Blogging My Way to Sanity

Nobody really told me growing up would be hard. I mean, who in their right minds will tell you that your family can be toxic at times and on top of that, in order to get some peace in your life, you need to cut out the things that don't bring you peace. Go figure, the real treasure hunt begins trying to determine just that. It sounds simple yet when it involves your family it's not easy, at times its heart wrenching, but in order to have some sort of harmony in my life I needed to determine what causes me so much grief.

I am forty-five, yes, forty-five years old folks and I am coming to terms with my life in order to move on to the next step: FUN. In the next ten years, both my boys will be gone to college; at least those are MY plans. I will have a home to myself with my love and I want to enjoy life to its fullest. This is not to say, I will have a naked room like in the movie "Failure to Launch" but I will have more time on my hands to do the things I want to do. In order to get there, I need to clear up a few matters in my life that bog me down. It's funny how a couple months at home, without a job, gets you thinking, in my case, I can say the past ten years came to a head in the last couple months. And I seen the trees in the forest so clear it was breathe taking.

As a result, I can say with certainty is that everyone at one point or other experiences challenging times with a family member(s). In my case, I am not in the clear when it comes to this and that's my point. There is no real immunity when it comes to strife in a family the real choice in the matter is either continue engaging in it or get the hell out for the sake of your sanity. And that's where my friend Olive's advice comes in, her line "love them from a distance" does make life more pleasurable.
So, I love from a distance now and I am happy in my mostly peaceful life. To end today's blog on the side of humour, one of my favourite sayings "Family is like fudge, a whole lot of sweetness with a few nuts in the mix." Have a wonderful day and enjoy.


 

 

Did I Hate High School?

Before I answered the question, I will say this about high school because one day my sons may read this blog post. High School was one important and vital step in my future and the main reason I am sitting here writing. But I didn't always like high school, like most teenagers around the age of 14 or 15 you get this bright idea you don't need school and would rather do anything but get up in the morning and go.

Take me for instance, in grade 9 I wanted to quit school and join a commune type camp in upstate New York. I spent a summer or two hanging out with friends at this very rustic abode. Some of my friends' parents left their life behind to sleep in crammed quarters very similar to a youth hostel. My friends didn't attend school and spent much of each day doing nothing. I thought this was utopia with cute guys and good friends but my parents had other ideas.

One day shy of the new school year, my uncle came by to pick me up to my horror. When I got home, my dad was at our house which was odd because my parents were divorced and we only seen my dad occasionally. A united front. I remember crying and begging my parents to let me go back to no avail. I sat on my front porch in complete defiance sobbing and every few minutes saying mean things to them. I thought conventional schooling sucked, I wanted the Bohemian education offered at the semi-commune camp that my friends were at.

At the time, my dreams were to become a full time Bohemian and fall in love with a cute Bohemian guy. We would marry and live on the land and just love each other. I had no concept of money but it didn't matter, my idealistic lifestyle would sustain me. I dreamed of days of complete bliss with my then boyfriend. He spent most of his life doing this with his parents, he didn't go to high school and couldn't read, I later found out the same was true for most of my friends at the camp. Most struggled to get an education later in life realizing its importance. While they got an education I was already working and complete mine.

But parents really knew best, by then I think being the sixth child they knew my anger would pass and it did. By the end of the week, I was back in the normal grove of high school and went on to graduate making my parents proud, even more so when I went to university. So, I will say all kids hate high school at some point and it's normal but to chuck it completely is a disaster. As for life as a Bohemian I still retain some of the free spirited ways.

Aha Moment

It's always so incredible to me when I figure things out on my own. It's Aha moments that really make life interesting and put things into perspective. In writing the last section of my book, I hit a wall and each time I attempted to pick up where I left off in my novel, my mind would go blank. It's not a new occurrence for me rather it's like an old childhood friend you bump into unexpectedly.  As I aided my creativity with Twitter and Facebook entries, I listened to a morning talk show.  Then in an instant I thought of the word lack and Googled - Something you think you need.  I got 1.2 millions hits but this one stood out for me:

"Something that you think you need, perhaps actually is no good for you. So pray for something that is the best for you to come." taken from QuoteMyDay.com



I just figured out something about myself that really ties together so much of my life, per se. I figured something you think you need really may not be in your interest. And maybe I should consider that my pursuit of something superficial can be bad for me.  Now, I must focus on what is good for me,  I am not even sure you will understand it but that was my Aha moment of the day.



Keep it coming.


 

 

 

Sisters

Sisters always close to my heart no matter how many miles apart.

End of the World, yeah right, maybe as we know it

I remember watching a documentary years ago on the Jehovah Witness' included was their prediction the end of the world to be something like June 21^st, as the cults members prepared for the world to end, the leaders based in Brooklyn made a huge fortune cashing on real estate holdings. But the day came and went with no big catastrophe and life went on and their END OF DAYS prediction garnered little or no publicity.

