It’s that time of the week again, where we all get to gather together our jumbled thoughts and attempt to make a post out of them.  Thanks to Mrs.4444, we now have permission to post small little tidbits about our week without feeling guilty for it! 

***The whole Driver’s Ed. class for Hannah and Eli already, after only four days of it, seems more trouble than it it worth.  They have to be at the school at 6:45 am, which okay, that is fine.  Not great, mind you, but fine.  Now I find out that when they start driving, they have to be BACK at the school at 6:00 at night, and then I have to turn right around and pick them back up at said school at 8:00.  When asked about scheduling the kids for the 4:00-6:00 driving class, which would coincide perfectly with my work schedule, the teacher said that everyone wanted their kids to be in that particular class, so he really couldn’t accommodate MY kids.  Even though we live some way from the school.  And several sets of kids who got that class live less than a mile from the school.  I am not happy about this.  Between the tremendous cost involved in getting them INTO the class, plus now three times my regular gas budget, we are going on around $1,000 for a 6 week class.  REALLY not happy about that, as I was *trying* to save up money to go on vacation this summer.

***Due to more budget cuts for State and Federal Programs (thank you, Republican Party, SO much), two of the three medications Sam is on are no longer covered by Medicaid, even though the doctor prescribed these particular medications for a reason.  So now I either have to pay the cost out of pocket (which I can’t afford to do, AT ALL), or we have to now start the trial-and-error of finding different medicines that hopefully do the same thing with as few side effects as possible.  Which is, of course, why he was prescribed these ones, as they do the job to control his asthma with the least amount of side-effects. 

***I had never heard of Phyllis Schafly until I was scrolling through the radio stations the other day and it stopped on one she was talking on.  I thought it was NPR so I left it there (I was driving, not paying attention to what station it stopped on), and just almost had a heart attack when I heard this bitch start flapping her jaw.  She is, for those who haven’t heard of her either, an ULTRA Conservative Christian Political commentator (that isn’t the right word, but whatever), and she is..well.  I was so pissed about her commentary about health care reform that I actually looked the column up online; this is the line that caught me off guard:  “It used to be that a husband was responsible for the financial support of his wife and children, but the feminists’ agenda calls for replacing husbands with Big Brother Government. The feminists call their movement “women’s liberation,” and Obamacare is one more way to help them achieve their goal.”  If you would like to read more of her distasteful, hateful opinions that castigate single mothers and women who no longer want to be the chattel of their husband,  you can access a whole list of her columns here, but if your political beliefs are anything similar to mine, I wouldn’t suggest it; it will just piss you off.  I turned the radio off as soon as she started talking about  illegitimate kids because I was afraid I would have an apoplexy and wreck my car.

***I got weighed and measured at Curves on Wednesday night; I wouldn’t really say I am either discouraged or encouraged either one.  I didn’t lose any weight, and in fact gained .8 lbs, but at the same time my body fat percentage went down some and I lost a little bit in inches.  The girl who measured me said I lost 4 inches or so in my thighs and an inch in the bust-but I have a really hard time believing that; I certainly haven’t noticed any difference in the way my clothes fit, and you would think with that many inches lost I would certainly be able to tell.  Anyway, I am just keeping on keeping on, because I do feel better in general, so that has to be worth something.

***There was a knock on our door on Wednesday night, signifying the arrival of a huge package that was sent to us before Christmas by a friend of mine.  Through a variety of small errors that escalated, plus a smidgen of incompetence by the shipping company whose drivers wear brown, the package has been sort of hanging around for someone to get it to the right place.  I must note here that the person who finally delivered it was NOT, in fact, a man in a brown uniform, but instead was a lumberjack looking dude smelling of diesel fuel with just a hint of weed; he is my new hero.  The arrival of the package meant much to me, not in terms of what was in it (though thank you, you already know how much the kids loved the stuff you sent!) but in terms of the thought behind it.  It made me feel less alone.

***Had coffee with my friend P. last night and it was really good to have some time to catch up a little bit.  When I get in this place, my first tendency is to isolate from other people, and I have to FORCE myself to get out of that hole.  It always helps, so I don’t know why it is so hard to do sometimes, but there you go.  That is the mind of an alcoholic at work.  There is a line in one of Anne LaMott’s book about her mind being a bad place to go into alone, and that is the absolute truth.  She  (Anne) also talked about that radio station in her head that plays all that bad shit, and she calls it K-FKD, which makes me laugh but is ALSO true.  Anyway, I am still in a not good place right now but P. assured me that it is just totally A-OK to be where I am, and that helped as much as anything.

***Just a little FYI: when you are on the phone with your insurance agent, do not tell them that you are driving, talking on the cell phone, and rummaging around in your car for a pen and paper so you can write down a phone number all at the same time.  It tends to alarm us just a little.  Also, please don’t be angry if we ask you to call back when you get to a place where you can pull over.

