So This is Christmas.....

I've been talking to a dear friend of mine the past couple of days about Christmas. This year is beyond lean for my family. I am still on disability so it has been a struggle just to live, let alone indulge in something as simple as a Christmas card for friends. I know that Christmas is about more than gifts. But when you suffer from depression these little setbacks take greater meaning and are more intense than they would normally be. I know that it is also the time of year when you miss those you have lost. But I have found that you not only miss those you have lost, you also miss the past and the memories made there. 

My friend and I were discussing how much we miss Christmas when our kids were little. Neither of us said anything about missing Christmas from when we were kids. I noticed that later. I know that every year with the kids was altogether hectic (some years more than others), joyful, chaotic, and special. It wasn't about the kids getting gifts as much as it was the simple traditions carried out every year. Nothing warms the heart more than watching the joy on a child's face when they see the tree for the first time after Santa has drop his payload. The wide eyes, the "Oh Boy!" coming out of your kids mouths. Man I could die happy remembering times like that. Every year the kids tried to wake me up earlier and earlier. Of course when their dad and I were together he REFUSED to be awoken any earlier than 7 am and then he would insist on taking an hour long shower before the kids could go and unwraps their gifts. If I recall correctly eventually I was able to put a kibosh on that idea. I don't remember how old they were before that happened. I remember one year letting my daughter open one gift on her birthday while her daddy was in the bath and he went ballistic, so that never happened again, he was so furious. To me I thought it was reasonable. She had already waited ALL DAY for her dad to get home from work and then he insisted on taking a bath (we were living overseas and had only a bathtub) first. No fair! So I let our daughter open one gift from her grandparents, I thought she earned the right. It was her 2nd birthday and she was excited. Christmas morning had a similar edict.

Sorry, I digress! Anyway, every year I made a coffee cake and special Christmas cookies that I usually only made at Christmas and maybe one other time during the year. So in the morning, the kids' father and I would eat coffee cake in between opening gifts. The kids always ate the cake AFTER presents! Lol. Just watching the joy on their faces and the excitement. It is something that is forever imprinted on my brain. One of the kids would always be in charge of getting the gifts for each person, another would pick up the wrapping paper. The other two? Well at first they were too young for those tasks, later they took over for the older ones who were by now tired of that routine. Lol. 

Later, as the kids were, playing with toys or calling friends or family, I would start making the special rolls that took hours to make in between phone calls.The smells were always wonderful. WE usually ate fairly early and a lot! I always made a rump roast for the main entree, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, special cloverleaf yeast rolls, and whatever vegetable I could get away with....with a chocolate cream pie for dessert. 

Of course those were the years that we didn't live around family. When we lived around family, it was twice the chaos and 3 times the hassle. Christmas eve was spent at the paternal grandparents house with ALL of the family. Christmas day we spent at our house, then later to brother and sister in laws house where we always had Christmas dinner because they had the biggest and fanciest house. Sometimes we spent an hour or two at my parents house. Although my dad thought that was stupid since we had small children...so they usually came to us. Thank you very much! I appreciated that more than anything. My dad was cool like that! Growing up as an only child made these big Christmases foreign to me. But I was glad that my own children got to be surrounded by lots of family.

These days we have no contact with their dad or his family. My oldest daughter is the only one who has contact with her dad.  The grandparents are deceased on both sides, their paternal grandmother only passed this year. We actually had a lot of contact with her. But with her death all contact with that part of the family has ceased. I have no family other than my children. I have distant relatives, but we don't know each other. I don't have any contact at all with my dad's family and they were the ones I was closest to growing up. They were a huge family but when my grandma died everyone kinda had minimal contact with each other. Most of them live in the same area but never see each other or rarely if they do at all. I haven't had any contact with them in about 8 years. They are lost to me, I don't even know if they are all alive. My mom's family? Well all of them are gone. I have a few cousins and we kept in contact after our last uncle died for a little bit, but that has dwindled to nothing really. I have contact with one cousin on Facebook and that is it. It is understandable, we didn't know each other growing up. They lived on the other side of the country. My mom and I only visited once. Two of my cousins and their mom visited us once and that was it.


