Mamarati

Are the Republicans trying to ride on the wave of pride leftover from the Olympics or something? Do they know they aren’t campaigning in China? It’s really weird to me to see all that chanting start up. Ummm, we’re all Americans here. I think no matter what side of the issues you are on, most of us just want what’s best for the country.

I don’t know, I think there are enough things that we disagree on that we don’t need to add a fake thing. It’s strangely alienating.

Now, I said I was going to talk more about politics, because it’s a pretty big part of life in this household. But… this is a conversation so large and complex, I just don’t think I can even begin.

I will try, though. I always think it must be nice for those people who are absolutely 100 percent sure of how they feel or believe about anything. I’m not that way. There are very few issues that are black and white for me. And there is no platform that I am 100 percent behind. I lean lately more toward the Democratic party not so much because of what they are but what they aren’t. And because of who I am right now. And because it’s one of the few two choices out there.

I think it’s really unfair that a candidate has to line up with a party so completely. There are very few say, Republicans that are pro-choice. Or Democrats that are against choice. A few. But it’s like so much hinges on that issue, for example. And if you believe the opposite way of how you’re “supposed” to for your party, it’s like you’re some kind of traitor instead of some kind of person who has come to a different conclusion about a thing. It’s like you’re forced into believing (or at least saying you believe) a certain way.

And I think that’s terrible. And it’s so terribly dishonest. And it makes the media coverage of things like elections or crises a big lie. You see these spokespersons and pundits up there one minute talking about how much they love McCain and think he made a great choice about picking Palin, and they’re all smiles and joy and bubbling with support. Then you go off camera and, Oops, open mic, and the story is completely different. They’re saying the exact opposite and slamming his choice.

And then there’s all this fakery about how we shouldn’t talk about Palin because she’s a woman, we shouldn’t talk about her being a mom. We shouldn’t talk about her kids. We shouldn’t talk about her pregnant teen. We shouldn’t question whether she can do both things. That’s anti-woman. Look how hard we’ve fought for blah blah blah blah.

No. Anyone who says we shouldn’t be discussing these things can just go on and stop talking about them. But for me, I will continue to talk about these things. Because some of these things are things we haven’t been talking about and quite frankly they are just the conversations we need to have. Can we, as women, as mothers, balance it all? Can we do it all? Are we superwomen?

I mean, you can continue to be a martyr if you want and you can say bring on the challenges. Bring on the adversity. Make it hard, as hard as you can. Don’t give me any slack just because I’m a woman or a mother. To that, I say NO. We do need to be protected on the job against discrimination. WHY? Because discrimination against moms happens. We do need privacy and more breaks for pumping milk. WHY? Because not everyone wants to feed their kid formula and because that’s how breastfeeding works. Supply and demand. We do need flexible work hours. It’s not a 9-to-5 world any more and why should it be anyway? It would help more than just moms, it would ease traffic burdens and energy costs, too. We do need flexibility about where to work. Because not every job requires my butt to be sitting in a seat in an office somewhere when I could be doing it (and probably even more efficiently) at home, thus reducing child care costs, etc.

So, with this Palin stuff, I am afraid that some people are going to get this idea that, WOW, here’s this powerful woman and she’s doing it all. How amazing. If she can do it, anyone can do it. She went back to work just days after having a baby. So you can back to work just days after having a baby. She got on the plane when her water had broken, so you can, too. She has five kids and is going to try and be the Vice President, so what’s your problem that you can’t work a few hours or 20 of overtime?

Know what I mean? And I’m sorry, she may have that small-town background, but make no mistake that what she’s doing now and what she’s been doing for the past few years is not at all middle class. I don’t know too many poor folks or even middle class folks that can afford a nanny and a housekeeper. I also know that most families don’t have kids spread out that far apart where the teens can take care of the babies and younger kids. Most of us do not have child care that is so flexible we could leave the house at a moment’s notice without completely disrupting our kids every time. Most of us do not have husbands that stay home with our kids.

Of all the women that I know with kids who also work, very few of them have husbands that do a significant portion of things like taking care of the kids or taking care of stuff around the house like cooking or cleaning. Certainly nothing like half of it even though they may be working as many or more hours than their husbands. There are exceptions to this, of course, but not an overwhelming amount. Not many of their husbands woke up in the night with their babies or do laundry regularly or sweep, mop, dust… and very few cook regularly, plan the meals or shop for the food. If the kids are sick and someone needs to stay home with the kids, most of the time it’s mom. If the kids need to go to the doctor, it’s probably mom that takes them. And this goes beyond just the people I know, too. I mean, my kid has tons of health issues, and when we’re sitting at the allergy shot clinic, it’s 98 percent moms with the kids. Ditto all the other doctor’s appointments. This is how it works in my neighborhood.

