Sparks and Butterflies...

But aside from that, she's still completely normal

PMS Sucks

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I’m mad today.  I want to smash things.  I want to tell people, like my children and husband, what I really really think in my head.

This is NOT a clean room!  This goes HERE like every other 4 billionth time I told you!  Can you NOT unscrunch the clothes when you take them off?  What is so difficult about putting the game IN THE CASE!?  What is that SMELL?!  Hello?  Who taught you how to drive, moron!  I AM NOT THE MAID. But it’s all shrieked in my head like a freakin’ banshee on PMS…  wait a minute…

And I check my mon.thly (aside – love that thing) calendar, and huh.  I’m not particularly regular but it notes that I’m probably 1 week and 3 days away.  And then I realize I’m not actually insane.  Just hormonal.

Don’t cross me for the next three days.

So now what do you think of me

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I thought I would share a fact about me that you may not know about.

I have no sympathy.

I should probably expound on that, huh?

I think perhaps it has to do with my background.  More about my life in greater detail can be found around the blog.  It’s my journal after all.  But the short part is…  abandoned as a child, abuse, rape, homelessness, drug abuse, recovery, miscarriage…

So.  When various horrific things have happened to me in life, I’ve had to deal with it.  Everyone does.  In the case of pretty much all of the really bad stuff – other than my miscarriage – I had to deal with it by myself.  Alone.  No help and no support.  Two examples for you:  When my mom started taking care of me after Jeannette left, she requested I call her “mommy”.  About two weeks after Jeannette left.  Obviously there wasn’t a lot of understanding there about how I might be feeling about everything.  I believe my response was, “but you’re not.”  But I knew I couldn’t go to her about missing my mommy.  Another example.  When I decided to quit drugs, I was alone.  Knew no one at the dorm I was living in.  Didn’t even know that there might be substance abuse programs available to me there.  Shoot – I didn’t even know how to find the grocery store (I was living in a new city.)  So.  I went through methamphetamine detox (heard of the “D.T.’s”?) alone in my dorm room.  Who was I going to tell, or ask for help?

Another portion of my background was that mom and my grandma were both ill, and were in and out of the hospital for my entire life.  So, living with illness was a daily thing.  Period.  There is no choice but to move on with life.

Here I am.  I’ve gotten through it all.  I have a family.  I love them.  I’m kind, in that I’m generous, courteous, and think of others.  I’m very blunt, and tell you how it is – I’m tactful, but very realistic.

But I’m terribly unsympathetic.   It actually helps in a lot of situations.  My father will come over all verklempt because my mother is sick (again.)  My response is:  Did you do this?  That?  The other thing?  And she’s reacting how?  Ok, better go to the hospital.  Or if this happens call me right away.    There is no sympathy.  You just get stuff done.  My callousness came in rather handy when Dad couldn’t get mom to come around when she seemed unconcious.  So I went in and smacked her around.  No, really.  He couldn’t do it so I did.  I smacked her around, and that made her conscious enough to tell me a little about what was going on.  Bottom line?  I needed to know if I needed to get her oxygen, heart meds, or if it was something else.  In that case I determined she needed to be in the hospital, that she didn’t need oxygen, and that it wasn’t her heart.  I was right.  She was drifting into a diabetic coma – she’d never been diagnosed as diabetic.

But getting through the hard stuff, and getting other people through the hard stuff has made me hard.    Get up, dust off, and plow through.  Guess what?  Life sucks.  Trust me when I say that I know.

But I love.  I certainly love.  And I caretake.  And oh!  Oh how I care!

But I do not coddle.  I will not hand hold.  I cannot do the work for you.

So if you call in your grief, I will probably say that I’m sorry – and then ask you if you’ve filed the death certificate yet, and did you call Aunt Edna, and have you picked a grave site?  If you call, and you’re sick, I’ll say I’m sorry, and then ask why you’re calling me when you should be in bed.  If you wet the bed, you’ll be told it’s not your fault, I love you, accidents happen, now move so I can change your bed.   If you’ve lost your baby, I’ll tell you I’m sorry, and I love you.  And then I’ll make sure there’s enough food in the house, the laundry’s done, and the physical ramifications are taken care of, ’cause really, who wants to buy pads at a time like that?  I make things happen.

I’ve been known to say, “Do you just need me to listen, or do you want me to solve this?”  Because I know that sometimes you just need to have someone listen.  And sometimes you simply need help.  And sometimes you need both.

I lost my programming to discern the difference at four years of age.  I need to ask to know what’s needed of me.  Otherwise, your house will be damn clean, your legal work will be audit ready, and you’ll be fed for a year.  But the burden on your heart might not be relieved.

So, I’ve been told I’m cold.  I’m heartless.  I’m cruel.  I’ve told myself that.  I don’t know how to fix that.  I’ve fixed everything else.  But I can’t seem to fix that.  I don’t think you can learn how to be sympathetic when it’s been taken away from you.

Can I learn that trick?

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Me:  “Joseph, you can’t just tell the cat that she can’t play with your Bakugan.  She doesn’t understand human.”

Joseph:  “Yes she does.  I taught her three days ago.”

What does one say to that?

Bully

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We’re on the way home from school just like every day in existence.  We’re talking about how there’s a school rally the next day, and that the kids have to dress a certain way.  School spirit.  rah.rah.

All of a sudden this comes out of Joseph’s mouth, “My archnemesis has to be on stage!  With a guitar! And he has a RASH!”  Perhaps the “Bwahahaha” I heard was just in my head.

First I found out who this Archnemesis was (totally his word by the way.)  Jimmy Bartek*.  Who pairs up with Michael* to call Joseph Stupid (which he attempted to spell out, because we don’t call each other stupid) and make fun of him.

I then had the correct parental lecture that sometimes people feel really awful and the only way to make themselves feel better is by making others feel bad and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

But then I said, “But he has to get on stage?  With a rash?”

“Uh Huh!”

“That, my son, is called Karma…  Or the Biblical term is Reaping What You Sow.  But you are NOT allowed to make fun of him up there.  Be the better man.”

“And don’t give someone else power over me.  I learned that from my daddy.”

Maybe we’re doing something right.  But I can’t help hoping that Bully Jimmy Bartek’s rash spreads before the rally.

*Not the child’s real name.  Would rather not be sued thank you.

My First Embarrassed Child

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Carline.  Waiting.  And waiting.  Joseph has a tendency to be late.  I don’t know if his teacher really let’s him out late or he’s a dawdler.  But then again she let’s them out one by one and his last name begins with “W.”

Now, he’s messing with some other kid.  I holler out the  window, “Come on JoJo!”

And the earth stopped spinning on it’s axis there at Small Town Elementary.  I could see the flush creep up Joseph’s neck, and over his face.

“ooooOOOOooooo JOJO!  What sweeeEEEeeeet nickname, JOJO!”

Joseph yells at me, “Do.Not.Call.Me.JOJO?!”  He should have had a WTF? cartoon balloon over his head as well.

He got in the truck.  He immediately started to roll up the window to block out the taunting.  I made him put his seatbelt on first.

On the way home I told him, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know that JoJo was off limits in front of your friends.  Totally my bad.”

“OK.”

He’s 8.  Does this mean he’s a Tween now?

By the way – I thoroughly enjoyed embarrassing him.  Does that part get better too?

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