your reaction completely ...

When someone is angry all the time ... and everything they say ... even positive things ... come off with that angry overtone (or even undertone) ... the receiver of the message will probably not see things in the positive light that they may have if the delivery was upbeat and positive ...

Body language is extremely important in person, as is facial expression, followed by tone of voice ... over the phone ... tone of voice means more than the words you say ...

In writing ... now this poses an interesting thought process in the reader's mind ... what generally will happen is the reader will take what they know about the writer and put that tone of voice to the writing ... so if someone is always upbeat and happy ... they will read the message that way ... or vice versa ... if some one is always sad and depressing ... they will read the message that way ... angry ... same thing ...

The point of all this is ... that regardless of who you are ... or a million other factors that make us each individuals with our own thought processes and reactions ... that if the delivery does not match the message ... we will take what was in the delivery to mean more than the words in the message ... every time ...

For a great majority of people ... the delivery is everything ... you could sound like Charlie Brown's teacher and just say "wa wa wa ... wa wa ... wa wa wa wa, wa wa" .. but if it's done with the body language and/or tone of voice that means something ... we will get the message ... with no words ...

A long time ago I was taught something ... when I worked in a phone bank ... did you know that if you smile when you answer the phone ... or even when you're talking on one ... that your tone of voice automatically becomes less harsh ... even if the smile is forced ... the act of putting a smile on your face ... makes you sound less harsh, less upset, less sad, less angry, less (fill in negative emotion here) ... we all know a smile in person can make a person's day ... much like a hug ... but if you smile on the phone ... it can also ...

Mixed messages make for bad communication

When you deliver any message in life ... you have to remember that there is so much more to your message than what you say ... so much more ... so make sure that your delivery matches the message that you're trying to put out there ... because "I love you" in your angriest tone, with harsh body language ... does not mean I love you to most ... and "I hate you" with a big smile on your face and open, loving body language ... does not mean I hate you to most ... so just make sure that you put as much thought into your delivery as you do into your message ... it can save you a lot of misunderstandings and aggravation ...

Unrealistic Expectations ... Are Movies Ruining Relationships? ...

There was a study I heard about on the radio several years ago that touched on this ... and now here is another one that came out a few months ago ... with this news report of a study headed by Dr. Gabrielle Morrissey .. has brought it to headlines again ... and then anyone that has been familiar with MySpace or the bumper sticker bulletin boards has probably at some point seen a sticker or icon that resembled the one to the right ...this is actually something I have given a lot of thought to lately, although not in the terms that the studies imply, I have a little different take ... but it's related in many ways ...

So the studies say that our romantic comedies and chick flicks create unrealistic expectations for romantic grandeur and communication and even sex ... that we then have this idea of how a relationship should be based on the romance involved in movies such as Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, You've Got Mail, The Wedding Planner & While You Were Sleeping ... just to name a few that are listed in the news reports and studies ... and I will preface all of what I'm about to say that those listed above and the rest of the movies that I will list are among some of my
favorite movies and I appreciate a chick flick and romantic comedy as much as anyone else ... but now here is my take ...

These amazingly romantic movies ... the ones we watch and cry and sigh and wish that our lives, our
relationships could just be that terribly romantic ... almost all of them ... involve cheating on some level and the hero or heroine breaking somebody's heart ... so is that the message that these films send that hurts relationships ... the grass is greener idea ... the idea that someone can come along while you're in a relationship and sweep you off your feet and that will be your happily ever after .... so let's think about this for a minute ... let me start listing off some movies that involve a girl/woman leaving the boy/man currently in her life or flat out cheating on him or vice versa in order to pursue this incredibly romantic relationship we're all cheering for ... we'll start with one of the most watched chick flicks of all time ... it's all in the title;  An Affair to Remember  ... okay ... now let's move on ...  You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, Runaway Bride, The Wedding Planner, Six Days Seven Nights, It Could Happen to You, A Lot Like Love, Dear John, Letters to Juliet, Bridget Jones' Diary, The Notebook, My Best Friend's Wedding, Titanic, Never Been Kissed, Leap Year  ... the list goes on ... but almost all those movies involve cheating on some level ... and those that don't involve a "grass is always greener" standpoint from the girl's point of view ... involve a guy leaving the girl he's with because he realizes that he loves the heroine more ... so really, are these movies sending a bad message? ... are they sending a message that the men in our lives can't live up to ... that we in our relationships can't live up to ... are we, as women, looking for drama ... the great obstacle to overcome? ... or is it about the fact that in a "new" relationship there are sparks and amazing attraction ... I mean ... we all know what it's like to get the chills when someone touches us ... but that doesn't last forever ... so is that what it's about ... the sparks? ...

