wrestling with guilt

i divorced my parents about 3 months ago. lately the hubs has been asking me a question i can't answer. how do i see this ending?

last night one of my aunts (my mom's youngest sister) emailed me and said although she had no idea what was going on she really wished my mom and i could work things out. i emailed her, she emailed me back. in a nutshell she said if i don't make up w/ my mom someday it will be too late and i will be sorry. in a nutshell i told her she only knows the side of her sister that she's been shown and has no idea about what has been going on for the last 3-4 decades. i also told her that if we were talking about a relationship w/ a friend or spouse people would be encouraging me to run, not walk away.

the hubs thinks i will have regrets when my parents die if i don't do SOMETHING. neither of us is sure what that SOMETHING should be, but he's certain i will have regrets.

i asked him if it's really fair to have a relationship with someone based on the fact that you don't want to feel guilty when they die. he said absolutely. i just don't know about that.

i don't want my parents to die and i don't wish any ill will on them, but that doesn't change the fact that i don't like them and don't want to be around them. i don't know how to get around that.

i am not surprised that my aunt emailed me. i figured sooner or later one of them would. i would do the same thing if it were my bro and puddin' having problems. however, all anyone has ever known is my mom's side of things, whether she is talking about the current situation or not, she is and has always portrayed herself as the victim. that is how her family sees her.

i am not going to give my aunt a laundry list of why her sister isn't the victim she thinks she is. part of me wishes people knew how things really were/are but even then i question whether they'd still see mom as the victim. years ago when i told one of my aunts about just a part of my issue w/ them she was initially sickened w/ and then quickly did an about face.

i still go back to the thought that if the hubs was the one i'd had all of these issues w/ over the years, if he was the one causing all the drama and strife and emotional abuse and neglect, etc. people would think i was crazy to stay with him. why should it be any different just because it's my parents? why should i be the guilty one?

alice in wonderland

don't you hate it when you write an amazing blog post in your head, usually right before you fall asleep, and you say to yourself, oh, i'll remember that and blog in the morning? what? you don't do that? well, i had this amazing post in my head last night before drifting off and i can't put all the words together quite the way i had them in my head.

i have this feeling of being a little like alice in wonderland after she's fallen down the rabbit hole. she sees the door she's meant to go through, but she's the wrong size. while there is a bottle of liquid on the table and a key as well, there are other bottles and a whole ring of keys. i feel like i have spent my life drinking from that bottle and trying different keys and i'm getting so close to getting that door open.

it took me forever to find the rabbit hole to fall into to begin with and then just as long to realize i needed to drink the potion and find the right key. this feels like a journey i've been on all my life. there is something underneath the surface that i'm about to discover. at least i hope so. i feel antsy, expectant. like once i find the right key and open that door i am going to discover exactly what it is i am supposed to be. a writer? a better person? a better mom? i don't know what's behind the door i just know it's good. big good.

cultural disconnect

(ah, a second blog post today because it is keeping my mind from thinking other things. the car is fixed (nearly $400 later) but fixed nonetheless and the hubs is on his way out of bfe. i have a pounding headache and i'm trying not to think that it is really a brain tumor, hence my eye issue. yeah, that's how i think sometimes. i have scrubbed both bathrooms and swept/mopped the kitchen floor.)

if you've been reading here awhile you probably know i am an army brat. the hubs is too. we met in high school in germany. department of defense school. i was in germany from 10-12 grade (83-86) and because of that i have a little cultural black whole.

pop culture overseas is not the same as pop culture here. even for a military base we lagged behind the trends. there are songs/movies that debuted during those years that i have no clue about, despite my passion for both music and movies. for the most part this really didn't impact our daily life because we were all in the same boat.

back then we basically had one american place to shop (the px) and it wasn't on the cutting edge of fashion. this made shopping for a prom dress challenging. we shopped a lot of catalogs (and in fact my dress from the hubs' senior prom came from the jcp catalog). eventually i ventured out into german stores and bought clothes there, but looking back they weren't the same things the kids in the states were wearing.

usually a tour of duty like that is about 3 years so there were always kids coming and going. when they came they brought w/ them knowledge of current, stateside trends and music. one of our friends came and went quickly (i think her parents were professors and not attached to the military) when we were in 11th grade. when she got back to the states she sent us video tapes of these things called....music videos. i think she sent every duran duran video made. we'd gather at one of my friends' houses and watch them for hours, wondering at this amazing thing. music videos. i distinctly remember the first time i watched mtv---it was the summer we came home from germany and i was at an aunt & uncle's house. adam curry was the dj. that's back when they actually played videos and only videos.

