Crazy Train

I'm standing at the station of the crazy train. My MIL who requires so much explanantion is suddenly (after 4 years) concerned that she doesn't have a place in her son's family. My suspicion is that she has finally figured out that I will not engage in her mind games, that I will turn around, shut down, leave altogether and take my daughter (her "granddaughter" by biology but not anything else) with me. She is also about to lose the last foothold she has into our lives, the house she and my partner jointly bought.

I finally said F-it, in the midst of the falling real estate values, in spite of it having been my daughter's home for her whole short life, regardless of loving the town and the neighborhood and getting to say I live on an island, I finally said, let's GO! Over the last year my partner's mother has engaged in the most manipulative emotional blackmail and I just couldn't take it any more. She's financially set, living in a completely paid for multi-million dollar home, stocks, rental units, social security and a pension. She decided that she wanted her "half" of the equity in the place we were living in. The place that, almost a decade ago, (before I entered the scene) she and her son shared a downpayment on. Since that day, she hasn't paid another penny. Most unfortunately she is on title as a joint tenant. And since her original demand last year she's vacillated between demanding "her half" and telling my partner that she plans to put her share into a family trust and it would go to him upon her demise (which couldn't happen soon enough says the bitter woman I'm becoming). Someone had to stop the madness.

Maybe she fears losing her baby boy. She won't. He's incredibly forgiving and tolerant. I'm not.

What she should have gotten a whiff of is that I came from crazy, lived with and survived crazy, rejected crazy in my own mother, with whom I have chosen to not have a relationship. She's never met her granddaughter, I haven't seen her in 20 years, haven't spoken to her in longer than that. She was physically and emotionally abusive and when I escaped I made the decision to not go back. As a result of my upbringing, I have an acute aversion to crazy and drama queens. My partner's mother is both.

A mother's love

My almost 4 year old daughter is now re-potty trained. On on outing this weekend she insisted on going to the bathroom by herself and locking the stall door in a public restroom. Against my better judgement I relented. Naturally when she tried to unlock the door she was unable to do so and proceeded to panic. I reassured her through the door, tried to coax her into continuing her attempts at unlocking it and after several tries, gave up and crawled on the floor (ugh!) into the stall to free her. Several women in line commented that my action was a true demonstration of love. And I laughed and flippantly said, "A mother's love knows no bounds." And while I inherently believe that same love should extend to all other living things, I can't say for certain that I would be so generous with a stranger. Would you crawl under a public bathroom stall to free someone you didn't know?

Message to my nephew who got 2 puppies

Drew & Savanna- Y'all have let the Texas heat go to yer brains, child! Whaddaya thinkin'???? Cute, sure. Mischievous, you betcha. But they's gonna grow up to be TWO BIG SMELLY, HAIR SHEDDIN' FLATULATIN' POOPIN' beasts!!! Y'are crazy!!!
Seriously, they are too cute. And now you have a reason to keep your jobs, never leave the house without them, wake every morning at the crack of dawn when THEY decide they want out and generally turn your lives over to a being that has a brain 1/4 the size of yours but somehow knows more!!
And remember when they chew the remote and your shoes and the CDs you left out, and when they dig up the entire acre of plants you spent ALL weekend digging and planting, and when they tear holes in the screen door cuz they want out, they don't mean to be bad, they just can't help themselves.
And everyone lies. Dogs are not "just like having kids." Dogs you can leave outside all day (unless you live somewhere godforsaken, like Texas), dogs will be OK if you forget to feed them once or twice. Dogs will self-entertain for a long, long time. Dogs will not pretend to be potty trained then change their mind, while they are sitting in your lap. Dogs will not make you get up 6 times in the night for months at a time. Dogs do not have an uncanny ability to know when you are really in a hurry and stage a meltdown 5 minutes before you are about to walk out the door. Dogs don't projectile vomit down your front and back & sides, leaving you to wonder how a stomach so theoretically small could possibly hold that much. Dogs won't say to their teacher "Mommy hit me." Dogs don't announce during a quiet moment, "That man has a penis. He has a penis. HE HAS A PENIS, doesn't he momma????!!!" Dogs won't ever say that the busboy is "ugly" leaving you to wonder in which plate he's going to hok a huge looey. Dogs don't turn into teenagers, they just get old and start behaving like your parents- whining and arthritic. Insisting that they must stay right next to you every moment you are around.
Congrats! And, get them and you trained. I think you're going to need it!!

