Sadness in Shoulders

I feel the sadness in shoulders.
Weighted and worn from the burdens,
Stretched and sore from the history of rejection and sadness.

Woefully I wonder. Desperately I hope to find a refuge
Free from folly, foes and pranks.
A day when the sun rises from the east and speaks
Clearly. Directly. Encouraging me.

"Mind no matter what they say, what they do and what the leave you.
Keep the best, in you and by you.
Breathe in the breath from your creator. Renew your weakened soul.
Lift your gaze to the northern hills, outrageously alive and creatively refreshed.
Blessed and rebirthed, the gift has been given, sealed and forever yours.
His Will is for you to know you are loved by Him, His Son and Spirit.
This world is passing, sadness fleeting, burdens will no longer be shared."

Are these Jugs Real? The Legacy of the Step Child Part IV

I am not sure if I will ever really know if I have the real Crazy Jugs or not.

There are a couple of pieces, trinkets that I recognize from the three bottles, but I think the three jugs that I have in my possession are not the original Crazy Jugs that my mom and her mother created. Ironic.

I do remember specifically asking for the Crazy Jugs during one of our phone calls. It was the time when my step dad asked me if I was interested in my mother's clothes. I said that I was not, but felt guilty about it. Like I was supposed to want my mom's size 3X older lady clothes that she probably bought on the clearance rack at KMart! Does that make me a bad, selfish daughter? She was always trying to get me to share her clothes with me. She would even buy two of the same outfits so she could keep an outfit for herself and give me the same outfit for my birthday. "No, I don't think I want any of her clothes, Tom," I answered. "I would like to have my Miami diploma and her Crazy Jugs though. They are probably in some of the boxes from the garage. I am going to try to come for a visit some time this summer for a few days and help you go through those boxes. I have to find someone to watch the girls though."

Not only did I have to find someone to watch my two children, ages one and four. But I also had recently learned during this time that my four year old daughter was diagnosed with Sensory Integration, ADHD and Autism. Finding someone to care for them would be challenging. I also had my own failed business I was trying to dissolve and we were in the midst of a move, buying and selling our house! Tom never seemed too concerned for all of my issues though. He did however keep some pseudo jugs for me. I found them in special boxes in the garage later that year that he so carefully set aside for me.

It was in one of those boxes I found the three Crazy Jugs that I have now. However, just as my step father hid my mother's real gold and diamond jewelry from me and tried to trick me with all of her costume jewelry, he didn't want me to have the original Crazy Jugs. My step father probably kept them or sold them for a quarter at his garage sale.

I am still so angry towards him. I know that he is elderly and that he loved my mom very much for 15 years. He was very special to my mother. He swept my mother's heels off the floor of single-hood and was a world traveling partner to my mother. I also recognize that he added value to my life in other ways along my journey. He made the opportunity for me to travel to Europe one summer in college. I made memories that summer that will last my entire life!

He was a good guy. He once was very accomplished engineer for the city of Cincinnati. But, with the stress of losing my mom and his years of life pushing upward to 80, the dementia has started to shrivel his character and his heart I once adored. I once admired him for his advice and would seek his guidance in the areas of my career and matters of the heart. He was the warm fatherly figure that my own dad could not be for me. He was supportive and stable for both my mom and me. He's pictured in my photos with me from my first college dorm room, graduation from Miami University, my first job overlooking Michigan Avenue in Chicago, my broken hearts from all the chaps before I met Fred, my courtship and wedding with Fred and the births of my two children. He has shared an important role in some of the most significant chapters of my life.

Yet, the role that he has played since my mom passed away has been far from fatherly towards me. More like a villain and a shrewd thief.

I haven't talked to my step father since we left last Christmas time. That was the time when I first learned about my mother's will. The will only allowed me to have her jewelry and day to day belongings. The day to day belongings that he had boxed up for a garage sale to sell shortly after she passed away.

There were a few boxes that were set aside in the garage and were labeled "For Andrea." When I saw the tattered boxes, I was hopeful and dare I say, even excited. Alone in the cold smelly garage, I smiled like a child who just caught her mommy's attention after months of absence and neglect. I had hoped that my mom had branded certain items that she wanted me to have someday. I was hoping to find special items from my childhood. And when I started to unravel the items in the boxes, I admit that there were a few items that indeed took me down memory lane.