I also agree about the romantic grandeur ... I mean what guy in normal life can make a life changing romantic speech in the middle of a press conference like in  in Notting Hill ... and how often does a guy have a chance to declare his love to a girl on a balcony in pure Romeo style like in Letters to Juliet ... or even set up a serenade like in movies like Top Gun  and  10 Things I Hate About You ... I mean realistically ... are these things that should even go into our storage banks to think are a possibility in real life relationships? ...

I think the study makes valid points ... and I think that as women, and even men, we need to take the "messages" these movies send with a grain of salt ... yes we all want romance, we all want our happily ever after ... but I think we need to realize that expectations need to be realistic ... and there is an inherent difference between men and women and how they view relationships and romance ...

Edit: ... I found this link The Five Ways Romantic Movies Ruin Your Love Life after I published this ... but just more food for thought .. 

The Schoolyard ... Archived From 05/05/2008 ...

I'll start with the question . . . why does anyone purposely make someone else feel insecure? Why would you purposely answer questions in a manner that you know is not what the person doing the asking wants to hear regardless of what your honest answer would be?  . . . and yes I'm talking to the guys about talking to girls . . . I'd give examples, but individual examples couldn't grasp the bigger picture . . . it's a purposeful intentional thing to not tell somebody what they want to hear . . .

. . . does it all just go back to the elementary school playground where somehow the boys thought that chasing you around the playground and pushing you down  . . . actually hurting you . . . that somehow skinned knees and bruised elbows would make them appear more endearing to you . . . somehow said they cared? Well . . . back then it didn't make most girls think they were liked . . . in fact the total opposite . . . and now that we're all older, and it turns psychological, it really doesn't make a girl feel all warm and fuzzy . . . just like as an adult being
poked in the ribs and shoved off sidewalks and stuff still has to be balanced out with tenderness . . . skinned knees and bruised elbows are not a sign of affection . . . no matter how much our male counter-parts seem to think they are . . .

 . . . . I can't imagine being single in today's world . . . what I've watched my single friends go through (both girls and guys) . . . but everyone has been burned so much, guards are so heightened, that everyone is afraid to say how they really feel about anybody, about anything . . . I think girls in general tend to be more insecure than guys, more in need of reassurance, more in danger of being knocked down to the point that they don't think they can ever be worth anything to anyone, and just shut down and stop trying . . . girls need to know that they're more than just sex (but still wanted), need to know they're beautiful (or at least that someone thinks they are), need to feel that it's okay to be vulnerable to let her guards down, to find someone she can cry in front of, someone that's willing to let their guards down, to cry in front of her, to know that someone wants to spend time with you as much as possible, every waking minute in some cases, that actually would sit around and wait for hours for just a few minutes of attention, girls need guys in their lives that are willing to just cuddle sometimes, and to use their words for reassurances and tender words that show they care (not that playful isn't okay, because it is, but not to the point that you're knocking someone down), a girl needs someone who believes in her, who believes in her dreams, who gives her wings when she wants to fly, and yes, we do still appreciate a guy who can open a car door, a guy who can give you his jacket when you're cold . . . we, the girls, do not need skinned knees and bruised elbows, that as an adult translates into nothing but insecurity, bad feelings and broken hearts . . .

The Quiet ...

