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 ...