The large green Mother Goose book that my mom and I read every night before bed was in one of the boxes. That was the same book that I had resting on my knee one wintery night as I hopped into the bed and the top corner of the spine poked my upper lip. I still have the small scar underneath my nose. I can still recall my mom holding me like a rag doll as she ran frantically up and down the hallway not knowing if she should take me to the hospital.

Setting in the same box, I recognized some old oafy stuffed monkeys from my grandmother. She would bring me big stuffed monkeys she'd buy from the corner drug store just before arriving for her visits with me while my mother took weekend trips with her boy friends.

There also were photo albums. I was looking forward to spending time on those only to find out of the 20 albums, several of them were full of photos of my mother with male friends whom I didn't even know. The other albums are priceless to me - at least I think that is the way I am supposed to feel about photo albums from my childhood, right?

And, then there were a lot of other things in the boxes that I couldn't decipher. What were they? Were they garbage? And, why were these items marked just for me? Broken picture frames, papers from my mother's college days, reams of paper and notebooks from my step father's surveying business. And, at the bottom of each of these shredded, mildew-infested boxes, were droppings, maybe from rats, most likely from the demons who lurked around me while I tried to grieve and cry out to God to heal my broken tattered and wounded heart.

Why the Disdain?

Why do you disdain me? I have accepted that you have excluded me, excommunicated me but I still wonder why. Although I am your first born, I am not worthy of your presence. Is it because I am a woman? Is it because I am my mother's daughter?

Why does the sound of my voice make you shrill? I can see it in your eyes, although our eyes never connect. We have the same eyes for one another now, hazel and disconnected. I used to want your approval, your love and acceptance. I tried. I called, reached out. I forgave you. Still do.

Yet, I can feel your rejection in my bones. I can sense your recoil when I enter a room. It is painful.

Where did the man go who taught me to tie my shoes and ride my bike? Have I gotten too fat for you to love me anymore? Have I not been successful enough, or too successful. Do I not deserve you and your love any longer?

Perhaps you do not feel worthy of me so you shrill away. Perhaps you see the pain you have caused me and you can't face it. I doubt that you can see that deep.

It was easier to accept you and your flaws when you were stronger, younger. It was easier to set boundaries with you then, easier to shut you out. Now that you are weak and dying, I feel I should be more for you, better to you. But what more can I do? I have tried as much as I can.

Perhaps you feel the same way.

I have already started to grieve you. Years ago I started to grieve you. I had to grieve my own mother before she passed away too. You know her, the woman you once loved then spent my whole life hating and telling me about it even on the day I was on my way to bury her. When you both divorced when I was two years old, I must have still had hope for happiness. Today, I grieve that hope and grieve that happiness.

With my own beloved husband and beautiful children, I find my heart still broken, unable to love them in the way I want. I try. I have spent countless of resources on self help books, counseling, support groups, rehab and Bible studies. Yet, in my mid-to-late-thirties, here I sit writing about the emptiness and sorrow. I chose love and a bright future, but only find loneliness and heartache.

Was this depression and mental instability in our blood, passed through the family tree? Or did your actions spur the insecurities in my heart, breaking it forever more? Now, my own children, ripe with life and the light of their future ahead of them, both struggle with mood disorders, depression and anxiety. Did I cause their brokenness from my actions or was it an illness handed to them from the core of their being found in the womb?

I am not trying to pass blame. I am just trying to solve this puzzle. Also, wondering why the disdain for me, your first-born, your only daughter?

Needy. Control.

Needs.

Special needs? Everyone is special.

Too needy? Aren't we all?

Need a friend? But my friends are spread too thin as it is. I just moved here. Potential friends see my heavy baggage and they don't want to be friends with me. They all have their heavy burdens that they need to unload on me. So, I run away from them, withdraw into a cave. I only come out when I can leave my heavy load behind in the darkened lot that God has given me for today.

Today? Only today? Hoping for a brighter tomorrow? But when? Then what?

Oh how I wish I had more control. Control of my own life. Control of my thoughts just long enough so that I could put away the dishes without being interrupted or distracted with another task in my brain. Control over my home so that I was organized and my home was clean and tidy. Control over my temper so that I didn't explode like my kids with autism and ADHD! I wish I had control over my body so that when I cut back on calories and added additional exercise I would actually lose weight and feel some sort of reward.