So, the expectation that moms are just so wonderful and they can do anything and they can balance and juggle it all… that’s all sweet and quaint. But it’s not true. There’s a lot of sacrifice in there and a lot of suffering and resentfulness and guilt and we need to keep talking about it so it can get better. Of course motherhood without having an outside job is full of times of sacrifice and suffering and whatnot, I’m just saying that we don’t all have to put on this stoicism and run around like a bunch of friggin’ martyrs when we can talk about it, hash it all out and figure out what can make it better for women and for their kids and families overall. For society overall. I know many of us would like a little more joy and a little less hardship and I think we can get that if we keep this conversation going and not act like it’s taboo or it’s going to collapse everything that women have worked so hard for. Give me a break. We’re still working hard. Palin is not evidence that we’ve arrived, by far. Hillary isn’t either.

So, in short, regarding the working mom thing, I don’t think that anyone should confuse what Palin is doing with what working moms are doing. Palin is making sacrifices that are above and beyond what should be EXPECTED of a working mother. I’m sure she’s doing it because she feels she has a calling that goes beyond what she feels called to do directly for her family. Don’t kid yourself, no matter what you hear in the media… She knows that she’s not giving her family 100 percent. The only way you’d be so clueless is if you were in complete denial. BUT, that’s not to say that she doesn’t feel that what she’s doing is going to provide an even better life for them, for their kids, for their kids and generations on… there’s something to be said about making sacrifices now for huge change for the future.

But for your average working mom, that’s not what’s happening. And the support network that Palin has in place does not one iota resemble what that everyday working mom has to contend with. And the EXPECTATION should not be the same. It doesn’t even compare. And of course I realize that you can work and still be a good mom. But I also know that you can work and be a mom who is doing her best but is still leaving a lot to be desired in the parenting arena, whether you realize it or not. And I realize, too, that sometimes, these are the sacrifices that have to be made because food has to be on the table and a roof has to be over your heads. But I’m also saying that not talking about it and pretending that everything is perfect and fine — that’s not going to bring about any changes.

We have come a long way, but we need to keep going. When I was growing up, for example, and I lived with my dad and step-mom… there were a variety of tough things going on. I had lots of emotional problems, my mom was an alcoholic and I couldn’t live with her any more after the divorce, we had a big family (13 kids) that was just full of drama all the time… I could go on and on. My dad would leave the house before I ever woke up. He would get home many times after I’d gone to bed. My step-mom worked a split shift as a waitress and would be in bed or getting ready for work when I got up to go to school and would sometimes work till late in the evenings and I wouldn’t see her either. They were so tired when I did see them that they hardly had the energy to deal with me. I was the baby of the family so I’m not sure they had the energy left to deal with me anyway. On the weekends, she would still work or they would do housework, yard work or do their own thing. My dad was obsessed with our ginormous yard. It looked like a friggin’ golf course. His battle with moles is the stuff of legend. When I came home from school and let myself in the door (from about 2nd grade on) I was responsible for myself. I could wake up in the morning and roll off the side of my bed between it and the wall and my parents would think I’d gone to school. I could then go play in the woods all day long. Maybe that’s typical for a teen to do once in a while. No, I was doing this from 4th grade on. In 5th grade, I was in the office almost every day getting swats and I never did my homework. I was so clueless in math, so behind in it that when I looked at my assignments it was like trying to read a foreign language.

OK… my parents didn’t even know 99 percent of this stuff. And half the calls they got from the school they just ignored. Were my parents neglectful? Absolutely. But then how much choice did they have then when they had to stay afloat and my dad was an criminal defense attorney and could not cancel people’s court dates and he always had to be somewhere meeting with a client… and my stepmom would lose her job if she took time off to deal with me. This was the reality. Were they good parents? Actually, no. They weren’t. That is also reality. There was no one for me to talk to about my problems. No one told me about my period. No one explained the world to me. No one cared for me. No one noticed if I didn’t take a bath for a month. No one helped me recover from failing grades. No one noticed I had asthma or allergies. No one was happy to see me in the morning or at the end of the day. Hell, half the time I didn’t even see anyone so wouldn’t know if they were happy to see me or not.