Okay, now it is time to head over to Half Past Kissin’ Time to see what some of her other fragmenters had to say about their week!

I did not want to get out of bed this morning, cuddled up underneath the covers with Owen snuggled up on one side of me and Steve on the other.  It was raining, too, the sound one of comfort and peace, and I felt altogether too comfortable to want to even move.  Also, I had been dreaming, one of the rare times of actually remembering a dream-I was at Ms. Moon’s house, and I have been there before in my dreams so it was as familiar a place to me as anything is.  Her friend Lis was there, too, and she was singing to me and Ms. Moon was covering me up with some sort of down blanket.  I am certainly not one to look for meanings in dreams, and am much more inclined to think of them as the way our minds purge out unnecessary information.  Still, even I can see that this was a dream about being nurtured, about being cared for.  Funny that no one I know in my waking life was there, but dreams are strange that way, aren’t they?

I think I even know why I had this dream; I haven’t been feeling especially nurtured lately, and it has been a really hard couple of weeks for me.  I think most of you know that there have been a couple of failed friendships recently, and even though I freely admit that I had a part in that, partly because people change and grow and partly because I am a bitch, it has still been extremely difficult for me.  Also, a few issues at home have arisen and what I have been hearing is, “I love you as long as you don’t question anything I say or do, as long as you never express your opinion, and please don’t ever tell me how you really feel.  As long as you can abide by those conditions and we never share a cross word or hurt each other’s feeling, I love you.”  What that translates into for me is the ever-present,”You are not good enough.  Not smart enough, not kind enough, not caring enough, not enough.”  I get so tired of fighting these demons, and I don’t understand why they keep coming up.  I go through a period of time where I am pretty okay, actually.  Still mentally ill, of course, but basically fine.  Then something happens, and something else, and since I am prone to depression anyway, well, I get a little more insane than usual. 

Since I have been making a conscious effort during Lent and all to give up that negative self-talk, I have been working really hard at stopping those thoughts before they can even become fully formed, but it isn’t always possible.  I think I “get” the whole dream thing, though.  We all need nurtured, and sometimes we don’t get what we need from other people so we have to do it ourselves.  Not in the “Please let me be a martyr and just fucking do it myself because you are useless” kind of way, but in the self-care, loving kind of way.  Here is my problem right this minute, though: I am tired.  Two of my fours kids have turned into something akin to the devil seemingly overnight, including  Eli getting into a fight after school and having a big cut underneath his eye.  It feels like conflict from the minute we get up to the moment they all go to bed, and I am tired of it.  I am tired of having everything I do wrong pointed out to me every single time, because godfuckingdammit, I am not perfect but I for damn sure don’t spend every waking minute of my life being a fuck-up; I need, on occasion, to hear about one blessed thing I did right even if that meant I got out of the bed.  I am just-I am tired.  And I can love and nurture myself all I want and need, but it isn’t the same as once in awhile having someone you love say, “You look tired; let me get you some tea and tuck some warm covers around you and sing you to sleep.” Metaphorically speaking, of course, hence the dream of Ms. Moon and Lis.

Well.  It has taken me the whole day to get this written in bits and pieces, little hard bullets of saying please help me so hard to say out loud.  Because to put them out there makes it real, right?  And that in turn makes me vulnerable which in turn scares me.  Which makes me  then want to isolate from people because to put myself out there means I risk rejection, and instead of letting myself be vulnerable I close myself off so  I can’t be hurt.  There you go-me in a nutshell. 

BUT: I have a friend who I am meeting for coffee tomorrow who tells me that I am enough, even though she knows me well and knows that I have a ton of issues to work through-and instead of me hearing from her that I am too much of this and  not enough of this, she ask me what she can do to help.  I have another friend who cared enough about me to say,”It hurts my feelings when you do this” and allowed me the opportunity to do better instead of shutting me out of her life.  I have these people who somehow manage to deal with me and my fucking craziness and love me anyway, even when I am not, in fact, being lovable.  Maybe this has to be enough, you know?  I don’t know; one of my friends has told me more than once that she thinks I am suffering from PTSD, due to the events of the last two years.  Sam’s dad showing up hasn’t helped things any, because the combination of different things has brought up all of this old, nasty ugly shit about abuse and abandonment, about violation and distrust and absolute insecurity.  Not insecurity in terms of “Oh, I am so insecure (which, ok, I am right now, very much so, thank you for pointing that one out to me, too) but rather lack of security-and her take is that the only way to get through it in all reality is to simply get through it and try not to kill anyone in the process.  Which actually kind of makes sense, even though PTSD doesn’t really make much sense to me.  Still-whether it makes sense or not, I kind of believe in it.

