I Hope You Know.

To my children,

I hope you know I have loved you with every cell in my body.

From the day I knew you were a possibility, I have known you. In the days of your early years I would look at you awe struck and it would become unfathomable that there was a time in my life you did not exit, as if you were always there somewhere tucked behind my ear like a strand of hair.

It would be devastating to think there will ever be a day you go to sleep questioning my unwavering love for YOU. You as you are, not the "you" that you think I think you should be. I have only ever wanted you to be happy, healthy, know you're loved to your core and to enjoy every moment of your childhood and hold onto those years before they slip so quickly through your fingers.

I will forever be disappointed that I couldn't give you the time I wanted to. I tried so hard to make my presence a possibility, but I know that I fell short often once our family structure fell from a 5 person household to 4. I am and have been doing everything within reason to give you all my personal time I can spare without depleting my own "stores" of personal time to rebuild myself for the next day.

You deserved more and you deserved better than what we as your parents provided. I tried so hard and felt as if each year my knuckles were more metaphorically bloody than they were the year before from scraping my way through. 

I never wanted to be the parent that had to beg/borrow/steal to make ends meet.

I never wanted to be the parent to tell you "no" to new experiences and opportunities.

I never wanted to be the parent to enforce the three of you relying on one another so I could provide some sort of life for you.

At the end of the day, I feel like we've been fairly successful of being fierce advocates for one another and (most days) being complimentary to one another. If one falls down, we reach down and pick the other up.

I don't want you to ever think you must earn my affection or feel as if you are unworthy. I will ALWAYS love you, forever and ever no matter what. No mistakes, errors in judgment or failures you may have (and we will all have them at some point in our lives) can make me change my mind that you ARE worthy always.

I hope you know all that and more.

Stuck.

I am stuck somewhere between "familial responsibility" and carving my own identity.

I am frozen where I stand as I think back on every guilt trip, every "dishonorable" act I've ever committed, and being called upon to serve each of my family members and the different benefits each of them received while only now realizing there was no benefit for myself other than the feel good glow of knowing I "did my part" in the family.

I try to raise my kids in such a way that they know that I know they didn't choose to be here, they didn't choose this life for themselves and that they are almost entirely reliant on my ability to provide for, shelter and nurture them into adulthood. It is an absolute BONUS if they stick around beyond their teenage years, but they don't honestly owe me anything for being born and becoming who they were always meant to be. My dreams are not their own and I am ok with that. It's nice to dream, but my dreams are not their reality.

They were born into a family of parents with divorced parents and sometimes divorced grandparents. They were born into half siblings and extended families and generations of love, heartbreak, birth, death, generational curses and stories that were so jaw dropping that a whole docu-series was made about it.

When do I let the last weekends in July of my childhood slip through my fingers entirely? Weekends I spent wide eyed and curious searching the faces of my cousins, great aunts and uncles, and my great grandmother for answers to who I was.

Visits with my paternal family were stark in comparison. Stories of Alabama royalty, plantations and the "best kept slaves" but they "weren't slaves" they were family. Stories of losing my grandfather during a custody dispute. Family reunions and gatherings didn't really happen unless someone had died. And even then it would be hush hush gossip with side glances to my sister and I with whispers of "quiet now, little pictures have big ears."

Why do their stories have to be braided into who I am? Why should they? What right do they have to my present day situation? I didn't even know most of those people and they honestly probably wouldn't want to get to know me if we passed each other on a sidewalk.

A lot of what the generations before have taught me is what not to do, heartache for what they endured and learning from their mistakes. Those I met in person I've chosen my own thoughts on and either formed relationships with or kept my distance. I wasn't "being a snob" I was protecting myself from whatever it was that felt "off" with them and a lot of times it was just me being completely overwhelmed in their presence because of their mannerisms and conversation skills. Not a snob, just neurospicy.

I want my kids to have the ability to know about their family history, but not in the way that I grew up believing that their history was why I was who I was. It has nothing to do with them. Who we are as humans has nothing to do with what boat your family crossed over in and everything to do with how we conduct ourselves in the present and future.

It’s Just a House

 It’s just a house.

His hands touched the lumber that framed it out. 