Today, we have this guy Harold Camper a former engineer turned prophet claiming Judgment Day is tomorrow May 21, 2011. Like Y2K, it's a sham. One of my sisters fell very bad for Y2K, spending enormous amounts of money on supplies that would last her for two years. She spent one month canning 200 cases (4800 jars) of tomatoes. For six months, all that came out of her mouth was how the world was going to crash, how satellites would fall from the sky. The best I did was buy a flashlight and stay on the computer well past mid-midnight.

It leads me to thinking what makes people latch on to such extreme things. There has to be something going on in their life that propels them to believe such nonsense and the only people they work up is themselves.

What are you doing on Judgement Day? Me, I will be bringing my son to his lacrosse practice and making dinner. Enjoy.

Shriver “ed” II

In yesterday's blog I made reference to the Terminator messing around with the maid, assuming household staff really meant household staff I wrote a maid. Spot on. But no one is right when people are hurting especially when children.

And really does it matter? A cheater is a cheater, infidelity is infidelity.

I guess my point is that I know what Maria is feeling minus the onslaught of the press. Yes, I am a woman of scorn. You are hurt and really want to believe the guy when he says it was a lapse of judgement. Worse when it's a series of lapses than you know it's time to remove yourself. I empathize with her and her children.

Maria Shriver does not strike me as the meek woman but someone who will stand up with her head held high while moving forward. Kudos to her.

Shriver “ed”

I just knew there was so much more to Maria Shriver's split from the terminator. I woke in the middle of the night tossed and turned and finally flipped on my ITouch to read Twitter.

As I lay in bed at 4:30 am scrolling through my tweets, I quickly scanned an astrology woman talk about something about Scorpio's presence in the planets. I didn't quite get that part be understood when she referenced the recent problems sex scandal problems with that French politician in New York City. Much has to be said about astrology, even for the naysayers.

As my Twitter feed got closer to real time, I saw a tweet from the Huffington Post about Mr. Terminator having a love child. I opened the link and viola the article was from the Los Angeles Times stating the child was conceived with the housekeeper ten years ago. My heart sank as I thought of Maria and her children. What a dog, what a dog. And what about the other child? Nice one Arnie, I bet you didn't think of that when you were boinking the maid.

Maria, run fast and far from this man, that's all I can say.

A Million Little Pieces

Despite what the world thinks, including my favourite Oprah, I still find "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey one of the most riveting books ever read. I found this book at Costco and from the moment I picked it up, Frey's account of his journey through drug addicted captivated me. It took me about two days to read his book and I left me in awe of his craft of writing such a true gritty account his life.

As the book made the Oprah Book Club, I felt proud to have read it along side Oprah but the main reason the book grabbed my interest was what propelled Mr. Frey into sobering up. I am sure it affected others, who like me have a family member who suffers from drug and/or alcohol abuse. I could never really understand why my brother chose to do drugs. I could not grasp what made him not get clean. "A Million Little Pieces" was my tour guide into the life that holds so many people hostage, including my brother, so despite Oprah's public scolding, James Frey still remains an excellent writer.

I loved his candour so much I purchase his next book "My Friend Leonard" and was not disappointed. But what I think does not matter in the literary arena or on the pages of public opinion and definitely not on Oprah. With this said, the public lashing Oprah did do on him was her way of getting redemption in the press for promoting a book that was not vetted properly by her staff or the publishers. In the end, James Frey paid the price like so many people did, even Oprah in her Texas beef lawsuit.

As "A Million Little Pieces" makes the headlines again, I hope that more people read it and come away with a better understanding of the personal struggles one goes through to come out on the other side clean. I am glad to see James Frey is still a great person and still writing.

Scorn

Scorn:  open dislike and disrespect or derision often mixed with indignation.

 

Today, as I scrolled through my Facebook page, I caught a glimpse of this guy, let's call him Arnie, from my hometown in someone's status post. When I seen his picture immediately what came to mind was a comment he made to a mutual friend about his ex wife. It loosely went something like "God, my wife was never happy, she was miserable all the time!" Our mutual friend told me of his comment and I responded that it was probably the scorn of a woman who was cheated on that he confused with misery. The remark caught my friend off guard and the topic was dropped. It's funny how men and women differ on the topic of infidelity.

Scorned women are everywhere, if they wore a letter "S" on their sleeve the world would be in a sea of S's dangling from their shirts. Malls would be filled with fashionable ways to wear your heart on your sleeve, cell phones sleeves would retail clever "S" on the jackets or instead of the letter C on handbags S would replace it. But a scorn woman rarely goes public with such flagrant news. Most women are so hurt from the betrayal that it's almost never goes beyond their closest of friends. As for a man, well they just don't see it that way, for most it was a sexual thing with very little emotions and they don't view it as really cheating because they still love their wives.