Does the Y chromosome make you unable to think about others?

My partner travels about 50% of the month. It's OK with me for several reasons. One is that he has ADD so whenever he is gone I can be as compulsive and obsessive as any mother of a 3 year old is allowed. The surprises are reduced significantly (as in Surprise! The milk was left out all night long (again), or Surprise! The flame on the stove has been left on all day or Surprise! There's no more (insert common household item here) and you'd better get creative cause you still need to pack a lunch). The possibilities are endless. The second reason is that I've been pretty self-sufficient and independent for a long time and grew up in a household with a parent present only about 25% of the time. And thirdly he is an absolute slob. So when he said that he'd agreed to put up his 16 year old twin nieces for 3 weeks in our already overcrowded 1100 square foot house I was understandably reticent. The week & the weekend before their arrival he was out of town. I caught a monster cold and had no relief for a full 7 days, plus had looming pressure of important deadlines at work and no way to get any extra time in at the office. I was, understandably, stressed. I had asked for the schedule for this 3-week-visit about a dozen times (not an exaggeration, this is life with someone with ADD, you can ask, but you are unlikely to receive) and had not had a chance at all on the weekend to get any groceries in the house. So I left work a little early on Monday hoping to get a few things done before the arrival of the nieces and he calls me while I'm in the car to say that he's going to get dinner ready for the girls & was planning to put chicken on the grill & then head to Trader Joe's for food for them for the week. I reminded him that I'm a vegetarian and probably wouldn't eat the chicken and asked what he was planning to get for his family for the week. Nothing- this is just a trip for the girls. Then my eyeballs exploded out of their sockets and I saw red and just lashed into him. How inconsiderate. And I was reminded of an evening at the end of a long weekend when he & I and our 12 month old were at the grocery store and I was so very tired I coul barely think and he walks up to me & announces that he's found something for himself, we can go now. He just presumed that the kid's menu was my responsibility, like he assumed that it's my job to make sure there is food in the house for the family and despite him making dinner, he wasn't about to make the effort to make something that we all (including me) could eat. Just didn't occur to him at all. Is it the ADD? Is it the y chromonsome? I checked in with my sister and she said her husband does the same thing. Comes home with a bag of groceries for himself, without calling to see if she needs anything at home. Her husband doesn't have ADD, but he does have the Y chromosome...

Dear Joan Letter

Dear Joan,

My daughter, your son's daughter, is now at an age where she asks a lot of questions. She is completely observant of her world and capable of expressing many facets of emotion. Your presence is confusing to her. Who is this woman who periodically shows up at my house? Why doesn't she engage with me? Why is my mom so tense when she comes? Momma, did she hurt your feelings? She doesn't know you as a grandmother, she doesn't know you as part of her world. Do I answer her questions honestly, " This lady is not our friend. In addition to being a bitter, jealous gossip who spreads lies (yes, Joan everyone you complain to about me tells Greg what you have said, your daughter included, and he shares everything with me), on the 3rd day of your life she passed out drunk with you in her arms, she is abusive to her grandson and she is an inconsiderate, narcissist who is unable to relate to another person. She is too self involved to be trusted with a child. And if that isn't enough to convince you, she is happy to see your home, all that you have known for your short life, taken away from you in her fit of greed and vindictiveness."

I think you will agree that it's best for everyone if you just stay away from my child and home. You were allowed in on Saturday as a nod to Shannon, who probably doesn't know how horrible you truly are, but I'm not feeling so forgiving any more as I see what your presence does to my child.