He purposefully built rooms and corners knowing the family that came before him and after him would fill its crevices with both laughter and tears. 

The doors he framed out welcomed siblings, cousins, in laws, grandchildren, great grandchildren… and unknowingly said goodbye to his wife, his sons and his brothers.

There are jackets hung in the garage hall that have watched him, his wife, his children and grandchildren do thousands of loads of laundry and I’m sure have overheard just as many secrets passed between lips to ears across the room and across phone lines from one coiled phone cord to another.

Prayers and pleas made to a watchful God, hymns sung at the kitchen sink beneath a carefully placed window so songbirds inside and out can call to each other. He knew what he was doing when he chose this blueprint.

Hours upon hours have been spent rocking and swinging from chairs and porch swings with their own stories to tell. Babies and old men alike observing the lay of his land, watching for deer and bunnies, witnessing the passing of time as fruit trees bloom and blossoms fall.

Stairs and railing, down to the basement where the sounds of drums, high hats, cymbals threatened to deafen those who dared to sneak down the steps and listen. 

Giggles from mischievous little girls haunt the basement stairwell as pranks were played upon their youngest teenaged uncle, much to his disapproval.

Stories of real, fictional and biblical snakes were told under the roof of this house he built. From snakes keeping time swaying in the windows of the basement windows to cable lines snaked through walls, scaring and scarring the biggest of grandchildren (everyone, including her, laughs about this now).

Deep into the basement is a cellar, cool and dark lined with hundreds of dusty jars. The fruits of his labor from hours upon hours of tending to his garden. Tomatoes, pole beans, blackberries, bacon grease, peppers… all lovingly dated in her handwriting as beads of sweat from the blistering Georgia summer collected across her brow.

His boots dutifully trudged through the red Georgia clay as he tilled and conditioned the soil every summer for well over 30 years… vines of muscadines lay thick next to whatever playground equipment he’d rescued. Beside the muscadines were rows of prickly raspberry and blackberry vines. So many summers were spent hosting granddaughters with pigtails and curls sneaking between those rows to sneak deep purple and red berries straight from their vines.

Little legs chased puppies and chickens through dirt paths in the backyard. This same backyard watched as his son took his last breath. So much life grew and perished beneath the canopy of pine and sweet gum trees.

It’s just a house, but it hosts memories of birth, life, death and everything in between. 

It’s just a house, but nearly all of us have descended from it and contribute our own blood, sweat and tears. 

It’s just a house, never mind that it echoes with love, laughter, joy and sorrow.

It’s just a house, but it’s now a part of all of us and one day we will have to say goodbye to it and only visit from the road as we pass.

It’s just a house, but it is a living testament of my grandfather and every last hope he had for his family.

404 Not Found

200+

30+ 

8.

The past few days I've gone through one by one and removed any blogs I've followed that have either a.) not posted in over a year or b.) come up unknown/not found/snatched up by someone who is clearly not a blogger.

This really kind of breaks my heart/brain. What outlets are they utilizing now to release their thoughts, their stories?

I feel like blogging is my little bit of "fuck you" to everyone who's ever peeked into my journals and diaries. My way of saying, "if you want to know so bad, here, now you don't have to break the lock."

I cannot imagine being silenced. I cannot imagine having my hands held behind my back with no outlet left to scream my innermost thoughts into the void.

 

Past, present and future pt. 2

 15 years ago, I:

1. Moved into my grandparents home with my then husband.
2. Gave birth to my first child.
3. Quit flying indefinitely after 6 years of traveling the world.
4. Became a firefighter’s wife and stay at home mom.
5. Watched hours and hours of insomniac theater on VH1 with my colicky baby.

10 years ago, I:

1. Was on the Rosie O’Donnel Show.
2. Was healing from a nervous breakdown.
3. Fought my anxieties and got a job leasing apartments.
4. Sent my oldest to Kindergarten.
5. Found my then very intoxicated husband trying to hang himself in our closet while pictures of his sister and her friends in their bikinis littered across his computer screen.