Rewards. I thrive on them, just like my kids. But I can't organize our lives long enough to make a reward chart. If and when I do, I can't follow through on it. It falls off the fridge and gets thrown away. Or, my kids scribble or rip it. Or, when I try to show my kids the reward, I can't capture their attention long enough.

I could use a reward. Not in the form of stickers though. More like vacations, weekend getaways, date night, manicure or pedicure, shopping for a winter coat that I have needed for three years, someone to just call me and let me ramble without me feeling like I owe them.

Tit for tat. And that's that.

Sugar and spice and everything nice. That's what little girls are made of. Yeah, right. Whateves.

What about the effect that autism, ADHD and mood disorders have on the parents?

I think if I had a job again, it would give me structure, some form of control, self esteem. It would give me a break. It would give me adult interaction. It would just be a Band-aid. A Band-aid for this big boo boo that God is allowing me to suffer through right now.

It's back to the basics for me for today.

"Out for a Walk, Be Back at Noon"

Heart of Gold

I AM NOT THE PERSON I WANT TO BE!

I have always believed that when life is at your toughest, that is when your true self is revealed. Your true character is manifested in your responses to your trials and tribulations. Not only do trials and tribulations serve as the touchstone of your character, they also help create and stabilize your character. Just as a smelting heat is used to separate gold from rock and refine that gold into a precious metal, God allows us to endure trials not only to test our character but to refine it. And through these trying circumstances, He redefines us, purifies us.

So, after all of the tests, the trials and the tribulations, I should be more refined right?

Nope. Not yet. Must still be getting burned. I swear more. I withdraw more. I drink more. I remember that I used to go to church every Sunday. Look forward to it. We don't go to church anymore. I used to smile all the time. I don't smile any more. I don't even make eye contact. I used to initiate play dates and girls night outs. I used to reach out and welcome people. I don't play. I don't reach out any more.

Where did that woman go? Who is this in my skin today?

Just call me the female form of Job, you can call me "Joba."

I might just change my Twitter profile to Joba. Seems fitting.

Lord, why have you forsaken me? I used to love you and adore you with all of my heart but lately, you have given me too much to bear. There isn't enough love in my tank to care the way I want for my husband, my children, myself. The baggage of burdens are mine alone to carry. It makes my journey so lonely. I don't want to drag down others with my heavy load. I beg you to take over. Take this heart of mine. Take the grief and sadness I bear for my daughter as she struggles through her own life. The grief I have for my family as we shift our dreams to fit into our current circumstances. Take the disappointment I am faced with longing for laughter and friendships. Reduce my vision to accept this lot you have put at my feet. Help me to sort out my thoughts, to check off my to do lists, to sit long enough to write my to do list. My thoughts are scattered. My mind dizzy. My heart heavy, saddened. Awaken my heart to love you like I once did. Lift my eyes to see you and meet you again.

My Mother's Day Pearls

Aren't pearls intriguing?

When you see a strand of pearls, the first thought that comes to my mind, and yours too perhaps is, "Are they real or really fake?"

Or, perhaps you may just go about your lives, never really thinking about pearls and their unique and distinctive existence.

I can remember one day after church three years ago. I was sitting in the passenger seat while we drove away from church. My mascara running down my face like the dark gloom of a loss. As I pulled the visor down to try to take a deep breath and wipe the teared streaks from my face, I saw my strand of pearls innocently hanging around my neck. I had put them on for a special occasion that day. After almost a year of overcoming a severe bout of depression, Fred and Sienna were taking me out for Mother's Day brunch. In the past, I had always planned special Mother's Day outings for our mothers but this year, I was finally learning to try to take care of myself and not worry about everyone else as much.

The spring-like buds tried to color the scenery but the winter's wear of salt-stained streets was still upon us. That day, I was feeling a little claustrophobic in the pews so I decided to get a breath of fresh air. Since my recent struggles with depression, I was still withdrawn and being in crowds only made me more self-aware of my loneliness. I had left church a little early while Fred and Sienna stayed until the service ended and met me in the car parked along the EL tracks. While I was waiting, I decided to phone my mother to wish her a Happy Mother's Day.