So.  There you have it.  I am losing my mind a little, grieving some pretty major losses and feeling a lot of really ugly feelings and I am not sure where I am going or, really, who I even am anymore.  I don’t know what to DO with all of this shit I have inside me, other than come here and write it out.  I don’t know what to do with any of it, really, other than figure out how to cope.  Today, this means I go work out tonight after I get off work because that makes me feel better.  It means we get to go out tonight to celebrate Steve’s birthday and I get to lavish on him the love that I need because most of the time, it comes back tenfold.  And I can’t drink.  When it comes right down to the bare bones of it all, there are some days where the next right thing for me is to simply acknowledge that drinking isn’t going to solve one fucking thing, and today is day like that one.

It seems like a long time since I have participated in Mrs.4444’s Friday Fragments, but I hope you all have been reading the others who have been! 

***Sam tried out for and got a solo part in the annual Patriotic Program for school.  He is also one of a trio, and I couldn’t be prouder.  His big debut is on March 10th-but do you think I can get him to practice?  Maybe his future as the next Jim Carrey isn’t set after all.

***After several of my friends recommended I watch Sicko, I finally did.  It didn’t so much make me angry as it made me incredibly sad.  I think I need to watch it again to get the full effect, and then I need to get a new passport and move to another country.  Heartbreaking.

***I am doubly glad for have gotten a full eight hours of sleep the night of the day I was sick-because I haven’t slept for shit since.  Part of the problem last night was our backyard neighbor; she, um, how does one tactfully put this, “entertains” a lot.  Different men.  All.through.the.night.  She is either hooking or dealing, I think (and hey, we live in America, right?  Free enterprise and all?), and even that wouldn’t bother me so much if all of her “visitors” had mufflers on their vehicles.  Or knew how to use their “it is the middle of the night in a neighborhood with lots of kids” voices. 

***I have noticed that men seem to be really attracted to me lately.  The problem with this?  Old men.  Men with no teeth, wi years of cigarette smoke embedded into their clothing, men who smell faintly of urine.  They are all my customers (not to be confused with the “clients” of my backyard neighbor, mind you), and they come in to show me their coin collections, to talk politics (um, a slight problem: they are old, conservative Republicans.  And I can’t really “talk” politics with them here in the office, because for some reason the boss frowns upon calling people bigoted, small-minded asshats.  Can’t figure that one out.  You would think that having to listen and be polite to people who still think it is okay to talk about the n***er in the White House would warrant an ass chewing, but no), to tell me about their grandchildren.  Since I am not a basically kind person as a general rule, the only thing I can think is these poor fellows must just be desperately lonely; it makes me feel sad for them.

***I am back on a self-imposed news moratorium.  On Wednesday morning I had to listen to how funding for our after school programs is not going to be available next year, and yesterday morning had to hear about how something like 44% of the teachers/school administrators in Idaho got raises last year.  This doesn’t compute for me.  This morning, when I yelled, “Hells yeah” when I heard President Obama chastise McFuck by saying,”But we aren’t on the campaign trail anymore, Senator,” everyone in the house turned to look at me and I very meekly turned off the TV.

***And how cool is this?  There is actually going to be a blogging conference close enough to where I live that I might actually get to go!  Plus one of my favorite bloggers is speaking there; I am pretty sure I would have to be a fool not to go, since BlogHer and such is WAY out of reach for me.  Anyone else going?

All right, then, now that you are done with me, head over to see who else is purging today over at Half Past Kissin’ Time.

God has a really wicked sense of humor, you know?  I had been feeling, as you know, pretty overwhelmed and beaten down on Monday, so as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, I was able to have the entire day yesterday at home.  Of course, that respite was not without its problems in the form of a massive stomach and butt flu bug which swept through the house on Monday night and lingering until last night.  If you have ever had to deal with three kids plus yourself all suffering from vomiting and diarrhea with only one bathroom, you can imagine the fun.  Still-in between runs to the bathroom, we all rested and just sort of hung out together, and it wasn’t all bad.  By yesterday evening everyone was for the most part recovered-I called Steve at work and begged him to please come get me before going to the grocery store so I could at least get out of the house for a few minutes, and by that time both Owen and Sam were getting a little antsy, too, from being basically bed-and-couch-ridden. Still, we were all, Hannah included (even though she slept on and off most of the day), in bed by nine.  In fact, I was planning on reading in bed for a little while and don’t think I made it through a page.  So-I am feeling better, the ominous rumbling in my stomach quieted, having gotten a full eight hours sleep-almost worth feeling like crap most of the day yesterday.