5 years ago, I:

1. Began the transition for my youngest to start special needs pre-k through the public school system with the help of Babies Can’t Wait.
2. Watched my oldest find his “reason” again after years of “pause” while playing baseball.
3. Found messages on my laptop between the baseball team’s “team mom” and my husband.
4. Got divorced.
5. Began to rediscover who I really was now that I was no longer pouring every bit of myself into someone who could never be truly satisfied.

1 year ago, I:

1. Started running again.
2. Abruptly stopped running after getting strep and having terrible reactions to my covid booster. Hashtag no regrets.
3. Realized it wasn’t “me” in the relationship with those close to me. I played my part in reaction to who THEY were.
4. Fell down in a hole of seasonal depression on top of the normal undercurrent of regular depression.
5. Sent my oldest to High School to begin his final descent into his remaining years in the school system.

Today, I:

1. Got all 3 kids to 3 different schools and made it to work 30 minutes early (small victories!)
2. Can finally get groceries now that something’s been paid towards child support.
3. Will do the dishes, finish this weekend’s laundry and maybe get it all put away.
4. Readjust my debt spreadsheet since my financial situation went to shit.
5. Pre plan for this weekend’s Halloween festivities and my mother’s birthday.

1 year from now, I:

1. Will have one kid with a driver’s license and another starting their driving journey.
2. Have two kids in high school and one in elementary school.
3. Will be running at least one 5k by summer.
4. Be back in the swing of daily morning yoga.
5. (Fingers crossed) will have a new vehicle of my own and no longer struggle financially as hard as I have this year.

5 years from now, I:

1. Will have a HS graduate, one senior in HS and an 8th grader.
2. Will hopefully be a homeowner.
3. Plan on celebrating 15 years at this property.
4. Will be 45. Inconceivable.
5. Will be a non-smoker. Not maybe or hopefully, I WILL BE a non-smoker.

10 years from now, I:

1. Will be 50.
2. Hope to be celebrating 20 years with this company if not back flying.
3. My youngest will graduate High School.
4. Will just have the youngest at home.
5. Will need all the plants and cats to keep me company.

Core Memories in the Making

What do core memories with our children look like to you?

With big it was seeing him finally run right after his first birthday. It had been 12 months of frustration since his birth. Watching him put one foot in front of the other on those cabin floors in West Virginia was euphoric for all who witnessed or was part of it. It was watching him run across the field beaming with pride, brow glistening with sweat after scoring a point. It was watching his face grow nervous with glee when he was picking out flowers for his elementary school sweetheart before taking her (her mom, her sister and middle) to the movies - his first REAL date. It was watching him dance and sing during “the greatest show” in middle school after hours and hours, days and weeks of pulling teeth to get him to practice and seeing all his hard work pay off. It was the night he ran from you; blue and red lights bouncing off our faces as he told me he was never going back. I was proud of him for standing his ground and saying “no more.” It was watching the excitement and jitters grow with each second that passed leading up to seeing his girlfriend before homecoming this weekend.

It’s not always sunshine and roses. There are times when it’s harder than feels necessary… but I would never trade my time with them. They owe us nothing. They don’t owe us love or affection. They don’t owe us conversation, they don’t owe us. They didn’t ask for us. They didn’t choose this life. We chose it for them. WE brought them into the world. WE made the promise to THEM that we would unconditionally love and support them.

So. How do you do it? How do you justify your silence and inability to just show up, be present? How do you sleep at night knowing they exist without your love guiding and shielding them? How do you sleep? How do you not worry yourself sick? There’s nothing I’d ever trade, nothing worth losing my kids eyes searching for me in the crowd even though they KNOW I wouldn’t miss their life, their one and only childhood for anything or anyone.

Another one bites the dust.

Riding to school this morning, I made a terrible comment to my oldest about how right now we're all walking around and our bones are wet. He told me to stop it, but instead I carried on with the fact that at some point during my cremation, my meat will be perfectly cooked. He jokingly gagged and yet I carried on that I better not be buried or I'll haunt him for allowing it to happen. I didn't want someone playing with my hair and makeup to make me look like someone I never was or plugging my orifices with medical grade butt plugs to keep me from leaking out all over my coffin. I did half seriously tell him that before everyone leaves, Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" better play.