during my senior year my grandfather was diagnosed w/ throat cancer. my dad and his sister (who happened to also be in germany at the same time, because her husband was stationed at the us embassy) got emergency leave to go back to the states for his surgery. they removed the throat cancer but my gpa had a stroke and died before leaving the hospital. when my dad came back after the funeral her brought me these shoes that were apparently all the rage in the states. jellies. do you remember those? plastic, jelly like shoes. they must have been incredibly cheap because he brought me like 5 pair in different colors. i thought i was the shit! they were very uncomfortable but i had something new! from the states! and nobody else had them.

very few of us in high school drove. none of my friends drove. we turned 16 while overseas and while technically we could have gotten our license it was pretty much a red tape and insurance nightmare that few chose to deal w/. the hubs had his license before coming to germany so he was one of the few drivers that i knew. this of course made him a HUGE deal (as if he weren't the bmoc anyway) in our neighborhood. i didn't learn to drive until i was 18 and heading off to college. even then i didn't get my first car until my junior year in college.

when it came to news we got all of our info from the armed forces network. our television watching selection was severely limited. this was way before computers or the internet or satellite, etc. i remember watching the challenger blow up over and over again on the news.

video tape players came out while we were there, or maybe a little before we got there. we had so many bootleg movies. the hubs' dad had a million, no kidding, he had a butt load. cataloged and everything.

casey casem on armed forces radio was our only link the top songs of the day. of course madonna and culture club, wham, nena and the like were popular. the kids (boys and girls) in school dressed up like boy george or madonna, depending on the day.

the summer i got back to the states i went to my first civilian movie in 3 years, legal eagles w/ robert redford and darryl hannah. when the theater got dark and the screen came on i stood up for the national anthem. my aunt looked at me and giggled and then i sat down. they always play the national anthem before the movie on army bases. old habits died hard.

so many differences.

just a bunch of whining really

i started a post last night and deleted it because really it was just vanilla and complaining and bitchy, but i realize that's all i've got right now so suck it up.

since friday i have had a swollen, itchy eye. i thought it was pink eye, but i went to the dr yesterday and she's thinking cellulitis. sounds like fat eye to me, but really it's a skin infection caused by bacteria. nice. i got a shot and some antibiotics. i hope they kick in soon.

the hubs called me about an hour ago. he is about 150 miles away from home (for work) out in the middle of bfe with car trouble. the trusty gps steered him to some deliverance like car repair shop (i can just envision the mechanic wearing bibbed overalls, having 4 teeth and wearing a dirty john deere baseball cap) where the mechanic told him his air compressor is dead and he's surprised he made it to the shop. nice. so, the hubs is sitting out in the middle of bfe w/ rufus fixing his car. hundreds of dollars. i don't know what happened to the good karma we were putting out in the universe but so far it's not working.

it has been sweltering hot here. so hot that even the pool water feels like a bathtub. so hot that going outside after 10 am is like walking into a freaking oven. it is humid. since the riding lawn mower is still kaput and it has been too hot to use the push mower during the day my yard looks like it too belongs in bfe/deliverance. i'm sure my neighbors are wondering wtf.

there's also a bit of sibling/parent drama going on but really, i don't even have the energy nor desire to talk about it.

i feel stupid bitching because i know I KNOW things could be worse.

the old me

the other night the hubs said he missed the old me. the peppy happy me. hmmmm. i've been feeling a bit vanilla for a few weeks. i am not depressed or upset about anything, just....ho-hum. there are no highs or lows. it feels kind of like being on paxil or whatever it was i took after the boy was born. it evened out my moods but everything was flat, no highs or lows.

i suppose it is because i am slipping into a hopeless feeling about jobs. i am sort of proud that i've mostly held on to hope and been positive (aside from off and on slips into the pit of despair) for this long. i never, ever anticipated being unemployed for 14 months w/ no end in sight.

i almost hurled the other day when a fb friend made this comment: you have a wonderful life! this after i posted that it was so humid i'd be living in a pony tail this summer, that the kids and i had spent the morning cleaning house and that it was pool-thirty. now, had someone else made that comment i would have thought they were being sarcastic. however, the person who made the comment isn't sarcastic and she was actually saying i have a wonderful life. she is also one that has commented off and on to enjoy my time off and being w/ my kids. yeah, she can say this as she owns her own business and is making money. i want to gibbs slap her.

