Mothers and Daughters

I had my son fairly young - not super young but fairly young - I was a few weeks shy of twenty-one when he was born. We sorta grew up together and because idiot was in the Army we were alone together a lot. He was a real joy to be with... a laid back, easy going little guy. We did things together - watched movies and went to the zoo. We took our weekly walk through at the Walmart store... we read stories and played games. When he got older we would go to dinner together - just the two of us - about once a month. He would talk to me and tell me about things... fill me in on his life in ways he didn't do while we were at home. We struggled through middle school and class work and as he entered high school and things started to "click" for him academically I was able to back off and watch his progress. He started playing football and learning about himself - and I felt like he was coming into his own... the pride of parenthood, should we, as parents, accept its inevitability instead of fight it. These days I want to strangle him... I'm ready for him to be completely on his own... and so is he but we have college to get through first so we do this little dance - as a parent there is nothing harder than standing back and watching your child fall on his face knowing you can prevent it from happening but also knowing he won't learn a damn thing until he does. But hey, just TWO and a HALF MORE YEARS!!! YIPPEE!!!

When he was five he started asking for a little sister. Idiot and I had talked about having more children. He was never sold on the idea early on but he got to a point where he said if that's what we wanted to do he was ready. So we started trying. Each month I would look for a positive result and each month I was disappointed. I had this image in my head of two little boys... for some reason I just knew I would have boys and it was ok... I really never had a desire to have a girl. I knew how girls operated... girls were HARD... girls were more difficult than boys... more complicated. I had a boy... I knew how it worked - he was easy therefore in my mind boys were easy. And besides... my mom and I never had a relationship where we did "girl things" together. I know we fought ... like all moms and daughters do... hell - like all parents and kids do, but there was something else there I think. From the time I was small my mom would always tell this "story." When I was a baby I wasn't very affectionate. I tolerated her - to use her words... and that just broke her heart. She said I preferred my dad and she felt left out. When my brother came along three years later she said he was loving and happy and he was cuddly and affectionate with her. That's been the basis for the dynamic in our family ever since. She is very protective of my brother... very tolerant of his behavior, she is his confidant. I, ironically, am hers. Anyway - we didn't do mother daughter stuff together. Rarely did we shop - we didn't do hair or nails... no eyebrow waxing or plucking... we didn't shop for a wedding dress together - she didn't help me get dressed or do my make up. We never shared the mundane so sharing the extraordinary didn't happen either.

Over two years after we started trying for a baby I finally discovered I was pregnant. That in itself is a whole other story... and when I realized I was I also realized I found myself hoping it was a girl. Not sure why... I just did. My pregnancy with her was very much like my pregnancy with her brother... but being a little older and wiser (they are eight years apart) her birth was different. I had no epidural with her - all natural (the only way to go I am convinced) and I nursed her. I dressed her in pink... bows in her hair (which never stayed)... she was my baby doll - at least temporarily (until she hit four when she started to insist she choose her own clothes - at four it was nothing but dresses, at five it was anything but).... She has her own mind... a good thing I think - and we have locked horns on more than one occasion in her twelve tender years here on this earth. She is everything in me that is good and right and honest and pure. She is often the only reason I keep going... she is the one person in all of this who has lost the most. Son was 18 when idiot left... he remembers times when his dad was there - he remembers how his dad used to be... daughter doesn't. He doesn't attend her dances... he doesn't come and watch her practice... he doesn't know her - not at all....

Last night we decided to try out the new flat iron on her hair. She took a shower, washed and dried her hair and then came and sat with me as we combed her hair - sectioned it off - and straightened it. We then did a french pedicure on her toes and she sheepishly looked at me and said, "Mom, will you do my finger nails too?" So I did. We spent probably an hour and a half doing hair and nails... pampering her.... She woke up this morning still excited about how straight her hair is, how soft it feels and how glad she is we bought a new flat iron. She gushed in her preteen language... her face all smiles, her body twirling on her dancers toes - and I it made me feel like maybe I am doing something right after all. I missed having this closeness with my mom. I missed being pampered, I missed spending that kind of time with my mom... doing these simple little primping rituals somehow seems to be tied to a healthy self image... by letting her feel comfortable enough to accept it, letting herself openly experience it, letting herself be cared for... maybe it will make a difference. Or maybe I just felt like I missed something that really wasn't all that important. I don't know what the answer is... but I do know I am glad I had a girl.

Sunday Service

The ex was diagnosed as clinically depressed about ten years ago. Since then life has been a roller coaster ride... working to keep the marriage together, working to keep the family intact, working to have a fulfilling life while everything around me was falling apart. I held on way too long... I lived through the first affair and when the second one happened I knew it was time to let go, but still I waited and it was almost a year before I finally send the papers to start the divorce. Attending church became a painful thing for me. All that time we struggled with the depression (and I think the bipolar disorder) I held on and waited and prayed and prayed and prayed. But I felt empty. I felt abandoned. God wasn't hearing me, or he was and he wasn't answering. I can remember driving down the road - sobbing - begging for an answer, a direction, something, anything - and finding... nothing, feeling... nothing.

Church became a difficult place for me to be. I had entered the "dark night of the soul" I suppose - my very own little crisis of faith. I resented being there, I resented all the happy families, all the older couples who made it through - I felt like a failure. And yeah, yeah I know church is the exact place for someone to be who feels like that... but it doesn't always work that way.