Protection

To what ends would you go to protect your child? I use the train analogy frequently, "I'd throw myself in front of a moving train..." but it's scary that the real example is that I wouldn't knowingly put her in the presence of an abusive person. Not knowingly. Not in the mix of a large or small crowd. Not at all. My daughter's paternal grandmother (if you can call her that) is abusive. She's emotionally and verbally abusive to me, horrible to her third grandchild, whom she openly hates & belittles and is emotionally abusive to both of her 2 children. So that is why I refuse to let her near my 3 year old daughter. My own mother didn't afford me this level of protection, and whether it was intentional or accidental, I can't forgive her this oversight. From the time I was 10, she threw me out. She did this frequently, asserting that I was a "piece of shit" and she couldn't take another minute of my presence in her house. I'd usually go to my grandmother or aunt & uncle who lived about 4 hours away. They were hellish car rides with my mother spewing every kind of vile thought my way. Interestingly she didn't ever lash out at my 2 sisters, one older and one younger, in this particular way. One summer, I might have been 11 or 12, she took me to my grandmother's, who lived in new Jersey. This summer my grandmother was staying at the shore with her brother-in-law Joe & his wife Fran. My mother stopped for gas and as she was filling up she warned me, "Don't be alone with your Uncle Joe." I didn't understand why and must have asked, but have no recollection of this part of the conversation. Perhaps I knew better than to engage & just accepted her advice. But I distinctly recall the warning. I got to my grandmother's, we headed to the shore and I wanted to go to the beach. Of course the 2 old ladies didn't want to go, so Uncle Joe volunteered to take me. We weren't technically alone, since we were heading to a very public place and I REALLY wanted to go to the beach. So we went & I must have swam in the ocean and played in the sand, but I don't remember any of that. I only remember the walk back to the cottage & Uncle Joe says, "Give your Uncle Joe a kiss." And, of course, having been indoctrinated in the school of respecting your elders and kissing old ickky people, I complied. And as soon as my lips met his, his tongue shot down my throat and his hands were all over my budding breasts. I knew it was wrong. Amazingly, at this age I'd done enough petting and stopping short of sex to know what sex actually was. And I knew that I had been told not to be alone with him, and I'd done it anyway & so I was at fault. I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't be rescued. Once again, I was on my own. And somewhere in my 30s it occurred to me that it wasn't my fault at all. My mother fed me to this wolf- this pedophile- this asshole. How could you put your CHILD in this position and expect them to come out OK?

So I have a not of sensitivity and, perhaps, drama, when it comes to this stuff. And I won't EVER let my child be in the presence of a known abuser. No matter what.

Cake me out of the bathroom

I have made more cakes/cupcakes from a box in the last 3 years than I have over the last 20 due to the presence of my daughter. Not that I make them frequently, but 2x/year is still a HUGE increase for me. The last time I made cupcakes I was overwhelmed by the smell of the cake batter, so I gave it a little taste, then another and another. It was calling my name and I ate many spoons full of the stuff. Fortunately there were no witnesses to this act of complete gluttony, most fortunate of all my daughter did not see this behavior. And I did have sufficient batter left over to make a enough cupcakes for her class. Today I walked into the restroom at work and the cake batter smell hit me full on. They have changed the deodorizer and it smells exactly like cake batter. I want a big creamy bowl of the stuff and a spoon. I'm obsessed, feeling deprived and jonesing for the batter. What is in cake batter that makes it so alluringly good? Someone suggested vanilla, but I know the smell of vanilla, and while it's intoxicating, it's not addictive.

the hard questions

The other day my daughter (3.5 yo) asked me what god was. I don't believe in god, but think it's up to each individual to make his or her own decisions about religion and spirituality. So I asked her what she thought god was and she replied, "Daddy says it's the man in the sky." My reaction was hard to conceal, I was irritated that he'd given her that kind of BS answer and insulted that he decided to tell her that god was a man. I explained to may daughter that no one really knows if god is a man or woman or something in between, since no one has ever seen god and that we would continue this discussion when Dad was around to explain his answer a little more completely. He came home and I asked him about it. He said he initially told her that god was an omnipresent being, but, being 3, she didn't understand, so he dumbed it down to "man in the sky." Trying to provide my own perspective, I told my daughter that I thought god is like santa claus or the easter bunny or spider man, they are all characters who have been made up to explain a story. She asked if we had the story of god in the house. I said no, but we could look for one this weekend. Sigh...

My friend relayed a story about her hard question this week from her 4.5 yo daughter who asked what "this" was and pointed to her nipple. My pal said, "nipple." "No" her daughter explained, "the stuff around the nipple." "Oh that's your breast" "What's in it?" "Well, there is muscle and tissue..." "TISSUES???!" "No, not kleenex, but, ah, like the stuff in your arms." "What do they do?" "When you grow up they will grow and you'll wear a bra, like mommy, to support them and be more comfortable (and my friend clued me into her internal narrative of 'lie, lie, lie' regarding the comfortable part) and then when you're a mommy (and I interjected with 'when you're 35') they bring milk to the baby to feed him or her."