I try to be forgiving and understanding when I look back at that time, but it’s not easy, really. I look at the sacrifices and I’m not sure what they were all for. They weren’t for me. I didn’t need that big house or those 8 acres of land. I didn’t need fancy lighting fixtures or a giant pond or a new Ford Mustang or plastic surgery or 50 trees to line the driveway. I needed an inhaler, an antihistamine and some help with my homework. I needed someone’s time.

I realize that my upbringing may not have been the most typical, but I know I’m not alone. And the more Burby parents can argue that they do get to spend time with their kids and that they do meet all their needs. Awesome. And other parents will argue that they may not meet all their needs but that they try their best. WooHoo. And there are other parents who are trapped in an existence that is so bleak, working two or more jobs or working and going to school and barely making ends meet and I don’t know what they will say… And I don’t know what to say to them. But I do know that what I won’t say is, “Hey, shut up. We don’t talk about this issue. You suck it up and deal with it because you’re a woman and this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

There are so many different levels here and to deny the level another person is on is just nuts. I realize I’m rambling at this point, but hey, like I said… it’s complex. And there is no black and white. And your life is not someone else’s life so you should reserve your meanness and harsh judgment… but you should never stop talking about it or scrutinizing it or rolling it over and over in your mind to try to figure out what it all means. Because there is no one truth to this all. And it’s certainly not anything at all like what you see on either end of the political spectrum. Take down your defenses and look deep down inside and think about what you really want for your life and what you really want for your kids, for your sons and daughters… for their friends and their friend’s mothers. And don’t ever stop talking about it.

Took Jacob to the Lab and doc yesterday. Nine vials of blood they took from his little body. And then one pneumococcal vaccine. It was just lovely. He was totally freaking out, but then was mostly calm during the actual process. He just has to watch, though, which I think makes it worse. He says it hurts worse when he’s not looking, though.

At one point, I was standing up while he sat in the chair… I had my arms around him and my head was sort of resting on his head. They were on about vial 3 and all of a sudden, I was wet. Why was I wet? I backed away from him and he had broken out in a sweat suddenly. He had beads of sweat all over his face and his hair was dripping. His shirt was soaked. I’ve never seen anything like it. He doesn’t sweat that much when he’s running around in the yard. His face got so pale and I thought he was going to pass out, but he held on till the end.

He laid down in a room and we talked about Big Brother for a bit until he felt well enough to go upstairs for the shot. We stopped at Starbucks and got some chamomile tea on the way through (this was all in the hospital area) and then headed to GameStop when it was all over. All was forgotten after that. Amazing how video games can wipe away all that trauma. Haha.

We traded in a bunch of old games and ended up getting like $130 bucks. He got some war games and I got Mario Party 8 for the Wii and Yoshi’s Story for the DS. Not that I need anything to distract me from work, but it is one of those things that winds me down after a long day…

So… now is the part of this whole thing where I do not worry about anything and I just calmly wait for his test results to come back. I’m sure that I will have enough to occupy my mind. He’s over at his dad’s now getting ready for school. He’s been over here nonstop, nights and days with no break since like February or March because of the MRSA risk at their house. It seems like that’s all cleared up now, so he can spend the nights over there, take baths, enjoy life… all that normal stuff that he’s been missing.

That I’ve been missing. Much as I love him (isn’t that every mother’s disclaimer when she’s about to say something she feels somewhat weird saying, guilty even?) I need a break sometimes. I know I’m not alone, either. I saw you out there, ladies. Shopping for school supplies and clothes. I saw that certain spring in your step and exchanged those secret, knowing smiles as we shopped together. School is starting again… and not all of us are sad about it.

I remember what it was like when he was starting kindergarten. First grade. So on. I was excited for him and all the things he was going to do, learn. I was also a sad and worried for him. I passed other mothers during drop-off, tears in my eyes.

Now he’s almost 13 years old. I am still excited for him and all the things he’s going to experience and learn. I am still sad and worried for him as well. But instead of dropping him off with a tear in my eye, I’m doing a little happy dance that I can go home and get some work done and have some peace and quiet for a while. Do a single task without interruption. Finish a thought. Take a long bath. Think.

And then there’s this cystic fibrosis thing freaking me out and it makes me feel even guiltier about those feelings. It makes me want to take him out of school completely and spend every minute with him as if it’s his last.

And then I have to snap out of it.

And wait. Because things are probably fine.

I’m so glad that I can have this struggle on the inside, though. It’s necessary, I know it is. But it’s not necessary that anyone else see it…

So, I did something recently that I’m feeling rather strange about. I quit school, basically.

I’m this close to the end and I threw up my hands and said, “I can’t do this any more.”