I think that one thing that I have noticed is when the matriarch dies, it seems that the most families drift apart. I'm sure it is not for everyone. Every family is different, but I have noticed that it is usually the moms who try so hard to keep in contact with the kids and apprise them of what the others are doing. When that link is broken, many families are so busy with their own families that they neglect the relationships they have with their siblings, nieces, and nephews. Having had no siblings I am completely alone and cannot understand how this can happen in a family. I think many times the responsibility falls to the oldest child and he or she will try to keep the links alive. I think that will probably happen when I pass away. My kids will probably drift as well. Maybe it is our society that makes it easy to do....I don't know. I really want my kids to stay close but I notice that they don't even have a lot of contact right now and they live in the same town. They love each other and would be there if they were needed, I know that...I kinda have two sets of kids, the older two are separated from the younger two by many years. My youngest daughter told me that she doesn't really know what to say to the older two. She said she feels like she doesn't really know them and they really don't have anything in common. It is really sad to me. I don't know that there is anything I can do about it these days. I think that is one of the reasons why I hate living in this little apartment. When I had a big house we all had Christmas dinner together almost every year and the kids and I had a routine, even when there were boyfriends or girlfriends there. We hung out, talked, ate dinner, drank wine and then played games. It was fun, we laughed a lot. I miss that so much. The first year I was at THAT particular house was the first year I went totally crazy with decorating at Christmas. I had a formal living room with a big bay window where I put the tree and we had a fireplace that I decorated with garland and lights and stockings. I went insane with the decorations. Every end table had a little tree or some other decoration. For Christmas dinner I'd use the special Christmas tablecloths and with coordinating Christmas napkins and silver and gold napkin rings. I'd use the formal china and silver for the table. The centerpieces always included lit candles. I loved Christmas. What happened? I think the kids growing up, the scattering of my life as well as the fast pace of life in general has contributed to the loss of what was once so dearly loved.

I miss those times gone by. I miss the feelings, the emotions, the love, and the joy. Once lost, it is hard to regain.

What am I back in high school?!!!!

OK what the hell is going on?!!!! I have been the witness lately to countless acts of high school behavior both on and off of Facebook. It is ridiculous that people, some of whom are LONG out of high school, are acting like teenagers. Not like fun, no care in the world teenagers, but bitchy he said-she said, "I'm gonna kick your ass" blah blah blah teenager. Seriously. I have been witness to some really ridiculous childhood type behavior from people who SHOULD know better. 

I first noticed this awhile back when some friends were mad at each other, for whatever reason (I DON'T CARE! NOT MY BUSINESS!), and they were talking about each other on Facebook. Now I refuse to take sides when people do this and I really think it is a bad idea when people get in Facebook fights. I've been there and it really doesn't end well. It is one thing to fight about politics or whatever you choose to fight about that isn't personal. But when you start posting things about family members or friends or friends of friends or whatever.....well it can get REAL ugly REAL fast. Again, I know from personal and painful experience.

High School Case in point. Last Sunday. On Saturday night it started....a "friend" of mine on Facebook (she is actually my youngest son's friends sister) started posting some really mean stuff about her brother and then made a REALLY offensive post about her brothers girlfriend. Apparently they had all gotten into a huge fight that day and they left the sisters house. Anyway, to try and make this REALLY long story short. My son made a comment about how perhaps she shouldn't be saying this personal stuff on Facebook and how it is only going to make her brother mad, that it was not going to help the situation. Well the girl went insane and started this huge deal on Facebook, which I got caught up in when I got awakened by several phone calls in the morning from the sister. She left me a voicemail on one of them where she told me that I needed to rein in my son before he got his ass kicked. Now, first of all let me explain. This woman is almost my oldest daughters age, which is 29, ALMOST 30! My son is 22! He is a grown ass man! WHY would you call his mom? High school anyone? THEN I posted a response because I read the comments and saw that her 35+ year old boyfriend was making threats to my son. I told them that #1) NONE of this stuff was anyone's business, that they should NOT be posting their "family business" on Facebook. #2) I was not involved as it was NOT my business but they made it my business by calling my house numerous times and making threats #3) NOT a good idea to make threats via voicemail and via Facebook. #4) My son is a grown ass man and can take care of himself wtf are you calling me for, what are we back in HIGH SCHOOL?!!!!

It just got worse from there, although the ONLY comments made to me were from the boyfriend who stated that he was just telling my son what the consequences were if he kept posting stuff...lol...not threats. To which I told him that he could call it what he wanted but a threat is a threat in the eyes of the law. The sister made NO COMMENTS to me (why? I don't know, scared? respect? beats me). Her friend made a comment that is too lewd to post and if I knew where she lived I would ask her to say it to my face.....IF I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL!!!!