Although it was late morning, my mother was still in bed, as usual. She was such a glutton. I fought with my judgmental voices every moment I was around her. That day was no exception. Anyway, we made some small talk and then I told her that I wanted to call her to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. There was a pregnant pause. Then I asked her what she was going to do for the day. She replied, "Nothing. I don't go out on Mother's Day. Mother's Day is the worst day of the year for me."

Trying not to pick up the rope and play a nasty game of tug a war with her, I kindly said my farewell and hung up the phone. And then, that is when I turned on the mascara flood. I tried to take a deep breath and regain my composure as I heard the church bells ring and knew any minute my beloved husband would be walking hand in chubby hand with my curly haired Sienna.

As they got in the car and buckled up and I glanced at my string of pearls in the mirror. They were imperfect but they were real. All through college I wore them proudly. I would even tell my friends that they were my grandmother's. My mom gave them to me shortly after my grandmother passed away. They were one of the only things my mother had given me that wasn't from the Dollar Store or KMart. I think I remember my mom telling me that Grandma had selected the oysters herself on one of her vacations. As a child I thought that was amazing.

As a child, I thought my grandmother was amazing. She used to bring me a large stuffed animal, usually a monkey every time she'd come to visit. My mom would invite her to come and stay with me while my mom traveled the world with her boyfriends. By the time I was about nine though, I realized how abusive and awful my grandmother was. She was a mean drunk. When she would come to visit, my mom would hide and lock all of our liquor in a suitcase. It didn't matter that my mom would hide her own liquor though. Grandma Helen would just have me bring in the special sack from under the driver's seat, the one with the large bottles of vodka. And, if those bottles weren't enough to get her through one visit while she stayed with me, she'd drink all our cough medicine bottles dry.

Just as a young girl who idolized her grandmother because she used to spoil her with stuffed monkeys, I grew older and some would say more disrespectful. Although, I believe that I was just more disrespected the older I got. I can't remember why my grandmother would slap me on the face, usually later in the evenings. I just knew that her slaps hurt more and more the older I got.

And now, as a grown woman who knows the difference between authenticity and garbage, I realized that the strand of pearls although genuine, are still just garbage. Tempted to open the window and toss them out onto the side of the graveled street, I tried to not be over dramatic. I didn't want to cause a scene. I wanted to enjoy this morning with my husband and daughter. I wiped the tears away and tried to close the door to the painful memories as a child. As I started to put the visor up, I caught a glance of my own daughter, trying to catch my eye. I smiled warmly at her and realized that I am no longer the child of my mother but I am now my child's mother.

Another Weighty Issue

Since I could remember, after every birthday ritual of blowing out the candles or tossing a penny into a fountain or blowing a fallen eyelash or ladybug or wishing upon the first star I would close my eyes and combine my wish with a prayer. I would say, "God, I wish to be thin."

With all of the struggles I have on my plate, the fiercest of all conflicts is the one that I have been fighting with on a daily basis my entire life. That is my weight. You may recall reading my post titled, Confessions of a Second Grade Closet Eater,

where I discuss my life since the age of eight, and how food was always a battle for me and accepting my body as is has always been a struggle for me. I have always denied my real hungers to the point that I find it difficult to recognize it anymore. I have tried so many different diet strategies that my body has finally decided not to play with me. Like playing tic tac toe, there comes a time when no one wins and it just isn't worth the time or devotion to play. 

Five years ago, my daughter Sienna turned two. Right after celebrating her birthday, the fanfare and family left to go home, Sienna went to bed and I sat on the couch with my husband, Fred. I was tired but most of all, I was sad. When I was two, my parents divorced. I thought about how tender and sensitive of an age my daughter was in and I couldn't imagine leaving her. How then could my parents have split me in half, my life and my heart at the tender age of two? I felt so much sadness about this, that I slipped into an emotional coma. This depression was too great for us to handle alone and Fred and I decided that I should get some intensive therapy, once and for all we thought. 

It was also at this time that I had been trying to diet and get healthy. It had been two years since I was pregnant and no matter how much I denied foods and increased exercise, I could not get below 200 lb, let alone 230 lb! I was even following a new diet based on fasting and praying that I was learning from an extremist view about fasting from Stormie Omartian in a book titled, The Power of a Praying Woman. 