So, I haven't been blogging much, well at all really ... and there's a reason for that ... things are very hard right now ... and honestly I'm afraid of oversharing ... of saying things in public that I just shouldn't say ... there is a lot of strain and a lot of stress both within me and around me ...

... and then there's these mixed emotions of wanting solitude and feeling isolated ... and I miss so much ... I miss my independence ... I miss my closest friend and lover (long distance relationships are not remotely easy, especially when communication is cut off almost completely) ... I have all these stupid little things to talk about ... and in a perfect example from my grand mother ... if I'm going to tell you a story about my cat I don't want to have to explain to you that I have a cat first ... I just need someone to tell all those little stupid stories to, the ones that only those that know all the back story will understand ... I also miss hearing those stupid little stories ... I
mean to some it might sound strange ... but when you're basically used to knowing someone's every move, every thought ... and then you lose communication with them ... it's actually a very hard thing .... when you find out things that you didn't know ... that you just assumed you would .... so I miss hearing those stupid little details, and some of them not so stupid and not so little ... as much as I miss having someone around all the time to tell them too ...

... at the same time ... I've closed myself off ... I don't want to talk to anyone ... people in general kind of annoy me right now ... and maybe that's because I have all this crap locked up inside ...

... but I'm going to try to make a point of blogging more this week ... because it is therapeutic and helpful ... I just have to figure out how to do it without making it so personal ....

Control vs Happiness ...

So, for some reason I have watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past way more often than I should lately, part of that has to do with what is on demand right now and that I think that watching a movie that I've seen a million times would mean that maybe it would put me to sleep ... I like the movie for several reasons ... the characters remind me of people I've known or even still know ... of relationships that I've had ...

Anyway, there is a point in the movie where the main character, played by Matthew McConaughey, is given advice to basically not care in a relationship ... the advice is ... "the one that cares the least is the one with the most control" .... as cynical and downright awful as that sounds, there is a lot of truth in that statement ... to anyone that has ever been in a one-way relationship ... they know this ... we'll ignore for a minute that a relationship should not ever be one way ... but in the instance where a girl is head over heels in love with a guy and he is only mildly interested ... he does hold the power ... because she will, in most cases, go to great extents to seek approval, reassurance, love ... will be willing to change and compromise, possibly to a fault ... leaving him with all the control ... and yes, as sure as anything else in life, those roles can easily be reversed ... but when it comes down to it ... I think that it's true ... the person that is in "control" of a relationship like that is the person that cares the least ...

.... now we all know that those kinds of relationships are neither healthy nor very successful ... because eventually those issues will come to a head ... now ... back to the movie ... at the end of the movie ... after he's been visited by these ghosts ... and seen things from a new perspective ... he realizes that his fear of being
hurt ... fear of letting someone in ... fear of losing that control is what drives him to try to keep it ... and yes, in true movie form it's a very dramatic transformation ... however ... then while giving a toast for his brother's wedding he says that the advice he was given was wrong and that in order to find happiness you have to care ... basically to give is better than to receive ... there is a lot of truth in that as well ...

I've mentioned before and I will mention again that Robert Heinlan once defined love in this way; "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own"  ... for me this is very true ... there is a lot more to love, but to be a piece of happiness to someone else, and have them be a piece of my happiness ... to feel their pain as if it were my own definitely plays into love from my personal perspective ... but I believe that it is true ... the more you care; the happier you can be ... it leads to the feelings of only needing love to survive and being able to say that you don't care if you're in a mansion in Beverly Hills or a cardboard box down by the river as long as that one person you care so much about is there with  you ... it surpasses material value .. surpasses most other cares and decisions in your life ... because that one person that you care about, that you love, basically becomes your life ... that is love ... now in that we must not lose ourselves ... but I do agree that the more you care ... the happier you can be ...

Solitude ...