Anyway, the day just got worse and worse....why? Because these ADULTS were acting like they were in high school....making high school threats and talking smack about each other. In the end I helped the adults on my end (my son, his friend, and his friends girlfriend) do the calm thing and call the police to help them get their stuff from the sisters house, since it was raining and the 35 year old boyfriend had already tried to get physical with my son when my son ran into them at a music store the same day. These 2 ADULTS also purposely put their 10 year old daughter behind my son's car so that he couldn't pull out of the parking spot so that they could have this confrontation. These are adults? Parents? WHO DOES THESE THINGS????? HIGH SCHOOLERS!!!! The sister also thought it was a great idea to keep posting insulting stuff online and went as far as to make up a fake Facebook profile under her brothers girlfriends name and posted nearly naked pictures and sent "friend requests" from this fake profile to all of her brother's friends, me and her FATHER included. I have a daughter the same age (19), if she had done this to MY daughter we wouldn't be having this conversation, I'd be in jail for assault. She got the pictures from the cell phone of the girlfriend. She had REFUSED to let her have the phone back when the police went to the house. This is typical high school, "I hate you and I'm gonna get you back" behavior. Someone who is that age REALLY should know better by now. It is so petty and ridiculous!


Here's the thing. This is not the first example of this kind of behavior that I have seen exhibited by adults who REALLY should know better. I've seen 30 and 40 year-olds doing the same type of stuff. What the hell is wrong here?!!! We are ADULTS!!! Calling peoples moms? Telling people you are not gonna be their friend if you are friends with someone they don't like? Seriously? Cut the childhood high school bullshit behavior! What kind of example are these adults sending their own children???? Many of them DO have children and many of those children are old enough to be on Facebook and see this behavior.


How can we teach our kids when some of us need to learn ourselves. I have found that the online community is just as cliquey as any high school. I've seen it on many forums and on Facebook, MySpace, you name it.....I am just stunned, TRULY stunned by this kind of childish behavior. In my case, things got extreme here....police were called. You know why? Because with threats being made and people unable to restrain themselves someone could get hurt. More than feelings are at stake here. People have committed suicide from some of this same kind of stuff. Cyber-bullying is becoming more common and some of the biggest bullies are adults. 


So here is my deal. If you don't like someone, don't be their friend. Don't be their friend in real life and don't be their friend in cyberspace. If you are pissed at someone....I don't know, maybe write them a PRIVATE e-mail or message.....or call and talk to them....or DON'T talk to them at all.....DON'T post a bunch of crap about them on the internet. Once words are said, they can't be unsaid. Once out in cyberspace, they are out there forever. If you don't like one of my friends....well I'm sorry, there is a reason why they are my friend as there is a reason why YOU are my friend. IF you ask me to choose, I won't. YOU will be the one to make that choice. I won't betray one friend for another. You don't have to be friends with each other. I won't talk shit about either of you to each other. I AM NOT IN HIGH SCHOOL!!!!!!!


Seriously.

I'm Still Alive.....

As you can tell by the fact that I am writing this blog, I am still here, still alive. Not always easy but this life has never been. 

After the last blog one of my friends reached out to me. My blog made her cry, she said that she had no idea I was feeling that way. She and I both cried together. She asked me what she could do to help me and if she did anything to cause me to feel this way. Like I told her (this is good for anyone who knows someone who is going through this) just calling or keeping in some kind of contact helps. Just hearing about her life a little bit helped. Most of the time though there isn't a whole lot that can be done. No one can get into anyone's head nor can the person who's suffering tell you how to make it better. We don't know how. My going to therapy WILL make it better in time. I am praying for that day. But for the moment it is like being behind a soundproof glass window and watching all of the happy normal people walk by. It is hard and some days are better than others. As a woman we also have to be careful that our hormones don't overwhelm us which is much of what happened when I wrote my last blog post. It intensified all of the horrible feelings I was feeling. I wish I could have realized it then instead of now. I don't know how much it would have helped, but maybe it would have helped me get through it a little easier. I did have a birthday last week as well and I had birthday greetings from a lot of people so I felt good about that as well. One thing I can say is that there is one difference between my father who committed suicide and me....when my friends as well as my family tell me what a difference I make in their lives, it makes me pause before doing something so final that I can't take back. My father's suicide will continue to haunt me and I honestly thought that it would keep me from seriously thinking about it myself. Unfortunately time is showing me that it is not necessarily the case, although I am sure it keeps me alive longer. It is the depression and hopelessness that drives the suicidal mind. When you don't think that you can get out. When there is no hope in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel, when you think you don't matter.....even if people you love tell you that you do.....that is when you think you and your family are better off without you. I have learned that with this latest bout. Logically I know they won't be, I've been there, but the hopelessness and despair doesn't go away just because you want it to. It is something that I have to fight every single day, if I give up as my dad did then I will not make it. So I will do my best to stay in the game. The game that is life. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of fight, but it also takes determination and support. It is hard to go it alone. 