There are a number of reasons why I did it. It’s actually been something I’ve been thinking about doing since I fell off the roof. I mean, what better time to take care of myself than then? But instead, I did not do that. I took it a little bit slower, but basically kept plowing through. And then all these things started happening with Jacob and the surgeries and the changes in his diet and on and on happened… things I did not forsee. And so, for the last year or so, I think I have been slowly losing my mind.

I mean, there have been actual moments where I have questioned my sanity. Where I felt like I was close to a nervous breakdown or something. I just felt pulled so tight all the time and the only logical next step was to snap. And all the while I was doing that thing… that superwoman thing where you tell yourself that you’ve got your shit together and you can do anything you put your mind to and all that other bullshit that really just means you can be all things to all people but you won’t be worth a damn to yourself.

So, no. I cannot be all things to all people. I cannot handle all this stuff on my plate. I cannot do it all. For now, I have got to focus on my family, my work, my relationships and myself. I wrote to my adviser and let her know I was losing my mind dealing with everything and talked a bit about the stuff going on with Jacob (more on that later, it’s all getting weird with doctors and such) and she was cool and agreed that I need to focus on family stuff. School will be there whenever I’m ready to go back.

The other thing is work. I feel like… Due to the flexible nature of my job, I feel like there have been times when I have given it my all and really thrown myself into it. And I enjoy those times more than anything. But then when things come up like they have lately, I feel like my work suffers greatly. It’s the thing that can bend the most, so I let it absorb the shock of any trauma or stress in my life. I’m lucky to have such a job. But I really miss working. School was not allowing me much room for that. And it’s like, for years I’ve been trying to finish school and something always happens that cuts into it. But still, I keep chasing down this thing that I want to be. This future occupation or career or whatever. And suddenly, I’m like, “Why?” Why do I keep chasing down something else when what I really love to do is what I’m already doing? If I’d just DO IT already. Like, if I would just go on and really give myself to it…

I had the fortune to go to an event recently that was for other folks who do the same thing I do… actually two events. One was specifically for folks that work at About.com and the other was for mommy bloggers. And I talked to other folks who felt the same way I did. Folks who may also have other jobs and maybe right now they are asking themselves if they are ready to take the plunge and do it full time. Leave the day job behind and just do THIS. I talked to some people who had already taken the plunge and they talked about how scary it was to finally realize that they were writers and that they didn’t have paychecks that were written in stone but that if they dedicated themselves to it, they would make it just fine and maybe even be more than just fine. I talked to moms who were contemplating never going back to corporate America in favor of staying home with their kids and blogging their lives and interests. There are sacrifices to be made, for sure… trade-offs. But I think they might be worth it.

And I’m feeling so many things right now… Anxiety. Fear. Excitement.

But mostly I’m feeling this amazing sense of relief. Like this huge burden has been lifted and the pressure is gone. I feel refreshed. I’m sleeping better. I’m thinking more clearly. I don’t feel like I’m running around in a fog. I don’t feel like a time bomb about to go off. I feel like I can finally relax for a moment and maybe even enjoy a few parts of my life. Even though there are still stressful things going on and there’s still that element of chaos, I feel like I can handle it now.

for no good reason. It’s not like I was doing anything productive, because I had a headache from hell from no caffeine. (Although I did sneak a few sips of a Mexican Coke in with dinner… but that’s really just a drop in the bucket of caffeine I generally consume in a day…)

So, I don’t know if that Teeccino stuff does actually offer a natural “lift” or not. I don’t know what it was.

I’m going to Coldwater Creek today, which is not a creek but rather a clothing store. I found a blog post someone had made about it that indicates I will probably like their clothing:

“I know the niche market is 40 yr old female English professors who drive subarus, but who is to say that that won’t be me one day?!“

I’m almost 40. I was going to be an English professor till I changed my mind and now I’m going to be a Librarian. (ooooh, big change there!) And I am a writer… and I used to drive a Subaru. I miss it dreadfully, seat heaters and all…

Anyway, Jacob’s Ness (stepmom) was wearing this cute pink top the other night when I went to hang with Jacob and Jessen… had this tie in the front. Really cute. And then when I went to pick Jacob up yesterday, his math / social studies teacher had on a yellow shirt that was similar and also cute, same tie thing in the front… and I thought, “Where are they getting these cute shirts? I need one!” And then I actually said that exact thing out loud to his teacher and she said she got it at Coldwater Creek and that earlier in the day when Ness had dropped him off at school she said something about the shirt, too. Funny.