I became very dedicated to this methodology. Earlier that year, I fasted for three days. I didn't eat any thing in hopes that God would hear my cry and help me to lose weight. In fact, I didn't pray and dedicate my fasting to be self serving alone, there were other prayers and petitions I offered to God during this time too. But, at the core of my desires was the need to lose weight. For I believed that if I were thinner, all my problems would be solved. I now look back and cannot believe how immature my mind set was then. And, by the way, that three day fasting fiasco left me with a week long migraine and a dark night of severe body convulsions and throwing up. I do not recommend this exercise, nor do I believe many professionals would recommend anyone to try it either.

We then decided that I should take a brief leave of absence and take some time for myself at a nearby out patient clinic. This was a Christian clinic that helped others with depression. During that time, I learned that I was struggling with a lot of loss. My daughter at the age of two would not engage with me and was so difficult that I had decided earlier to put her into day care and go back to work full time. Also, my mother had been so challenging and disrespectful towards Fred and me that under the recommendation of my small group from church, I had to place some boundaries. These boundaries led to another period of estrangement with my mother. I was at a point in my life that I was not able to bond with my daughter or have a relationship with my own mother and I was so depressed that I wanted to just drool sometimes. I also had a secret death wish and would try to drown myself with Big Macs and fries chased by Snicker bars and Cokes. I had ballooned to a 250 lb wearing the same sweatshirt every day that was a size 3X. My daily drives to the clinic lasted for four weeks. Afterwards, I still met with therapists and took medication but I had gained so much insight about how to manage my life and cope with stress.

One major stress in my life that I learned through my time there at the clinic was that I had a life long eating disorder. I didn't think I was "good enough" to be a successful anorexic or bulimic. I joined support groups for this and met with a nutritional therapist weekly for a little bit over a year or so. During my therapy sessions with Iris, she would instruct me to eat, or refuel my body every three to four hours with whatever food I wanted. I needed to stop giving certain foods power by labeling some foods good and some bad. Moreover, she instructed me to learn to love my body. She once asked me, "Who do you think you are? God created your body to be just as it is and you are always trying to reshape it and recreate it. Maybe God created you to be a larger woman. What is so wrong with that?"

Every week, I would talk to her about how difficult it was to find clothes that fit me. She would tell me about her very tall husband who also had difficulty. I would tell her about the stress of my business and travel and how challenging it was for me to eat in public. She would help me through every case scenario. She would weigh me in every session but would not allow me to see the results. I was able to get down to 230 lb not dieting through restricting my eating or adding exercise, just by trying to trust my body and love it. 

I eventually stopped seeing Iris when I discovered that I was pregnant with Sarah. I also decided that I had a deeper desire to be successful in my career and she recommended that I see a business coach to help me build my company and career instead of meeting to talk about my weight. It has been about three years since meeting with Iris. So much has happened with my career since then, and with Sarah and Sienna and with all of our lives. One of the reasons we made the decision to move to a rural midwestern town was to simplify our lives so I could be a better mommy to our girls. Also so I could give myself the self care necessary so that I would not end up dying like my mother did at the young age of 62. 

Now, I struggle with my weight. Not so much because of the superficial reasons that kept my weight such a struggle from age eight to early 30s. I now struggle because I have been running, walking, bike riding and being very active. I try to eat healthy foods. And, with the increased activity levels since moving here 18 months ago, I find myself with an enlarging tummy, looking as if I am pregnant. I am trying to figure out how to get healthy with out struggling with diets and the slippery slope of obsession that spirals me into yo yo dieting. 

I think I will schedule to visit a doctor about this. I fear that he will just put me on a strict diet though and it will awaken that diet monster that has been hibernating for the past five years!

The Legacy of a Step Child

As a follow up to my earlier post titled, Feeling Like Dirt on a Piece of $@#*, I shared about my experience from last weekend. We were visiting my dad, recently burdened with a severe disability that has put him in a wheelchair, taken his speech and is slowly taking his ability to swallow food. We joined him as he was awarded into the town's Hall of Fame for his years of service to the community. It was to be a proud moment for him and for our family however, it also marked a memorable moment in our family history when we were all gathered to notice how significant my dad's disability had become.