Sam and I were able to have a couple of good talks about the ongoing situation with his dad; I don’t know, really, how much it helped, as it is too soon to tell, and I imagine, too, that there will be a lot of reiteration of the same thing in the next while.  I wish I could just snap my fingers and make it all go away for the little guy, but obviously, I can’t do that.  He was finally able to articulate in an email to his dad how he has been feeling, which is a good thing in general.  His dad’s reaction was delayed by several days (which pisses me off, actually, but whatever, I can’t control that), and when it came, was a very dramatic declaration of “I will NEVER hurt you again, I am SO sorry!!” which seems good on the surface but really, didn’t address any of hte specific issues Sam brought up to him.  More of a sweeping it all under the rug with a declaration of remorse and a promise that he really can’t keep-who of us, as parents, can promise to never hurt our kids?  I don’t know.  Anyway, I should be grateful that he is at least communicating, There is just so much that needs to be resolved in order for Sam to be okay that it sometimes seems overwhelming.  And, too, the fact that I really have no control over the situation in terms of how they relate-that is a hard one.  Please keep the whole damn drama in your thoughts/prayers, would you?

In other news, well, there isn’t really any.  Although not only did we get a new camera, Steve also found a new LCD thingy for the old one and was able to fix it; have I ever mentioned that he is my hero?  There were photos on the old one from Halloween, even, so perhaps a photo post is in order.  I haven’t done one of those in awhile, at least since the old camera broke.  Sam has been busy practicing for the solo part in their upcoming Patriotic Concert, Eli spends more time in his room than anywhere with the family, you know, the usual stuff.  Still, in general I feel much better than I did when I last posted, so that itself is something to be grateful for.

Just like anything else, the more I don’t blog, the harder it is to get back into the routine.  I don’t know why I haven’t been “feeling it” lately, but I haven’t-and rather regale everyone with minutiae, it is just easier to not say anything at all.  That seems to be the way of it these days, both in blogland and in real life.

I could write about how Sam’s dad coming back into his life, to what extent I am allowing him, has been a very mixed blessing.  Sam is happy, but just underneath the happiness are three years and more of anger, disappointment and fury all welling up.  Because of the dynamics of the whole non-relationship, I think Sam is afraid to tell his dad how he feels for fear that he will get angry and disappear again.  I could write about how that translates directly into becoming a completely different child at home seemingly overnight, where every night I just breathe a sigh of relief when he is finally asleep, often after having exhausted himself with tears, or I could write about how terrible he feels because he has no one to talk to about these things, or I could write about my stomach clenches in the morning when I hear his voice-because the whole messy drama starts over again.  I could write, too, about how hard it is to be the target once again for all of his considerable fury, and how hard it is for Steve, too, to suddenly deal with a 10 year old who loved him unreservedly a month ago but hates him now simply because he is.  This is not fun for any of us, including the siblings who are also constantly being tormented by the thoughtless actions of a boy who is acting out, and are so tired, just like we are, of the constant conflict.

Or I could tell you all about how a friend from the program was diagnosed with lung cancer a few weeks ago, and though I don’t know to what extent it has spread, it is still a sad thing.  I looked at her on Friday night and was amazed at how beautiful she is, how upbeat she remains, and am basically in awe at the grace she is showing through this.  Early days yet, of course, and no doubt there will be days where she is less than graceful, but life is messy and ugly sometimes.  she is young, too young to be going through this, but then people much younger have to as well-I don’t know why I think any of us might be immune.

Also at the meeting, we have a new member who is a registered sex offender; this is not new, we get all kinds, and mostly I really don’t care.  My job is simply to support those desiring to stop drinking, and mostly that isn’t all that hard.  After all, there is a difference between supporting someone’s recovery in meetings and being best pals with them outside the meeting.  This one hit close to home, though, and I know too much about him outside the meetings.  I could write about how hard it sometimes is to walk the fine line of anonymity, of knowing that the guidelines of AA tell me that I am not allowed to tell anyone what I do know, but how my beliefs as a person who has been deeply affected by the actions of a sexual predator are warring with those guidelines.

Or wait, maybe I could tell you about how Hannah is wavering about going back to a boyfriend I was so proud of her for breaking up with, or how we had a huge family gathering with the other side of Steve’s family over the weekend and actually had fun.  We got pictures done, including some of our fmaily, the four kids, and Steve and I together.  I could write about how in one of the pictures I snapped of Eli with our new camera shows how he suddenly has the hands of a man, and how that makes me feel.

So you see, there is much going on here, things I could write an entire post about but just can’t seem to gather my thoughts together enough to do so.  I am still here, still plugging along, but I am feeling very, very tired and discouraged in general these days.  Still working out, still eating better, still taking care of myself so far as I can, but still, just kind of beaten for the moment.  This, too, shall pass, right?  Because feelings are just feelings, and none of them will kill me-and if I have learned nothing else over the past few years, I have learned that the flip side of the negative feelings is simply joy, and that is worth slogging through the shit for.