Anyway, the deal is, I got rid of all my dress clothes. Remember the purge? So, yeah, they were too small anyway and I haven’t worked in an office (except for my brief time at Citi) for over 12 years. I only kept nice clothes around when I worked at iVillage for those NYC trips and conferences and stuff. Working remotely has its benefits: sweatpants and hoodies.

So, now I’m going to an Austin conference for About.com… finally I can go and so far no one has gotten sick or died to change my plans. It’s casual and all, but my idea of casual is pretty casual and plus I’m getting a new guide photo. Yay. I think my hair has recovered enough from the busted arm-related chopping that I’ll be happy with the shot. And then I’m going to Johnson & Johnson’s Camp Baby in NYC (which has blown up into some nastiness, btw) and I have no idea what the atmosphere there is going to be. Business casual, I’d imagine. So, the point is — I have no clothes for this stuff. I only have my mom clothes. The rest is with the Goodwill.

The other problem with buying a few outfits to wear is that one event is in Austin (where 80+ degree weather has already started) and the other is in NYC (where there have been temps below freezing this last week). Ugh. In fact, I just looked at the weather and it might snow in NYC next week. Joy. So, I guess I will get whatever works down here and take a couple of sweaters with me to the deal up North.

Meanwhile, there’s a big redesign going down and I need to get my ducks in a row for that and if you think I’m caught up with school you’ve lost your mind. Great timing on going out of town. I couldn’t be spread thinner if a steam roller went over me. 50 times. The sad bonus to all this… my kid is in Guatemala. What irony that I’m a bit grateful that my kid is out of town so that I can deal with all this kid-related stuff. I’m also super happy he gets to take this trip because he’s going to see so much interesting stuff and have such a great time. But I have to tell you, when I dropped him off over at his Dad’s house and said Goodbye, I was saying, “HELLO!” to a long, uninterrupted stream of work and school.

Whatever, I’m so over mom guilt. I wish I could take new moms and fast forward their lives about 10 years so they can see that all the stuff they fret about and all that time they spend worrying that they are doing everything wrong is a waste. Guilt is crap. Just slow down and enjoy those years. I know it’s cliche, but it’s true: They grow up so fast.

Besides, there’s so much other guilt in the world to immerse yourself in… Like the guilt of taking one orange mommy cat and her kitten to the vet, finding that they both are sick with FLV (that’s why she was doing that weird little cough and why the kittens were dying) and then having to have them both euthanized. It’s a long story that I have partially drafted, but it’s really so painful I can’t finish. It’s been two weeks now and every night I still think about the sweetness of mama orange thing and just cry. Last night was particularly bad because my neck was hurting so I went for the heating pad… and I had used that pad to keep the kitten warm in the nesting box. So, I just sat there and bawled like a giant baby, thinking about her.

I can’t talk about it any more. I’m going to go get these clothes and then hurry back here so I can read, read and then… read some more.

So, I wish that over the years I’d been a smart mom and had written down all the funny things my kid has said. I thought I’d remember them all. Right. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.

Anyway — here’s a few:

Music Class — In his music class the teacher wanted them to all hold hands and sing a song. Now, why on earth a teacher would want these 6th graders to hold hands is completely beyond me. I personally think that kids can hold hands during songs until about 4th grade and then they can start it again about senior year. In the years between, no forced hand-holding should really be happening. It’s just awkward, embarrassing moments waiting to happen, no? Read the rest of this entry »

So…

I’m exhausted today.

And…

I hate to say it, but I can’t wait for school to start.

School for me, you might ask? No.

School for my kid. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I talked again to Ness after she emailed me to see if I could pick Jacob up tomorrow for a while after my “offer” and all…

So I called her and was like, no problem… and I reiterated that it was no problem to do every day and to think about it and told her that really, I was trying to help, that I knew how it was to have a baby and be trying to work and on and on about all the stuff that’s going on over there… and I said, really, if it’s one less thing for you to worry about, then let it be that.

And she was like, you know, I don’t ever want him to feel like he’s taking a back seat to the baby or feel like a “step-child” and all that… and so I was like, you know, then why not let me be the baddy here and handle the homework situation and then you guys can just not worry about it and do fun stuff together in the evenings and on the weekends you have him and whatnot…

I went on a little bit about the homework thing, and let her know that (without saying what Will told me about how he really feels) that he said he gets stressed out when they’re doing homework together because he feels so pressured to get it done fast, etc. And that’s true, he has said that on numerous occassions… and she knows she’s a clockwatcher. I am, too, I just am more laid back about it and he can’t tell I’m watching the clock. Plus I’m not juggling all that other stuff at that time.