I joke with my kids like this periodically knowing they'll remember bits and pieces of my requests for my last wishes. Little may not remember, but I'm sure Middle will and Big will endure too much grief to contribute to the conversation unless one of them remembers my wishes differently than him. Seriously though, if you find out I've passed on please remind my children that I will haunt them if I'm buried somewhere. At least if I'm cremated, all three can split my cremains in thirds to carry a little bit of me wherever they end up.

Death has been a big part of our conversation as of late due to Ollie's looming expiration date. Some days, this old geriatric cat of mine will act deceptively normal. Well, normal for being 17 and on borrowed time. He still wanders the house every night if I'm not where he expects me to be and howls for me to come find him and help him as well as screaming his demands for dinner no later than 7:29 pm knowing full well he won't get fed till 8:30. Other days, the tumor behind his ear will start oozing, he'll be unsteady on his feet and rhythmically twitch his sore leg like he's keeping time to a song only he can hear. 

I've made calls to local veterinarian's offices, nurses who will visit in home, and to friends and family to say their goodbyes to him. I whisper, "soon, soon... I won't let you suffer much longer." I don't want him to suffer and I do want him to die with dignity, but something deep inside of me is too selfish to let go just yet. This is my Ollie, the best friend I never knew I needed time and time again. I'm literally keeping him alive long enough to afford his euthanasia and cremation. It's over $400 to make sure he's not cremated with any other animals, which is a HUGE deal if you're Ollie and never liked anybody but your human mom... and sometimes I think he just tolerates me. When my own mama asked why I would just bury him in the backyard of my childhood home, a.) he don't know NONE of them pets buried back there nor would he like them b.) he coming with ME. Where I go, my boy will come with me. I want him to lay on/in my bedside table close to the head of my bed where he sleeps every night as it is and always has been. I don't want his old bony ass to haunt me because he's got little bits of Rover and Spot mixed in with his ashes and he's PISSED because he can't stab me in the jugular with his sharp ass little nails I could never hold him still long enough to trim.

This cat literally fell tail and back feet up in the air into my lap as I sat on the floor and surveyed my choice of kittens. He chose ME to take him home. He chose ME to tolerate for the rest of his life. He chose me even though I chose to marry the man who hurt him, he chose me even though I brought three babies home, he chose me even though I moved us from apartment, to basement, to apartment, to house, to apartment to house to his FINAL apartment... he chose me even when it was my heart that was breaking curled up under my "marital bed" mourning the death of my marriage. He chose me even when I foolishly brought a third cat into the household and even when I sent the cat back with my ex-boyfriend when we split. He still chose me even though I couldn't and can't bare the thought of life without him in it. How do you raise another being from 6 week old kitten to 17 1/2 year old screamy geriatric cat and then just say goodbye? It's a process I'm still, well, processing and I'll never honestly be ready to say goodbye.

Despite death being such a hard topic no matter what season you're in, I know for myself that I'm not afraid of death or knowing that a.) we're all going to die and b.) you can't escape that. I'm comforted by my faith that something better awaits me, but also know by science that it's physically "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." My brain can't honestly wrap itself around any other thinking, it's all very black and white in the recesses of my mind that this is just how it is. I'm not afraid of leaving life behind. I'm afraid of not LIVING and experience all MY life has to offer. I'm afraid of leaving my children before they're old enough to care for themselves or if needed, their brother. I'm afraid that now that I'm aware of how screwed up our situation was and how messed up my childhood was, that if something happens to me before they're of age they'll be thrown into every bit of what I've worked to undo.

Little asks me about death as we're somewhere between awake and sleep. "How many days do children live? Do you know when you'll die? Do you know when Pappaw will die? Why do we know when Ollie will die by not Pappaw? Does everything die?" I can read the inflections between the lines and can hear the thoughts little me would have after learning what it really meant when my mama said she'd "lost" a baby and her being so sick trying to "keep" a pregnancy broke my little pre-k brain.

I at the very least want them to be prepared and to not be afraid of death because they will know loss and have seen loss first hand at very young ages. I want them to be soft to the idea that there's no getting around it and to accept the beauty in blooming from birth just to perish and start again when our energy and ashes/dust carry on another purpose. I don't want them to be afraid of life without me, but celebrate and have joy in their voices when they speak of the memories they had of me. I want to know that THEY know how loved and cherished they were by me, that the very thought of losing them sucked the air straight from my lungs any time the possibility was there, waiting for me to loosen my grip on them.