The discussions around the breakfast table the morning after the award ceremony were all positive and you would have thought they were all optimists however, from my perspective they were just in denial. Afraid to face the realities of what is to become. Afraid to not know or control the outcome of my father's health.

And, although I also fear those things, the most painful points I shudder from is the loss of my father, the only blood relative I have left will soon be leaving me. All I will have left are step families and in-laws.

At face value I have always gotten along with my step parents. I have considered them a blessing to my life. Both my step mom and step dad have added strength and stability to my life that I would have never had with either of my parents alone. But, as my father becomes frailer by the day, I am reminded that I am only a step child with no rights to a proper legacy.

It was just one year and a half that my mother passed away. My step father was the executor of my mother's will and although my mother and I had a tumultuous history throughout the years, it was the two years before her passing that we had become closer and more forgiving towards one another. Prior to that time however, she had done some demeaning and deranged things to her will and her assets leaving little to nothing to my girls or to me. She had left much of her assets to distant nieces and nephews to my step father's relatives. To write about this today, hurts my soul, but it is what it is and I have to learn how to not let it get the best of me and my memory of my mother.

The one item that my mother willed to me was her jewelry. However, the mourning turns even darker during a visit to, now my step father's home (I was so used to calling that place, "Mom and Tom's" to hear it just called "Tom's" place was awkward for me.) We were visiting my step dad around Christmas time. I knew this time would be especially difficult for him and since he had no family of his own, I felt it was my duty to spend some quality time with him near the holidays. I had also called him daily after my mother's passing until I knew he was stronger and had friends near by to help him. I even considered having him move closer to us so that we could look after him. He had been my step father for 13 years and I felt the God-given responsibility to look after him.

It was during this Christmas visit, ten months after my mother had passed that I first received a copy of the will. I had not gone through my mom's things because it was too painful for me yet. In addition to losing my mother, we had been told that Sienna had ADHD and Sensory Integration and I had Sarah as a permanent hip ornament, only one year of age. I also had to let my company of 10 years dissolve since I was unable to keep so many clients' demands abreast while caring for my step father while at my coma-induced mother's bed side. So, after we prepared a holiday dinner, I asked Tom if it would be OK if I looked at my mom's jewelry. Sienna and I opened the night stand drawer and saw the jewelry like a glimpse of my mom's joy sparkling a bubbly smile at us. Queen Bubbly was my mother's Red Hat Society name and it fit her to perfection. Although, the bubbly side of her was only half of her. The other side was burdened with depression and a heavy grip to the past.

More on the story of the passing of my mother, how my step father treated her will and the reality of my legacy in future posts.

Feeling like Dirt on a piece of ^%@%!

So, last week at my therapist's I told him that I was thinking of ending my therapy sessions for the time being. There are times when you need therapy - REALLY NEED therapy and then there are other times that I consider therapy a mere luxury. And, frankly, I'd rather get a pedicure.

But my therapist suggested that I pencil something in and see how my month goes. My husband who is naturally tight with money also agreed that I continue to go. Good suggestion! How did I know that I would have caught a pretty bad case of the blues over the weekend?

We took an overnight trip to visit my family. And, on the way home, like almost every trip before, I left with an extra huge suitcase filled with disappointment.

Usually on the drive home, I can cry it off or sleep it off or eat junk food to purge the pain but this visit was different. I'm still swimming in the muck today.

It was all too much for me to bear. One thing I have realized raising two daughters on the spectrum is that I need to surround myself only around supportive people. I do not feel very supportive or accepted by my family. I am not even sure I should be calling them family right now. I am just a step-child really and all that they have given me in my life has been part of a consolation offering. Since my folks divorced when I was two, I have really not been worthy for anything more from a real family.

I actually have matured and forgiven a lot throughout the years. In fact, I believe I have always tried to take the high road. Despite my struggles as a teen and my flirtations with the party scene, I have always tried to gain the attention and approval of my family members. I can remember telling my dad how grateful I was that he was my day and what a good man I thought he was for staying in touch with me after he left my mother.

Um... HELLO? What a low self image of myself that I didn't have the innate knowledge that as my father, he is supposed to not only 'stay in touch with me' in fact, he should have stayed with my mom and dealt with her mental health issues. At age two, I should have not been left alone with her to take care of her for the next 30 years or so while he went along to get himself a new wife and home and family and live happily ever after. (More on this in later posts. I actually love my step-mom and consider her a blessing to my life. I am just sorting out some junk right now so things have to get messy until I get reorganized!)