There are times in my life when I realize, more than others, how important my alone time is, how important my solitude is ... and it's such a balance because I am a very social creature as well ... but I do my best at almost everything when I am totally, completely, and absolutely alone ... cleaning, writing, organizing, unpacking, the list goes on and on ...  there are obvious exceptions ... things that require more than one person to do could be named in multitude, but since all the examples I can think of at this exact moment would imply that my head is clearly in the gutter I won't name any of them ...

But ... for the last week, my kids and I have been sick ... they have been home from school all week .. and being nicely unemployed at the present moment ... and sick myself ... I have been home with them ... so 24/7 ... for going on five days ... of literally not one minute of solitude ... so ... this is what that means ... my house ... okay, okay my area of the house that I live in is totally trashed .... I haven't been blogging as much ... I have a list of
chores to do outside the house a mile long and none of them have been done ...

I find myself staying up later at night ... because it's just so quiet ... and peaceful ... and there are sick children sleeping all around me so I can't do anything productive .. you know like vacuum .. or even pick up toys and trash ... it's noisy business .... on top of just not having any time alone, I also have been sick myself adding to this growing problem ... I have my kids with me (meaning they won't be traveling to their dad's) for the next eight days ... so there is no break in sight, except maybe Monday they will be well enough to go to school ... but that's still three more days of 24 hours a day of basically no peace, no solitude, which makes me highly unproductive ...


Sure, I've been gaming .. leveling an alt in WoW, because it's something I can do in five minutes here, five minutes there, nobody will be mad if I disappear for an hour to deal with sick kids or to take care of the few chores I have taken care of ... but really, I am starting to resent the fact that I don't have any solitude, and maybe that should make me feel guilty, but it doesn't ... I need that peace ... again, like in previous posts about guilt ... I am looking forward to having an abundance of solitude to try to take care of the many things that I do best when I'm completely alone ...

Control ...

Control of my own life is something that I have struggled with for a very long time ... and the balance between being a "nice person" and being a "doormat" ... I think I more often fall into the doormat category than I would like to admit ...

Some of the problems in my marriage stemmed from control issues, disagreements and flat out fights about things that really just came down to control ... and things I wanted done, or he wanted done, that just didn't happen ... a feeling from both sides maybe, but from mine for sure, of things not being give and take so much as give and give ... and give ...

I won't pretend that my current relationship doesn't have some of those problems as well, that doormat thing comes with being a perpetual people pleaser ... in essence I don't stand up for myself ... but then in true feminine form I hold resentment, because you know men are supposed to read our minds, and know that we
really, really want to watch that chick flick movie, but we're feeling agreeable and so we'll watch the action flick instead and then secretly hold it against you that we made that decision because in our minds we didn't make it ... you did  ... yes, women are complicated ...

Anywho ... I'm getting off track ... back to "I want you to want to do the dishes" .... so despite control issues ... doormat issues in previous and current relationships ... for the most part I was in control of my own life ... of when I got up, went to bed, what I watched on TV or did on the computer (even if that meant I did it alone) ... of what I ate, when I ate, when I did my laundry, when I did well everything ... I am a mother of three children ... I had control over them ....

It seems now I feel I have lost part of my identity ... moving in with your parents (especially with children) as an adult is a very, very hard thing ... and my mother has been very sympathetic to the whole thing ... but, even though I didn't live under her roof for almost twelve years, she is used to being the parent ... I am used to being the parent ... I have three sick kids right now and I'm sick myself ... and any single parent, or even stay at home mom, knows that there is no break for mom when everyone in the house is sick ... and that doesn't really change, even though I'm living with mine ... I had to make a pot roast this morning ... feeling like crap, etc., ... because that's what was the expectation for what we as a household were having for dinner ... and it wasn't awful ... but if I had control over my own life ... with three sick kids, and being sick myself ... the last thing I would make is pot roast ... it would have been a soup night ... maybe a pbj night ... but it's one of the areas where I have lost some of my own control ... and if I hadn't done it, it's not like I would have faced hell or anything, but somebody else has expectations of me now ... parental expectations at that ... and that changes my identity ... my level of control .. and that is something I need to work on ...