We're all born to die, the trick is to truly love and LIVE between those two events.

18 years.

"18 years, 18 years... she got one of your kids got you for 18 years."

Our baby is now 8, so the good news is there's only 10 years left of this.

10 years left of having to talk to you for anything involving our children.

I've offered different options for communicating to eliminate any need to actually speak to each other, but got lashed at for requesting we use it.

I can't send a text without it being misconstrued or read wrong.

I can't bring up money without hyperventilating waiting for the fall out.

We both filled out the divorce paperwork.

We both agreed to the custody agreement.

We both filled out the financial affidavits.

I took a picture of the orthodontics agreement the day I started the process for big.

As soon as big is done with their braces, middle will start their orthodontics journey.

50/50 on out of pocket medical expenses.

I already pay out of pocket each paycheck for vision/dental and I've never asked for help.

You live in a two income household, raising her two children and you have three biological children not even three miles from you. How do you sleep at night?

Nobody is keep your children from you.

Nobody has taken your rights.

I don't understand why you are so resistant to be a father to your biological children. Our children had you physically present in their lives every single day of their life until the day you walked away.

Our youngest has now known life longer without you present than all the days combined of the three years you were the "stay at home" parent.

I'm not giving you parenting lectures. I am genuinely heartbroken for our kids who you promised THEM you would be present for and support. I am baffled that you wouldn't move Hell and Earth to make the time for them or make up time with them during the week or in alternative ways on your weekends. But again, not lecturing, just outwardly observing what a piece of garbage you truly are when it comes to upholding your responsibility when it comes to doing your part.

Little may still have 10 years... but you only have 2 1/2 years with big and 5 years for middle. I don't think any of us are willing to hold our breath to see if you show up and actually play the part of "Daddy" at this point.

Hah, that actually made me trigger a memory of a quote I once saw that YOU read to me back in the days of my grandfather's basement... "Any man can become a father, but it takes something special to be a Dad."

If you want to keep your "adopted" children and wife living as comfortably as you all are at this time, you may want to find an additional source of income. Cost of living has changed across the board.

Insomnia.

Some nights are harder than others.

I will go days where the little pop up reminder of your existence happens in my brain and instead of fixating on how unfair it is that I can’t see you, touch you, tell you everything… my heart instead skips a beat and tucks you back in unfollow the next random reminder.

Somewhere you are out there living, breathing, feeling and I know this is true because there you are just outside of the photos in my mind. Just out of view. You’re tangible and I can feel you like when you know someone has entered a room but you can’t see them just yet. 

I’m not in your plans and I hate that for me, you, us. You’re not in mine anymore   either. But… knowing there’s always that slight opportunity that you could one day wake up, say “fuck it” and head towards me is enough to give me one little glimmer of hope.

We’ve both travelled hundreds and thousands of miles to get that one last embrace, that final word. You have and you know I will. I’d choose you again and again and again. I’d continue to choose you and we could find a way to make the distance work in both our favors. 

He said you leave in a few weeks, and I finally told him that I will forever check in on you through him. I’m not sorry. I have zero regrets. The pit in my stomach is the conversation I know he’s having with you right now. The one I didn’t want but was probably inevitable. It’s either a logical warning that I’m never going away or an argument as to why you’re too thick skulled to have gotten scared of what we stirred up in both of us.

I don’t regret telling him.

This is night two of my brain speeding past my second wind on melatonin, third wind on a glass of wine and fourth wind during meditation. I want to stop seeing you in my mind if nothing is ever going to proceed forward. I don’t want the torture. I want to open the door to leave and see you on the other side. I want to relax my body into you and just breathe.

Losing battles.

I am not responsible for how others respond to my actions, beliefs or choices.

My feelings are just as valid as the feelings I am desperate not to hurt because I care about them and don’t want to distress anyone. But, I’m not responsible for their reactions and I shouldn’t have to bottle myself up or bite my tongue in order to maintain pleasantries.