So, I think she’s going to go for it, and that will be an ease on my mind, it will help Jacob and she will see that she treasures those few hours, I know. I mean, what parent doesn’t enjoy a few hours of a break? What parent doesn’t look forward to bedtimes or those moments when the world slows down a bit and they can put their feet up and wind down or have some adult time? Show me that parent and I’ll show you a medicine cabinet full of zoloft. or a liquor cabinet. Whichever you prefer. haha.

More in a bit… I have to write about not bitching and how it’s not good for my health… PTA is in an hour and I’m nekkid and have wet hair.

So, I have what may be the most wired, geeked out little house in the area. I mean, I can go sit in the “way back” of the yard and still work and surf till my heart’s content. I can hook the iBook up to the TV and we can all play text twist. I have wireless controllers for the Game Cube. We have four TVs. We have four computers. We have five webcams (none hooked up at the moment, but all of them could be. AT ONCE.) We have five video game systems. And on and on. There’s no end to the geeky stuff we can accomplish around here.

And I was thinking about all this as I washed the dishes today.

By hand.

Because we don’t own a dishwasher.

I know. It builds character, right?

Jacob is old enough, he’s almost 10. So, I should have him help me with the dishes, I know. I was doing dishes at a much earlier age, by hand, and we owned a dishwasher. But he is really the most clumsy child, and he comes by it naturally. I am all thumbs and two left feet and a complete and total spaz. We would not own dishes for long if that was his chore.

I mean, I broke a glass a day for the first two weeks after we moved. Which wasn’t such a bad thing considering the cabinet space is limited. I can now fit all the glasses we own (not including coffee cups) on half a shelf.

So I know he’d not fare much better.

I’ve really been slack with him when it comes to household responsibilities. I need to get better about that. I’ve been reading this article from Natural Family Online about giving kids chores, and I guess I’m not “sending an incredibly powerful message that I believe he is capable and I believe in him” since I haven’t assigned him regular stuff to do around the house.

I am going to work on this.

Meanwhile, somewhere I saw an ad that said, “Free Krispy Kreme Doughnut & Coffee when you join ClubMom Free Today!”

And I started to mentally count the number of e-mail addresses I could use to sign up for that.

Hmmm…

once upon a time… there was this girl…

well, you know, there was me. And I was young. And I was stupid. And I needed… something.

I do not even know if it is possible to even begin to tell the story of who I was then, what was really going on.

All I know is that, like many crossroads I have come to in my life… nothing was right. Nothing was right. Nothing felt right or good. My future seemed bleak. And when your future seems bleak, you don’t live for it. You live for whatever needs you have to meet right at that moment, and screw what the consequences are later on.

I was such a different person then. What was going through my head? Why was I so weak then?

As always in my life, I had no one. And I met a someone who wanted to be somebody in my life. This was nice. To have someone who wanted me. I was 17 at the time and he was 21. That may not seem like a huge age difference, just a few years… but think about it, you’re talking about a teenager and an adult. Someone who can’t even vote and then someone who can already buy beer.

I had absolutely no idea where I was going in life. I had already been without parental supervision for 6 years. From what I could tell, there wasn’t much more for me than that.

I was pretty innocent. Or maybe naive is the better word. Gullible is a good one, too. I didn’t know the first thing about what sex really was all about.

My God, I can hardly remember what that was like. I can’t remember what it was like when my body was basically untouched. I can’t remember what it was like to never have given birth, never have had a stretch mark, never have known what it was like to gain 80 pounds in nine months and then shed it all in 4 weeks. I had never known the pain of labor then… Imagine that. It’s so hard to do. How tender my skin must have been. How pink my nipples must have been. What a different outlook I must have had about life.

Anyway… I met this boy, and pretty soon, he became the center of my world. He was the only person who paid any attention to me at all. And he wanted it that way. I saw this slow development, but didn’t know really what it meant or how to stop it. He imagined all these things, that other guys were looking at me, that I was talking or flirting with them. He was possessive and didn’t like any of the people who I hung out with. So… I stopped hanging out with them. This was OK, because he gave me a lot of things in return. He made me feel like he was all I ever needed in the world. And then there came the point where he wanted to have sex with me, and I was pretty scared… so I held out as long as it seemed I could, and then he started pressuring me, saying that he would get it from someone else, that he would leave me, that… just lots of things. It was a different thing every time he wanted it.

I knew… or thought… or had some notion, of how I thought that it was supposed to be. Like… slow and special and all those things you see in movies with love scenes.