If you leave scorn to fester it becomes a breeding ground for unhappiness and contempt. Look at Maria Shriver or Shania Twain who both recently left their marriages due to infidelity, albeit, in Ms. Shriver's case it's speculated. But I seen a photo of Maria that had unhappiness written all over it and I watched her odd YouTube video on "Transitions" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sux6hjX_7iQ) and chuckled because she didn't come right out and say she was separated but you could read into her message.

In the past couple of years, I have seen so many scorn women on television stand by their man as they confessed their infidelities to the world, most popular amongst U.S. governors and Eliot Spritzer. So popular, The Good Wife appeared on T.V. as a show that follows a scorn woman who stands by her man, a fallen politico, and her inner battles as she digests her husband's indiscretions.

So before one can comment on another person's misery or unhappiness, you should looked beyond the obvious and see if in fact your opinions add up. And maybe before you tell friends about your wife's shitty attitude make sure she's just not angry over your infidelities.

Angered Mom hits husband over the head with a pot!

I read a funny article today about a woman in Staten Island, NY who hit her husband in the head with a pot for not buying her a Mother's Day present. Ouch. Old family lore has it that an aunt hit her husband over the head with a wrench because he didn't come home all night, hence her nickname "The Wrench." What pushes a woman over the edge? I think it's simple, feeling under appreciated.

I remember while in labour for my first son, my husband brought me my Christmas gifts in bed. He bought me a new faucet for the kitchen sink and a set of cheap steak knives. If it were not for the contractions and impending birth of my son, I am not sure what I would have done. But I did feel so underappreciated I wanted to cry. Months later, while dining with friends, the wife and I got to talking about the worst gifts we ever received and I brought up the faucet gift.

Later that night, my husband told me he overheard the conversation and now he worried our friends would think he was cheap. Dah. I told him he was. I was the mother of his son and all he could buy me was a new faucet! Livid, I told him "either put your heart into choosing a gift for me or don't bother." Well, not much came of that conversation for years.

Then I got smart and took on a new motto "You get what you give." And that worked like a charm because forgot to get me a gift for Mother's Day the next year and I forgot to get him a Father's day gift. He was so hurt and dismayed saying it was the worst Father's Day ever. Let me just say that until two days ago it worked out great. Like my last birthday he bought me a new laptop to my delight. But this year nodda!

No pots or wrenches went flying in any direction because my sons showered me with love and appreciation all day long and some special gifts too. That in itself is why God created children.

Doing the Right Thing is sometimes F"?%$ing hard

It was not until late last month did I finally do the right thing regarding my incessant lack of will power to open my big mouth and stand up for myself in regards to a family issue. Yes, at 45 I still allowed people treat me as a doormat rather than a sister, an aunt, a wife and at times a mom (not very often).

I found it hard to discern the fine line between compassion and doormat. Actually, most of my life is strewn with reckless abandonment for my own needs but high priority on those of others. I did not see beyond putting other people first and in most cases doing what others asked of me.

As most can attest, there is always a straw that breaks the camel's back and my camel's back broke last month under the heavy weight of so-called "family" obligations. I stood outside the box and looked in realizing I didn't like what I saw. Shocked is more accurate to my summation and I could not live one more day like this. Just for your sake, there is really more drama to this than I care to get into.

I put my foot down in a big way very quietly, if that is at all possible. I had lengthy conversations with my sisters about this over the years but never really did anything bold about it until last month. I spoke in earnest to Cece, my younger sister, who whole heartedly agreed with me. Although, I think she lives vicariously through my actions perched on her fence and I respect that.

As my new found courage and action slowly swept through my family, it made people uncomfortable and uneasy, including me. This is new for me as it is for my sisters and its heart wrenching and debilitating at times if I allowed it to be. Mostly, I am proud of myself for standing my ground and that's very comforting.

And now to my point, nobody tells you it's hard to do the right thing, not that I was asking but sh*@. For a newbie, being a doormat is calmer and passive, being a person who does the right thing is harder but in the end it's definitely more satisfying and a great part of life. Here's to doing the right thing. Cheers.

Happy Mother’s Day

I lost my mom in college, now 24 years later I still think about her on a daily basis, especially with Mother's Day approaching. Like many women who lost their mom, I felt alone and wandered through life for years. I found solace and comfort whenever I spoke with women her age (She died at 54), her friends, and especially with other women who lost their moms. They understood the hollow, emptiness a woman feels without mom.

Her absence was extremely painful when I became a mom, I wished for her guidance and her hand to hold me when labor labored on. Just her touch, I knew would cure the pain of contractions but she didn't arrive by miracle instead my beautiful son did.

But she lives inside me in some ways and that I hold dear to my heart. I apparently have her round face and God was gracious enough to bless me with her age spots, lol.

Quite frankly, you are blessed if you still have your mother with you today and tomorrow, I will celebrate her for simply being my mom with memories. Happy Mother's Day.