speaking of gibbs---the girl and i have started watching ncis. we are true drama queens---by that i mean we are suckers for a drama show. i wonder if i should be alarmed that the girl wants to be like one of the female characters who is a trained assassin.

we're almost through the first full week of summer vacay and the kids have actually (mostly) been good. they've been in the pool just about every day, between our summer thunder storms. we have been playing a lot of a card game called bs.

i need to get my head back on straight and pull myself out of this wallowing i'm doing about the non-profit not calling me in for an interview. the longer this drags out the less hope i have for getting that job.

this is my pipe dream

have a toke why don't you---this is my pipe dream for the summer.

sometime this week or next week i will get the call for the interview for the non-profit place i want to work. i will have a great interview and the next day they will offer me the job at a great salary. not outrageous of course (cos i'm not greedy even in my pipe dream) but the salary is comparable to what i was making. they would like me to start in two weeks. perfect.

after a celebratory dinner the hubs and i decide what to do w/ the money from the cashed in 401k since we don't have to actually live on it any more. part of it will go towards a disney vacation during one of the two weeks before i start work. an awesome vacation that the kids will remember forever.

the week we aren't vacationing the kids and i will paint the kitchen and get things in order. we might take a road trip or something.

part of me worries that i've let this pipe dream out of my brain because you know how the universe likes to fuck w/ stuff like that. put something good out there (or something bad) and the universe laughs and mocks you and does the complete opposite of what you want. but, i have hope. and faith. and yes only...i too think faith and hope go together : )

mow, mow, mow your grass

we have a good sized yard. until this week i would not have called it big. this week i would speak in hyperbole and say it's as big as a damn football field (which it is not).

the front yard is mostly grass with two trees and one corner flower bed. it's challenge is that the whole yard is a big hill.

the back yard has five big, old trees, a dwarf magnolia, elebenty billion other planted things, seating areas, a shed and an above ground pool. while i love our yard for its outdoor living space and entertainment value it sucks monkey balls when it comes to maintenance. the yard is uneven and with the five old trees come lots of tree roots and shed limbs. the dogs dig little holes here and there that are of course only discovered if you're walking around at night and trip over them or are mowing.

w/in the first month of moving into this house (almost 8 years ago) we bought a riding lawn mower (if i could make that noise that time the tool man taylor used to make i would insert it here). i fell in love. it took me awhile to learn how to mow my yard. how high i needed to have the blade so as not to scrape anything. what i could safely mow over and what i couldn't, etc.

we had never had a riding lawn mower growing up, never really needed one. the first time i'd ever used one was at my FIL's and it was awesome. sort of like riding a four-wheeler but one that was productive and mowed the grass. it combined getting something done w/ riding and what could be more perfect than that?

last week i started mowing the back yard. w/ the riding lawn mower i can usually mow the front and back yard in about an hour. w/ all of the obstacles in the yard i cannot be one of those fancy mowers that puts the diagonal patterns in the grass or anything else captivating like that. it's just down and dirty mowing, usually going around and around until you end up w/ a patch of grass the size of picnic basket and you feel like a retard for desperately trying to mow it w/ a big ass riding lawn mower. overkill much?

during the second swipe around the back yard i mowed right over a round paver in the back part of the yard. i've done this a million times before w/out any problem. there are 5-6 pavers set into the grass making a little stepping stone area to a bench. they've been in the ground for years and up until that day i had no problem mowing over them w/ my riding lawn mower. that day the mower revolted. the paver and the blades got into an altercation. fuck me.

i realized i'd have to mow the yard w/ the push mower. ah, it couldn't really be that hard could it? omfg. i think i came close to heat stroke that day, it's still a little fuzzy. it was hot. i was sweating. i've mentioned here before how much i loathe sweating.

over the weekend the hubs mowed the front yard w/ the push mower. he has looked at the riding mower and thinks he might be able to replace the blades. i certainly hope so. he mowed the front yard and he looked like i felt when i mowed the back yard. it is a bitch. mowing the front yard by hand cannot be fun, pushing up and down the hill. even if you go across instead of up and down it would be a bitch.

yesterday i mowed the back yard again. it took me two hours. TWO HOURS. double what it took me to mow both on the riding mower. luckily it was not above 90 degrees and there was a tiny breeze. i still took a lot of breaks. i think i might have drank a gallon of water.

while it may not be my favorite thing to do, i do think the yard looks better mowed w/ a push mower. you can get into more cracks and crevices (places i had to use the weed eater on w/ the riding mower).

however, for convenience you can't be riding.

all over the place

*omg--it has been such a glorious day outside. i like this kind of summer day--it is breezy and and low 80s. perfect weather.