But it wasn’t at all. And I didn’t feel good at all.

And we didn’t use anything at all. No protection. It never even crossed my mind… I mean, I’d never had a reason to even think of it before.

And I got pregnant that very night. But a very long and hard month and a half went by before I ever even knew it.

Then he became rather violent. Manipulative and very controlling. Nearly every time that we saw eachother after that, something happened. After the sex, I wanted to leave him, but, he wouldn’t let me, and really, he was all I had, so where was I going to go? And he just… much like my father, he just broke me down and broke me down till I gave up trying to get away. He would hit me and choke me and tell me he was going to kill me. He would choke me till I felt like I was going to pass out and he’d tell me to promise that I would never leave him or he wasn’t going to let go. So I would.

Sometimes it was almost like a game. Sometimes it felt normal to me. Sometimes I felt like I just needed to be really submissive and deal with it. It makes sense to me now, because that is the role model I had of most of the women in my life.

Then he found out I was pregnant, and then he hit me and kicked me and basically left me alone behind a building’s dumpster where we were staying. I left to stay with my sister and he moved to Texas, back home with his mother. Left me completely.

So much in the world I didn’t know about life. Myself. How things are supposed to work, how people think they should work and then how they really do work. So much of my reality so different than the rest of the world I was living in. Not much in common with… anyone or anything. At least not much in common with anyone I’d want it to be with… if that makes any sense.

All of this seemed to be impossibly happening to me, and yet, there I was down in it.

And I had this whole pregnancy to deal with.

Everyone wanted me to deal with it, too. Suddenly all the people, like family, came out of the woodwork and started trying to make decisions for me. Abortion and such. I was young, after all. It’s OK when you’re young, right?

And no one would hire me to work.

And I was miserable and tired and emotionally wrecked and not finished with school.

And no one wanted me to live with them, no one wanted to help me because I wouldn’t have an abortion. No one wanted to help me raise this child. And I knew there was no way I could do it alone. I didn’t even have a place to live. I was alternating between staying some nights with my sister when I could, sleeping in my car, crashing with a friend when I could find one. I signed up for assistance and I was able to get prenatal care, free vitamins and all, and food stamps, which didn’t help me too much because I had no place to put food. My brother talked me into putting the baby up for adoption, basically, because he was an attorney and his wife a social worker and they said they would get me a place to stay while I was pregnant. And they did. Roach infested, tiny, cold apartment on the south side of town where it wasn’t safe to be outside after dark and where I had to wait in front of the mailboxes on food stamp day or someone would steal them. With a phone that I could only make local calls on. And in my quad there was a very judgemental woman with five million cats, 2 lesbian biker girls who did lots of partying and a guy, his common law wife and his two babies and he beat them all three incessantly.

This was how I lived. And I sat in that apartment and ate my $99 worth of tax-free food and watched my 14-inch black and white TV that picked up three channels and read whatever books I could scavenge. And I wrote. (unfortunately, in a fit of anger and disgust, I burned everything I wrote some months after she was born thinking I would never want to remember those days, thinking I could somehow forget it all.)

And I had a cat. And a lot of roaches. And I washed my clothes in the tub and hung them to dry. And I got my maternity clothes at a thrift shop with the change that I had leftover from when there was a dollar I didn’t fully spend of my food stamps. My brother’s girlfriend brought me a big box of maternity clothes one day and I thought I was in heaven!

I’m pretty sure that my brother made a significant amount of money dealing with the “legal side” of giving up my baby. In looking back, I think I would have liked being taken care of during that time a little better. Some counseling would have been nice. In fact, this was one of the agreements that we made. I specifically told him that if I ever felt like I needed to go to the shrink, that I wanted help paying for that. That never happened.

Anyway… Six months or so of my life… every day. Just like that. Just me, my cat (fly he was named, because he thought he could) and my mangled up body and the baby inside me that was making it all so. And the drunk phone calls from David telling me how he loved me and wanted to be with me (and then five minutes later telling me how he bet I was screwing entire city blocks of men in my spare time just to spite him and how he was gonna kill me and cut the baby out of me and take it home if he ever got back to Oklahoma) and that was about it.