Everything is not ok. I thought I had found a reliable and affordable psych, until I got the $500+ bill for two appointments nobody mentioned I was accruing until I showed up for my 3rd appointment. I desperately needed to be seen and HEARD by someone who wasn’t family. Someone who could help me sort through the hot garbage of false truths I’d been fed my whole life and pretended not to be bothered by until now.

I can’t pretend that my entire life wasn’t spent centered around dieting. I can’t force myself to forget my parents enforcing that I cleaned my plate. I can’t forget the nutrisystem and Jenny Craig snacks abandoned in the pantry for me to choose from because my mother had stopped actively utilizing their tools. I can’t forget hitching rides to a dieting class my mother signed her and I up for but she quit a third of the way through. I was in middle school. 

It was before middle school that I expressed my desires to play soccer, to go for runs… but I’d dropped out of dance after 7 long years and nobody took me seriously. I remember picking up jazzercise albums (yes… vinyl records) and working out alone in my bedroom before I ever turned double digits. I tried out for volleyball, cheer… these were things I went for with zero expressed support for. I didn’t make the teams, but it wasn’t for lack of desire and participation. I took the tools I’d learned in dieting class and implemented them throughout high school and honestly ever since.

I had watched my grandmother struggle with complications from diabetes. I had watched my mother’s self esteem and general happiness peak and plummet from her own dieting successes and failures. Throughout all of this I mostly maintained my weight at 150 until my relationship with my high school sweetheart went up in flames and my own happiness tanked. I topped off at 180 and then it went back down some when I started my flight career. I was deliriously happier 36,000 feet above land.

After I got married that one time, the pounds slowly started creeping back until we got divorced and I’d peaked at my heaviest postpartum. When we signed the divorce paperwork before filing, I weighed as much as I did fully pregnant with our last child. I was miserable, and anything I could do (or not do) to keep him from wanting any intimacy with me thus avoiding any chance of abuse was worth it. By this point in my adult life my mother had undergone 2+ procedures to assist her in losing weight. Shortly after my divorce she went under for the last time for a sleeve procedure. 

I am ecstatic that she has lost some weight enough to become more mobile, but hesitant to feel true joy for her. It has nothing and everything to do with her role as my mother. I learned the hard way as a child that getting my hopes up in general leads to disappointment; not just because of her past experiences with weight loss. When I left home in 2002, my sister had only just received her learners permit. I left her alone with my mother and I feel now like I never had the opportunity to show her that there’s more to life than the way we were raised and the way we were taught to relate to our bodies. 

I catch myself telling myself that this is all hypocritical thinking. How dare I feel this way when I’m 200 something pounds and have been too stressy depressy to even entertain the thought of rolling out my yoga mat or lacing up my running shoes? Every day I bring my running gear in my work tote and every day it comes back home with me. Every day. I know the bug to run is close to biting because I catch myself whispering to my inner runner to remember how good it feels post run when those endorphins are washing over me. But… I’m not there yet.

I try desperately to model moderation and a balanced plate with my kids. I don’t force calorie counting, sugar substitutes or this years fad replacements (fiber, keto, etc.) I try to encourage activity where they can find it, even if for my youngest it’s just barreling full tilt through a muddy ditch. I want them to know how good it feels to sweat for themselves, how magical those endorphins can be. I don’t want them to stress over their BMI or measurements.

My sister recently lost 100 pounds from undergoing her own weight loss surgery. She is biking laps around us and thriving and I’m so hesitantly happy for her and it feels so selfish to feel like this. It IS selfish to feel like this… because now I see myself becoming larger and larger in comparison. And while I know comparison is the thief of joy, and I KNOW how restrictive their diets have to be to achieve these numbers… I also know that I’m feeling less like “the healthiest fat girl” in the family and more like the third wheel. I can’t participate in conversation with them because it always circles back to their diets and to me? It’s toxic thinking because I know what works for me to achieve a healthier overall well-being. But now… they’re both in smaller sizes and I’m afraid to see myself pictured alongside them because it’s increasingly obvious that I’m larger than they are… how do my children see me now in comparison?

Am I still their example of moderation, hard work, sweat and the occasional tears? Or will they now see me as the hypocrite I feel I am because I have not achieved the same losses they have nor have I ever entertained going under the knife to jumpstart a lifestyle I have no interest in committing myself to for the rest of my life?