I so want my child to be curious and bright and know everything she needs to know to survive and not make the same stupid mistakes I made, but how do I see into the future to know whether she will need something like religion to get her through? When do you tell them the bad things and how do you know you've told them enough? These are the hard questions, I think. And what I really want is the wisdom of my grandmothers to guide me on this, but, alas they're gone, and I wasn't smart enough to really pick their brains while they were alive, as if I'd remember any of it anyway. This is why you need a mother and/or father who is around, to help answer some of these questions. It's why I need to take great care of myself, so I don't abandon my daughter the way my mother abandoned me. So she has someone to talk to about the stuff you don't give a lot of thought to anymore.

Baggage

My partner's mother is a pathological liar and a narcissist. She turned 70 last year but didn't want her kids to throw her a party because she didn't want to have to admit to being 70. She's told her friends she's 65 or something.

My own mom wasn't a shining example of loving kindness or sanity, so I have to admit I have been on the lookout for a mom substitute. When my father's girlfriend moved in with my dad, my sister and I (I was 15 and my sister 13), I thought this might be an opportunity to get a mom, but she was, "done raising kids and certainly not interested in raising 2 teenage girls." So she made a lot of noise about wanting to move out for several months and I finally started packing her stuff for her. My father was appalled, but in retrospect, I had obviously reached my limit on letting these women in only to be let down and needed to find some way to feel in control of the situation. She finally did move out, but I felt betrayed by both my father and her. They married after I had moved out of the house and made it difficult for my sister to feel comfortable living with them. Years later when my sister & I had taken on the role of alternate caregivers for my father, my now-"stepmom" (I referred to her a my father's wife, since stepmom implied so much more than she was ever willing to be) expressed a huge amount of gratitude for our help in spite of how she had treated us when we were young. Implied was remorse, I think, but she never really apologized and I'm not the type to forgive easily anyway.

I've always adopted my boyfriend's family, befriending the mom, dad and assorted siblings and their extended family members. Several times the families contacted me after a breakup and told me I was still welcome to be part of their family, despite the end of my relationship with their son. It was nice to hear, impossible to execute. Once I hit my late 20s, the situation changed dramatically, suddenly I was a real threat to these momma's boys. I wasn't interested in getting married, not really interested in kids until I had finished my college education (which took decades, literally!) but I still wanted a relationship. I thought it was just uptight midwest religious stirrings, these moms who hated me on sight. Maybe because I hailed from California? Maybe because I was divorced? Maybe because I slept with their sons and didn't feel guilt? Whatever the reason I was shunned by these women and never made to feel comfortable in their lives. So I returned to California, alone and ready to find my family.

My partner told me that his mother and father were estranged for many years, living in the same house, but living separate lives, so he was her date most of the time while he was growing up. And, oh by the way, none of his girlfriends got along with her and she hated them on sight. So I was on a mission to make her like me. I was going to be different. I welcomed his mother into our relationship with open arms. She was invited to stay with us whenever and wherever we were. We traveled together. Valentine's evening and you've got no place to go? No problem come and be with us. Mi casa es su casa. Then we decided to have a baby. When we told her we were pregnant her face fell, she was completely unable to hide her dismay.

I could recite chapter and verse all the crazy things she's done and said since that day, but will forgo the exercise. Sufice it to say I have had to excise her from my life and maintain a very lengthy distance between her and my daughter since I feel she's in danger in the pesence of her "grandmother." It's apparent that she has treated both of her children badly, yet they continue to forgive and go back for more abuse. That is what I don't understand. I am easily spooked and when I see evidence of abuse, whether it's physical or emotional, I withdraw to the furthest corner. When the abuse continues I walk away. I don't care if it's someone that I loved or someone whose genes I share. I cannot, will not accept that sort of behavior and certainly wouldn't expose my own child to the possibililty of the abuse being sent her way. My own mother failed miserably in that area and I refuse to repeat the mistake. I'm just not sure how to make my partner see that his own mother is abusive. Is it enough for me to protect myself and my daughter?

Victimless??