I've started making an effort to go lately. Daughter is getting to the ripe old age of confirmation and I didn't want her to be neglected - I wanted to give her the same opportunity her brother had. She can make her own decisions about her religious beliefs when she is older but I don't want her to look back and feel she didn't have the chance - during her baptism I promised to raise her in the church - her father did too but he abandoned his faith a while back - so I must keep my promise.

Today we had a guest minister - someone who leads our service several times a year. He is a wonderful speaker... soft spoken - funny.... he has an "everyman" approach but he's also obviously well read. Today he spoke about pasts and futures - something I needed to hear. He said that God wants us to trust in Him. He wants us to surrender to His will... to lay it all before Him. The minister said God doesn't charge us with a task - doesn't set us on a path - without giving us the tools to use to accomplish those things. I'm holding tight to that... especially right now. So much is changing - so many things are lost... there has to be a reason... a plan. I just really have no idea what it is right now. I have moments when I see so clearly I must surrender and let go - not gun for an outcome (as someone is fond of telling me). But it all feels so complicated and I get scared... and instead of letting loose my grip I hold on tighter... can I ever really let go? Can I ever really trust myself - trust God - and finish what's been started?

Where Is Bottom?

Sometimes it becomes glaringly clear to me I have nothing - no direction, no connection - nothing to hold onto for me. I have obligations and I have responsibility - I have people looking to me for answers and I have none and I feel like I'm faking everything. I feel hopelessly adrift at sea... the clouds have moved in - the weather has turned eerie and cold... and all I really want is a warm body - a soft voice - a kiss to my cheek... a shoulder on which to lay my head - someone who knows me and gets me and desires me above anyone else. But I don't have it... so the ache comes and I fight back the tears and I keep going - smile plastered on my face for the little girl who is rapidly becoming a woman - the girl who needs me because I am all she has....

My husband left two years ago - the divorce was final this November. It was also at that time I lost someone I had become close to - someone I had finally forged a relationship with I felt comfortable being me around. He has his own host of problems to deal with - his own demons to face - but he's chosen not to so he pretends and occasionally I get pulled into it and it drains me. In the summer I started talking to someone I just simply clicked with... someone who fascinated me and challenged me - someone to whom I am terribly attracted. We traded emails and chats and the fascination grew and the desire to know more grew and he felt the same way. But he is in an impossible situation - trying to figure out where it all fits - and while we still talk to one another it's changed. He no longer seeks me out because he can't - to do so would put him in the position where he might make a decision about me that puts all other choices and decisions in jeopardy. He can't be for me what he wants to be - I can't have from him what I most desire. I am left longing ... wondering...

Last week I learned my job was changing and I no longer fit the requirements to fulfill it - at the end of the school year I will be dismissed - no contract for me. After nine years of doing a job that often frustrated but just as often rewarded me I am no longer needed or wanted here. It's all very complicated - the politics of it are unfolding slowly yet predictably and the reality is becoming that my livelihood and my ability to single parent effectively are in danger. A new job means potentially new hours - a new schedule - a new way of life for my daughter and me. The people dismissing me for lack of qualifications are themselves unqualified for their jobs - how funny is that?

So then there is the son - the college boy - BMOC - who suddenly can't manage his checkbook - money is tight and he's overdrafted his account twice. He refuses to see the dynamics in this family have changed and now I have the unpleasant task of letting him fail - of letting him figure his way out of it because he didn't learn the first time with my help so now he's got to learn on his own. All this happens while the father - the sperm donor at this point - is blissfully oblivious, living with his skanky whore and breathing a sigh of relief because mommy and daddy bailed his ass out of legal trouble and fixed his job issues. Ain't life grand?

The cliche always goes - when you hit rock bottom you have no where to go but up - well folks, I am waiting for rock bottom. I lost my marriage and all that entails - I've lost two men in four months who meant the world to me each in his own unique way - I've lost my job and now I have to search for another and revamp the way I've run the household - I've got a son who needs to get his head out of his girlfriend's ass and learn to prioritize not only his money but other things in his life - I have a daughter rapidly becoming NOT a little girl... without a father - and on top of it all, I need a new roof. So folks ... what else? One of us could become seriously ill... my bank account could become depleted... I could lose the house.... the dog could die.... the car could have major issues.... I still have more that could happen - more that could sink me farther - more that could ruin me... so where does it stop? I feel like I am sliding and digging my fingernails in to stop the rapid descent... but it's not working... nothing is working. When do you just let go? When does it all end? When does the sun begin to shine and the clouds lift and the calm seas return? When?

I want ease and peace. I want ice cream and cake with buttercream frosting. I want to sit in a theatre watching a play - my arm in the crook of someone else's and I want to cry at the beauty of the music. I want steak and sauted mushrooms and salad and sweet tea. I want to sit beside someone on the couch on a rainy day, reading a book or watching a football game or just laughing. I want to watch my daughter dance on stage, and when that one little tear escapes from my eye because I am so proud I can't contain it any longer, I want someone to put an arm around me because he is feeling it too. I want to sit at the beach and read. I want to be kissed and told I'm missed. I want, I want, I want - I want simple things... I want to marvel at the beauty in simplicity - the flow of simplicity. I vaguely remember it... I once experienced it... I dream about it still.... can I ever experience it again - or do I have to hit absolute rock bottom before I do?