This is the war that is raging through my veins and has been for almost a year now. This war, unlike the one to save myself from an abusive marriage, feels like I will need to take drastic measures to survive and I cannot think like that in order to keep myself from self isolating from those closest to me.

In other news, I turned 40 today.

Deafening Silence

I wanted to drink wine tonight. I wanted to pop a bottle, have a few glasses and decompress. I went into my head instead.

This life is isolating. This life meaning the one where I’m just as alone after the divorce, the breakup as I was while I was in the relationship. The common denominator is me, I know this. 

I know I go into my own head. I know that in order to have others be open with you sometimes you have to actually open up to them. Once I’m around people it’s “game over, peace out, I’d rather THE FUCK not.” 

I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life, and I am a-ok with that. I spend all day talking to strangers and I am tapped the fuck out by the time I come home. Once I’m home I’m in “mom mode” and even once they’re old enough I don’t think I’ll be able to have the conversations I need to have in order to quench the thirst of interacting with other adults. Even then, it’s not the interacting with other adults I even need. I crave comfortable silence. Sometimes I just need another body at the other end of the couch I can push my toes underneath the warmth of them and… that’s it. That’s sometimes all I really need. Other times it’s conversation where I can just word vomit all the insanity I’m surrounded by and hear the words, “man, I GET IT.”

I join and delete dating apps once every few months because the human connection just isn’t there. As vain and narcissistic as it sounds, I feel either terribly overqualified for the role they want me to play or I feel overwhelmingly under qualified. Like, look, I lived and breathed excitement in my early 20’s, but I’ve spent the last 15 years raising these kids and I cannot even begin to pretend to understand these highly motivated, successful people. I will see myself out, you ain’t gotta tell me twice.

I need understated carnal passion, but with the understanding that I’m not going to want any sort of relationship or situationship that comes with it normally. I need my quiet solitude until I get in my head and need touch, talk, mutual understanding that our actions speak louder than any conversation could. 

How do I get this? Is it on Amazon? Will I find it at a bar? Grocery store? Where are these people? Because I surely can’t be the ONLY person to feel this way.

Ebb and Flow.

If I talk out loud my emotions fall out as tears. I can feel them rise like the tide choking my throat until they rush past my lids like a breached dam. I’ve always resonated with Disney’s animated Alice from Alice in Wonderland where she cries so hard she starts a flood. Once the waterworks begin, I can’t turn it off till they run their course.

I wear the scars of my emotions for days following, swollen eyes and red chapped lips. Most days I wear my mask to pass as normal. I’ll smile and speak as if I’ve done this before. As the words cross my tongue, I can feel the strings in my chest pulling the mask down like a curtain. Every interaction after is a more exhausted encore I didn’t consent to. I stuff my discomfort and emotions down deep with every encounter until the jar I’ve trapped them in starts to crack.

Writing allows me to skip the unease of interacting with others. Typing the words out uses some different part of my brain to keep emotion from getting all tangled up and intertwined. I’ve caught crap from others for writing instead of speaking up and using my voice. They don’t understand me as much as I explain that I just can’t. It’s not so easy as they claim. I’ve lost friends and relationships. I’ve been misread when it’s all been there black and white, laid bare as my bones in the moonlight for all to see.

I don’t understand others when they twist the words I’ve written or misinterpreted my intentions or tone. I don’t understand a lot. 

I am trying SO HARD to keep my emotions out of disciplining my children or when I’m speaking up for them. I can feel the stress fractures starting. I know I need to cry, but nows not a good time.

The edge of your shadow.

Every time I get overwhelming thoughts of you, I wonder if you’re thinking of me too. In the past, the stronger the thoughts, the more likely you’d reach out for me. I want to hear your voice thousands of miles away calling to me again… I want to feel my face in the crook of your neck fitting like the missing piece of you. I want your hands cool and rough just under the edge of my shirt holding onto me for dear life. Don’t let me go again, please don’t let go…

Your brother is the only lifeline I have to you and I fit you into his blurbs and photos like a shadow just out of view. I know you’re there somewhere if I look hard enough.