I read a story this morning about a 65-year old man who rented a pistol at a shooting range and then fatally shot himself. It brings to mind my own experience with a gun-wielding man who, in his attempt to rob the bank I worked at, held a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me, but ended up shooting himself, literally blowing his own head completely off. It left me with a lifetime of memories of the decimation of a sawed off shotgun used at close range, took away some fragment of my ability to feel totally free and safe and will be a permanent part of my own history.

"No one else was injured" is a common statement in these stories, but I have to disagree as it does not take into account anything other than physical injuries. OK, so no one else was shot with a gun by the 65-year old man, but someone had to find his body, call the authorities and deal with the clean up of the mess left by his chosen method to end his life. His family and friends will forever have the emotional trauma of knowing that he made the choice to end his life in such a violent, public manner. The employee(s) who found him will have to go to their place of business every day and find little reminders of this man's angst, and, as was the case for me, probably even find parts of the mess that didn't get totally cleaned up. They will wonder each time they rent out a gun, sign in a customer, "Will s/he do this too?" It's a life-changing experience, and while they weren't shot, or stabbed or maimed physically, they have been wounded psychologically. Their wounds will take a very long time to heal and they will leave permanent scars. I think that qualifies as "injured" and these people are victims, just as if they had been shot.

So what is the message? I am an avid fan of gun control. Once you've had one stuck in your face, you begin to appreciate just how scary they truly are. I am also an advocate for assisted suicide. If you decide you want out, there should be a way to go, without leaving a mess for someone who didn't ask to be part of your personal drama- someone who might like to continue to feel safe and free. We call this euthanization for the pets that we bring into our lives. It's the "humane" thing to do, but somehow it's not humane enough for people.

I am left without a snappy punchline for this rant. Fitting, I suppose, since there really isn't any solution to either the issue of allowing people to leave this earth in their own time or finding ways to help the victims of these so-called victimless crimes.

Old flames

Seems like Valentine's day is an appropriate day for this thought. I woke up composing a letter to an ex-boyfriend, an ex whom I haven't seen in over 8 years, haven't spoken to in at least 7. We dated for almost 5 years, lived together for 2 years and split up when I made the decision to return home to California to help my family take care of my father, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's. At the time of my decision, the relationship seemed solid. My thought was that we would move to California together. He had a job where he traveled 5 days/week, so from my perspective it was an easy solution for us both to move. His family was healthy and they could travel to him, and he traveled all the time anyway so he could build in stops to visit family on a regular basis. But he said no and proposed several options as a "compromise" including one in which I should consider taking a job as a flight attendant so that I could travel to my family frequently. I had just completed my bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. It took 5 grueling years and I had $40,000 in student loans and flight attendant was not a job that required the hard-earned chemical engineering degree. Was I supposed to throw all that away? So we decided to split up. The breakup was not very civilized, but I thought after 5 years we might still have a friendship and attempted to stay in touch. He was happier for me to leave him alone, so I did. Until last year. I managed to track him down via the internet and left him a voicemail message with my contact information. He never called. It was obvious from my sleuthing that he'd gotten married, so maybe the wife didn't pass along the message, or maybe he really didn't want to hear from me, but how would I know which one it was? I've moved on, my father has dies, so was there any downside to getting in touch and catching up? And so the letter began to take life in my head. I haven't sent it (yet).

Today, on Valentine's Day, when we are reminded of love in an abstract way, and some very concrete ways, I think that Tennyson had it right, tis better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all.

Today I didn't do it

I’ve been struggling with finding 1 hour several days a week to workout and yesterday morning I asked myself how my brother-in-law maintains his 2 hour a day workout regimen, manages to help with his baby in the morning, drive a heinous commute and work a zillion hours a day - yet I have difficulty finding those 60 minutes (without a heinous commute or crazy hours at work). I thought, “It’s the difference between BEING a wife and HAVING a wife. Having a wife allows you those luxuries, being a wife means you provide the time for those luxuries for someone else to enjoy.” My sister disagreed, said it was about managing your priorities, deciding what to let go of and making the time for yourself. She’s absolutely right, however, yesterday evening I received the following e-mail and it struck me that, while it is about making choices, there are always consequences for those choices, and is it really a “choice” if you are punished in the end?

_______
What Do You Do All Day?

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall.In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a Cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife curled up in the bed still in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?""Yes," was his incredulous reply.She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."