I was three weeks overdue when I finally lost my plug and went to the doctor to get checked. I was dilated to a four when I got there. He told me to drive to the hospital. I did. Alone. I had my first hard contraction on the way. In 7-11. (elevens?) In spite of the fact that I’d been neglected, forgotten, belittled, beaten, and bruised at the hands of others throughout my life… nothing was like this pain. And I arrived at the hospital. Alone. And I checked in and I was dilated to a seven. And my contractions started coming hard. And I called my sister, and later my entire family showed up and made me miserable throughout the next two hours. They gave me demoral for the pain but it made me sick and out of control and didn’t relieve the pain at all. And I got my head stuck between the bars of the bed and they had to slather my head with vaseline to get it out. And finally they gave me an epidural. And I was so high from the demoral, and so numb and couldn’t move. Trapped like an animal. And everyone was talking and I could hear them… talking about how I wasn’t keeping the baby. Everyone was wondering if I would chang my mind. (She won’t. She doesn’t even want it. She can’t raise a baby on her own. I’m not helping her, that’s for damn sure. Do the parents know she’s in labor? She wants to see the baby, can’t we stop her? I know she’s 18 and they have to let her do what she wants, but can’t we do something? Maybe they could keep it in the nursery, just let her see it for a few minutes. She’s so high now maybe she won’t remember it. Are they gonna let you take the baby before she gets released? Talk to the doctor and see if you can. How long are you gonna pay for that apartment for her? You think she’ll be able to work pretty soon?) I just laid there, I guess everyone thinking I was asleep… just listening to it all.

My own family saying all this…

So casually they discussed what was my misery, my misfortune, my bad situation…

What about me?

And then I felt like I needed to push, and I did for a long time it seemed, but it couldn’t have been, because from the time I checked in to the time she was born was only 5 hours.

She ripped through me so completely. I couldn’t even hold her because they were so busy sewing me up. Forever and ever it seemed he worked on me. Left me in stirrups with a lamp on me to dry and tighten my stitches. 45 or so of them, inside and out. Muscle that had to be reconstructed… groups of students coming in and out to look at the job he’d done while I just laid there, drugged, alone.

And then my family left. And I slept. And they brought her to me in her little glass bassinet and I held her and told her she was Victoria Nicole. And that I was sorry. And that I would miss her. And that I loved her. And…

I’ve never told a soul this in my entire life… In fact I’ve even denied it outright to anyone who has ever asked… but I nursed her that first night, just for a moment. And I soaked her little gown with my tears while I did. And I felt like her mommy. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to stop it all. So I didn’t.

I bucked up and smooshed it all down inside me, and outwardly became so cold and detached. This changed me forever. It changed who I had been. More of an INFP, really, but now I had to stop with all that F. It was time to trade that in for a mechanical, hardened T if I was ever going to survive this.

The drugs helped with that a lot. And they gave me a phenomenal amount of them.

And then I stayed with my brother for a while, while I was “healing.” Physically I guess. I wanted to talk to someone, a shrink or something, but he wouldn’t pay for it and I couldn’t afford it, and my medicaid was gone since I was no longer pregnant, only my postnatal check-up would be covered.

And then.

Some things happened (one of eleven) that I can’t talk about. It’s the thing that I’ve never been able to talk about. That I’ve never told a soul. Except that I wrote it down one time, recently, when I had to fill out questionnaires to see the shrinks this last time I felt like I needed something for my depression.

And it was the first time ever. and since.

But I find myself wanting to talk about it all. But it just reinforces all the badness that is my life. And I don’t know if it’s part of what keeps me like this. And I don’t know if it’s not. And I don’t know if it’s better in or if it would be better out.

And I’m scared to even say it. And I think, if I never do, then maybe I can pretend it’s not even real.

And sometimes I feel absolutely crazy, and it’s no damn wonder. What a mess. What a mess it all is. And what a mess followed it all. preceded it all.

Why would I think that things would ever be different for me?

And the adoptive parents of Alex just wrote me to tell me that his adoption was just finalized. And while that was a different situation, a different thing… it feels bad, too.

I’m just so so damaged. Some days I feel like I will just never be OK. And because I will never be okay, I can never… have anyone for me. Have anything for me. Have any rest. Have any peace.

I’m just so so flawed and damaged.

Some days I feel like I’m too tired to go on with it any more. I’m too tired to wonder how to stop hurting.

Trick or treat? Well, Jacob’s chicken pox are no treat… I’ll tell ya that much. I didn’t take him out for the festivities, he was pretty grumpy and has never been too cooperative about trying on the cosumes, so no biggy. We stayed home and ate way too many “butterpups” as Jacob calls peanut butter cups. I wonder if this is going to be a holiday he enjoys. I really haven’t ever liked it. It always loooomed over my birthday as a kid and I hated that. I’ve sworn to myself that I won’t let that happen with his birthday. Well, I’m headed for bed to lay with the itchy monster.