As we get the van loaded and I try to round up my two free spirited too wound-up daughters whose issues still aren't completely understood by the extended family yet, I notice my dad putting oil in his car, my step mom cleaning the inside of the windows of his car and her father or, "Pappaw" as everyone calls him put white touchup paint on the exterior. I thought what strange timing to be cleaning Dad's car. I wish I had time to do that to our car. Better yet, wish they could move their assembly line over to our van! We have Cheerios and hand prints on the windows that have been there for years!

Then, I realized, they are GIVING my 30 year old brother their car. I also caught a glimpse of them giving my brother $100 for gas money while he picked through all of my dad's watches and neckties. My dad asked him, "When do you get paid next?" He is a corporate attorney in Chicago... HELLO? Does anyone realize how charmed a life he has? Does anyone realize that I, my family really are the ones in NEED gas money? Oh. How I am not feeling the love!

Now that my dad is handicapped, he can't drive and he won't be needing all his fancy clothes and jewelry. I wonder if he throws in his Rolex, I mean, why not? My brother could use it! He definitely needs a Rolex in fact. Why not? He's earned it. He's worked his way up the easy trail of Moochville and is entitled to the Rolex by now. They already have helped him through college, then straight into business school for his MBA and then immediately into law school. He hasn't had to work a day in his life. He has worked, but he really hasn't HAD to work because my parents, or I guess, HIS parents pay for his everything. And, he hasn't gone without much. He frequents the White Sox ballgames at about $80 a ticket, he wears Versace shades and suits, North Face jackets and drives a Maxima and he has always lived in the chic parts of Chicago. He lives a lifestyle like he is a day trader or a drug dealer. And, I think about how he treats my parents - I mean HIS parents. I can't even type it in now because I am so emotional about it. It isn't like he is cruel or abusive towards them, it just seems that he takes and takes and never seems appreciative or willing to give back. He doesn't even buy anyone gifts. Oh, well, he did give my daughters some stuffed animals for Christmas last year. My step mom DROVE him to the mall, helped pick out the gifts, paid for them and then wrapped them for him. Then, she bragged about how he is such a great uncle getting the girls such cute gifts. BARF. He gives birthday cards, sometimes six weeks late. And, when he does give one of his stupid not-very-funny cards, my parents, I mean HIS parents always laugh their heads off and say, "Isn't that so thoughtful?" Double BARF BARF.

I was an A or B student throughout high school. I wanted to go to college but they said I needed to figure out what I wanted to be. Even though Pappaw was the school's guidance counselor, didn't they know that most kids who go to college figure all the out later? The real reason they didn't want me to go to college was because when I was two, the divorce attorney told my dad he had to pay for college for me. My mom told him that she'd hope I'd want to go to Harvard. So, well if they don't encourage me to go to college, they win. Well, I did end up going to college, four years after high school and they paid for it until I was able to get financial aid and scholarships at age 23. I thought all this resentment was washed away in the 'Bye-Gone" file of my mind. I thought I had forgiven them for this. Why am I wasting my precious energy thinking about it and typing about it? To use my daughter's boo-boo analogy, it is still a wound. I thought it was healed but the bone and marrow is still weak that without the proper care, it can still break.

So, here I sit wounded. And, I am reminded that in my family, I am as important as dirt on a piece of shit. I apologize for the swearing. I really try not to do that but I just know no other analogy to describe how demeaned I feel right now. I don't understand how I could have had such a difficult upbringing and now have children who are so challenging. I don't have the proper skills or support from family to manage all of it! My in-laws who only live 15 minutes away are worse. But, another post for another day.

And no matter how hard I try to 'grin and bear' it, I feel so rejected, so misunderstood, so sad and angry. I don't think it is physically possible for me to take this on. I am going to have to call my doctor and get on medication today. I hate that because it is just more money to spend and I haven't been able to find medication that doesn't make me sweat like a pig. I might try to just hold my head up, put a smile on and go about the day running errands as usual. I am putting this personal conflict on a blog shelf for now...

Why don't they love me just the way I am? I love my girls just the way they are.