*i finished queen bees & wannabees today while waiting on the car to get flushed. yeah, i don't know, something about transmission flushing. anyway, i checked the book out last week and it's about how to help your daughter through the teen years---cliques, boys, etc. OMG. i'm going to buy a copy and highlight the shit out of it. it's a great, great book. if you have kids you need to read this book.

*my kids are spoiled brats. after seeing my sil's ipod touch this weekend they declared that they were each going to save up their allowances to buy one. yeah, right. they assumed we'd say we'd buy them. uh, hells to the no. granted, they have old mp3 players that have issues. they may actually be broken. we did some research on mp3 players. sat/sun there was on an off angst and attitude about mp3 players and what they wanted. we told the kids we would spend x dollars on something, but we were not buying ipod touch and in fact weren't buying ipod anything since we have a subscription to rhapsody, not itunes. there was much gnashing of teeth. they are so ungrateful. i don't remember being that way when i was a kid.

*today i emailed our local crisis control ministry to get info about volunteering this summer. me and the kids. i have got to make them do something to decrease their sense of entitlement.

*the hubs and i had a date night friday night, thanks to the sil/bro who let our kids spend the night : ) we went to dinner, got the appetizer WE like (calamari) instead of cheese sticks, had the first pool sex of the season (he he he) and then relaxed and watched west wing. yeah, we're so predictable. but it was such a good evening.

*i might be veering dangerously close into the job stalker realm. the garden job i really, really want? yeah, i've called them twice since sending in my resume in april. the guy i spoke to has been very, very nice and explained he's further behind than he wanted to be w/ the process. he's been out of town, there was a conference, he was sick, blah blah blah. so...now i just keep waiting.

*i realize that i am not quite as good of a mom as some moms. some of my fb friends and family are getting excited that it's the last week of school and then their kids will be home w/ them. mmmm....yeah, me? not so much. it will be ok for a week or two, but then the kids will be bored and the constant bickering will start. i don't do 24/7 well. i know this from last summer.

*while today is a nice summer day, i love me some air conditioning. i do not understand people who have air conditioning and do not use it. i swear, i'd cut off my cable, eat rice and beans every day and use candles instead of lights rather than turn off the air conditioner in the summer. i have to be comfortable.

*i have recently discovered minute maid's cherry lime ade and it is my new drug. omg. i got my first hit last week, it was on sale for 88 cents! 88 cents! can you believe that? i had no idea what it normally costs. when i popped in the store this weekend i saw that it was normally $2.50ish. what? really? today? on sale for 99 cents! score! it is not too sour, so very refreshing, and just yummy. i think you could add vodka to it and it would be awesome.

elvis has left the building

elvis (aka my cousin) has come and gone. i'm calling him elvis because he sort of reminds me of a younger elvis although he also looks a lot like our grandpa when he was younger. anyway, he's come and gone.

he called the hubs' cell phone (initially the only number he had) no less than 30 times since friday. i.am.not.exaggerating. the hubs looked at his incoming calls, 2:31, 2:35, 3:21, etc. crazy.

here's a quick run down of this guy. he spent about a month in the navy probably a decade ago and somehow managed to get out and get disability because of asthma. yeah i don't understand at all. when he lived here i'm not really sure what, if any job he had. he bounced around. when my aunt & uncle got fed up and kicked him out he lived w/ my gma. he stole money from her. and it wasn't like he lifted a 20 out of her purse. he forged and cashed checks or used her atm or something. he stole money. he had dui and traffic violations and was taking (i don't know about dealing) drugs. he went to jail for awhile.

when he got out my aunt & uncle basically told him he was on his own. they weren't supporting him anymore, he couldn't live there and he couldn't stay w/ my gma. so he joined the carnival. he operated rides. he did that for awhile, maybe a couple of years. at some point he ended up in virginia, where they used to live, hooked up w/ a woman (one among many from what he says) and there was a baby. my aunt still swears it's not his, though he claims it is. something happened there and he ended up going to culinary school (paid for by my aunt & uncle) in california. when he graduated he moved to michigan for a woman, who we've just found out is married w/ kids. so that didn't work out and that's why he was on this trek here.