I will be seeing my therapist tomorrow and then my Psychiatrist the next day. I have to let my Psychiatrist know that I can't see him anymore because I don't have insurance. Sucks. Then next week I will go to the county and see someone there. It's almost like starting over yet again. *sigh*

My ex-fiance is coming to visit from out of state in a couple of weeks or so. That should be interesting. I've never had an ex visit like this. We were very good friends so I am hoping this is a positive experience for both of us, which I am pretty sure it will be. We're not sure what we are going to do yet, he is making the plans. I just hope that I am not too down when he comes to see me as it will be around "that" time when I get down and out. Maybe our hanging out will eliminate the issue this month. I hope so. I miss him, we always had fun together. 

Well I am getting ready to go to bed. I have been having a very hard time sleeping lately again so I am hoping that tonight will be the exception....probably not, but I can always hope.

I leave you with a video from Pearl Jam.....have a good week and I'll see you next time....that's positive thinking, right?

Rest in Peace.

 

 This is a very difficult blog to write tonight. I got a call yesterday that my ex-mother-in-law passed away the night before. I can't say that it was totally unexpected, but it is still a shock. 

  The relationship I had with her was complicated over the years. She was, after all, the mother of the person who caused me the most pain in my life. She was a very difficult woman. But later in life I came to understand her better and we actually bonded quite a bit. She hurt my children a lot, although I am sure that was not her intention. But that was normal for her. She truly did not realize how harsh and hurtful she was to everyone. This is not to say that she couldn't be nice, she could. But she could also be devastating with a single phrase. I know that she loved my kids and I know that she loved me. It was not easy to love her, but I did. 

  Lucky for me I had an appointment with my therapist yesterday so I was able to talk to him about all that I was feeling, I cried a bit, and I have to say that I also railed a bit at some of the messed up moments that she contributed to. One thing I can say is that she loved her children dearly. She would defend them no matter what. Which is what a good mother should do. Like I said this is difficult. I really had problems with her a lot during my marriage as well as afterward. I was not used to being badgered. She could be very forceful with her opinions and unlike my own mother she would always tell you what you were doing wrong and never what you were doing right. Not to mention that she pretty much thought she was the only person who knew how to take care of children. We clashed on that A LOT. My mother was of the opinion that you make your own mistakes and learn. That has served me very well in my life.

  My oldest daughter is taking this worse than any of my kids and she was the one who clashed the most with her grandmother. They fought with each other and hurt each other a lot. Not to mention the fact that my ex mother in law never said she was sorry. I only heard that from her ONCE in the over 30 years I knew her and that was only recently. She actually tried to contact me a few days ago, but I didn't take the call and of course that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. But at the same time it may have been a good thing. I would hate my last conversation with her to have been a bad one and it very easily could have been one considering some of the stuff that happened in the last couple of months. In the end I think I will have to be content with that and live with that. 

  When I went to my therapist I told him that I was going to send my ex-husband an e-mail telling him that I was sorry about his mom. My therapist told me not to, he wants me to have ZERO contact with him. That is really, really hard for me because of how I am. Of course, what I should try to remember is how my ex traumatized me after my mom died. I mean he started out crying and sorry. But the day after my mothers funeral I had a call from him that made me so angry I stormed out of the place I was at and just started walking and yelling. My boyfriend at the time, along with my best friend and my daughter had to come running after me, they had no idea what had happened. I won't even go into the details other than to say that I would never dream of yelling at someone the day after they buried their mother. Who does that????? I was so mad and hurt that I was shaking and after I was done yelling I couldn't even talk. It was horrible. My ex-mother-in-law did her own upsetting thing at my dad's house right after the funeral. Something that made everyone in the house look at her with shock. This is what I mean about her and him as well. He also caused unbelievable issues after my dad killed himself. I will go into that at some other time. Let's just say, they both caused so much discontent in my life and leave it at that.

  So....I am not really sure how I feel about all of this. I am sad, I DO know that. No matter what problems we had, I did love and care about her. I cannot imagine how things are going to be without her in our lives. 

That is the end of that chapter in my life. I will no longer have any contact with anyone else in that family from now on. The rest of them are not important to me in the least, well I do care about a couple, but the rest....well I am done. My kids are as well. She was the only connection we all had to each other and that connection is now gone. Rest in Peace.