he came here, stayed in a hotel for two days and has now moved to s.c. to stay w/ a friend. the hubs gave him a ride to the bus station saturday. he claims we are his only family now. my aunt & uncle told him he could not move out to az near them (they moved there two months ago). my aunt doesn't think he will ever get his shit together. he is 36.

how do you get to be 36 and still be floundering like that? really? seriously. he's so bitter and angry about everything. nothing, nothing is ever his fault. he takes responsibility for nothing.

we did not invite him to our house. frankly, i wouldn't feel comfortable w/ him here. if he'd steal from our grandma, i'm sure he'd steal from us. plus, i don't think he's ever been to my house and i kind of like the fact that he doesn't know where i live. i certainly don't want him around my kids. the girl rode w/ the hubs to take elvis to the bus station (because she didn't want to hang w/ me and the boy at karate school for three hours) and she said he complains all the time and says fuck all the time. and he kinda creeps my kids out.

i'm not a good person

i just found out on fb that one of my cousins is on his way back to this area. he said after a night in a motel he's moving in to the urban ministries.

hmmm. i suppose under other circumstances one would invite this person to stay w/ you until they got back on their feet right?

well--said person is 36 years old, just finished culinary school (which his folks paid for) and is leaving his current location because the girl he moved there for dumped him. said person is also the one who stole money from our grandma. he's been in jail. he worked and traveled w/ a carnival (before going to culinary school). there is a toddler in another state that might be his (he says yes, my aunt says no). this guy is incredibly smart, could have done so much w/ his life.

apparently he is not welcome in az where his parents just moved. they "tough loved" him several years ago and even though they paid for his recent schooling, he was allowed to visit them on a limited time basis. apparently he is not going back to the mother of what he claims as his child.

part of me feels sorry for him---36 years old and going nowhere. part of me is like--dude! wtf!! pull your shit together already!

it was good

we had a four-day weekend. i consider it a holiday when the hubs doesn't work, even though i'm unemployed.

friday we found and bought a car to replace his car that died. he is ecstatic about this car. it is old (99) and we got what i think is a good deal. it is a caddy; an old man car : ) it's dark blue. he loves it. i told him last night that if the car had a voice it would be barry white. lol. it has air conditioning and brakes that work and i'm not worried about the hubs being stranded 200 miles from home now. one crisis averted. we are going to donate his dead car to a charity. it is not technically dead, just, you know, on life support. we talked about taking it to a junk yard and getting some money for it, but the hubs' idea is to donate it for the chance at good karma. we could use some positive karma coming back this way.

the rest of the weekend was sublime. we grilled out, swam in the pool (though it's still a little too chilly for me to fully enjoy), had sex, ran errands, relaxed, had a cookout w/ my bro/sil and the kids, napped and just...were. the best part is that the hubs really did relax and i think he had a good weekend. he doesn't often say, yeah, that was a good weekend, but he totally recognized it and said it this time. awesome.

there is a non-awesome thing though. the boy and his girl friend. omg folks---they are texting that they "LOVE" each other. omfg. the boy texted her asking when they could have their first kiss. omfg! he's TEN. i am all kinds of sideways about this. i don't know how to deal w/ it. the hubs had a heart to heart w/ the boy saturday night. they sat out by the fire pit after our company left and had a man to man. the hubs didn't tell the boy he'd been reading his texts, though we have told the kids we have the option to read them or their emails whenever we want. yes, big brother totally watches over my kids.

the boy is totally opposite from the girl. he holds everything inside. he doesn't share a lot. the girl wears her heart on her sleeve. it seems we have sort of aided and abetted in the boy's leap into this relationship. since he hears the hubs and i say i love you all the time he assumes this is what you do in a relationship (regardless of the fact that you've been "dating" for a month and are 10 yrs old). the girl and her sister came over to swim yesterday. it rained at first so they watched a movie. the boy suggested wrestlemania and the girls picked twilight instead. i had to laugh at that one. anyway, i watched them like a hawk, which i hate myself for, but i was so paranoid they were going to try to kiss or something.

the hubs is handling this much, much better than i am. when i said i thought he'd react differently if it were the girl and not the boy in this situation he said no. we have always said we wanted to be the house that the kids hang out at when they got older. we want to be in the know, we'd rather them be here than somewhere else. but still, sitting there watching my baby frolic in the pool with a little girl (and it's even a little girl i like) knowing that he wants to kiss her just .... ack...i just can't process it. it's too soon. i told him this morning i didn't have my first kiss until i was 14 (which is true). it does not help that the hubs kissed his first girl when he was 5. and he still remembers her name. sheesh.