When Did We Become the Stable Ones?

Do you ever sit back and watch what's happening around you and just shake your head? I don't mean shake your head because you're disappointed in all that is happening around you but because suddenly it seems that you are an adult and you don't know when the fuck that happened. The last few days have been weird. In a couple of my last posts I've talked about some of the difficulties I've had with my friendships in the last year or so. Wow. It has been enough to make my head spin. So last night, we have family therapy because I've decided in all of this we're going to get all healthy and zen and shit. My son, in typical teenage fashion, decides he is just not going to participate. *eye roll* So there I sit talking about how we need to formulate some kind of better communication in our family, my husband is telling the therapist how he tells things like it is and that there's nothing worse then me being disrespected and here sits my son with his beanie pulled over his eyes. Sometimes, being the mother of a teenager is like wrestling an alligator while covered in chicken. He came up with every excuse under the sun as to why he wasn't participating. I think there was truth to one (he had a headache) yet I think the whole thing was he was uncomfortable. Well yeah, airing your shit out is uncomfortable. Do you think I like telling everyone I am half crazy and can't keep my shit together? No but apparently, that's what we do these days to get healthy. Who knows. So fast forward, after therapy I see I have two missed calls and a text from the best friend I talked about who was like my sister. The text says, "Please call me. I need to talk." A million scenarios run through my head. Did one of the kids get hurt? Did she decide she is leaving her husband again? Why is she calling me repeatedly? Has she decided maybe I was right and she wants to apologize and send me on a trip to Mexico to right the wrongs? I don't know...so I call her. First words out of my mouth are, "Are you okay?" Who knew, I am not a complete asshole!?! Guess she isn't. She hates her life right now. She chose me to talk to about it. I didn't know to feel. We're not really there. There is so much hurt and...and...and...I don't know what to call it that I almost felt weird talking to her about it. This is something you talk to your best friend about. Yet, I did my best to offer a listening ear and words of encouragement all the while going, "WHAT THE FUCK!?" in my brain. Update on best friend number two, he text me yesterday to let me know he was getting married to The Creature next month. I feel pretty numb about it. I don't even know what to write. I want to feel happy for him because that's what a friend does but I know that them being together means the total end of our friendship. So, it's hard not to be a little heartbroken. I've watched what they've went through and I am still not convinced it is what is best for them but I just wish him the best and try to keep the last 27 years in happy memories. Yesterday was a day of weird friend moments, a lady we use to hang out with and sometimes party with we had heard got divorced (after like 20 years.) So, my husband gets a Facebook message from her to call her at this number because there is no room at the shelters and just a bunch of weird shit...now we haven't talked in like 8 years or something. He calls her because he's a good guy like that and would never let anybody be put out. Some random dude answers the phone and starts razzing him about calling his number and why he's trying to contact her and such. She finally gets on the phone and was like, "Thank God you called! I can't talk to you here. I'll get back to you with another number..." And he's heard nothing else. He relays this story to me and all I can think is they had this perfect life and we were struggling just to feed our son. How does life change like that and when the fuck did we become the stable ones?

What do I do Kelly Clarkson?

It is amazing what the mix of 3 days of no sleep 4 Benedryl and a couple of pain pills can do for you. Now before you go shooting off about the dangers of it, let's set a few things straight...I have some severe pain and autoimmune disorders requiring prescription medications. Benedryl is to counter act the itching that comes from it also as a relief to the chronic insomnia that I have (see the pattern of no sleep for three days?) However, thanks for the lecture. So, at about three thirty this morning I woke up in a puddle of drool with hair matted to my cheek and old mascara brushing the hallows of my eyes. I know, it's hard not to be turned on right now. I'm fielding marriage proposals all the time. It's ridiculous. I had a chiropractor appointment at 10:45 so I flew out of bed after an hour and twenty minutes of the magical snooze button at 10:20 threw on some clean drawers and yesterday's clothes, wiped off the drool, took some make up remover to my eyes and hit the ground running. I made it to my appointment with a minute to spare. Nothing like being prepared. That almost seven hours of sleep made me feel like Superwoman! I joined a girlfriend for coffee at he local bistro. I actually had coffee which is a rarity. I typically have chai. After I was diagnosed with Epilepsy, the meds made my test buds go crazy. I had my first coffee in fifteen years a few months back while I was at work...they asked me to never do that again. As my our bar manager said, "Holy fuck Kate, Did you take crank this morning?!" Guess coffee has that effect on me now. Never use to. I was the girl who walked into Starbucks at ten p.m. and ordered a five shot latte. Guess when you're not drinking it your body changes. Sitting with my girlfriend talking though it made me think so much about life. We were talking about how much our kids have grown up. They've went to school together since Kingergarten and now Sophmores. Life is different now. Friendships are different now. A couple of years ago, many of the friends I had were friends I had when I was a Sophmore in High School. Yet, things have changed so much in my life in the last couple of years, there are few of them that I still really call friends. The thing about that is I never have been really good at just walking away or completely shutting doors. Closure has never been a word in my book. It doesn't matter how much I need it or how much I let not having closure hurt me, I seem to have this fear of of. What is it about the fear of closure that scares me. I am just the opposite of a commitment phobe. I want to know are here forever. Kinda one of those "You fuck with me, You stuck with me" kind of girls. How do you say goodbye to someone who has been in your life for so long? In the last year and a half, I have needed to say goodbye to my two best friends. One had been my best friend since I was nine years old. He was always the first person I told anything important to, sometimes before my husband. He was my prom date. His fiance' hates me and my husband isn't his biggest fan. After twenty five plus years, we came to a point where the best thing for our relationship was to say goodbye. Probably because we loved each other more than we should have but we loved our spouses in a that only lovers should. It saddens me that someone who has so much of my history and knows more of my life than anyone can no longer be a part of it. My other best friend had been since I was thirteen. She was more of a sister to me than my own sisters were. We were both in tough and delicate places in our lives. She was in a place that she needed to move on from her marriage and as much as I tried to be supportive, I tried to support her husband too as he is my husband's best friend. I needed love and support right then too selfishly. I had just found I had two different kinds of cancer and was about to start treatments. She was needing to be in her youthful place. It hurt me more than just about anything ever had. I needed her. I was alone. Of course my husband was there and I had other friends but I needed her and she wasn't there. Then she got mad that I was supportive to both. I needed to just walk away. Recently, she has came back into my life. I don't know what to do about it as I miss her so much. Every memory I have in the last fifteen years has her in it but I never want to be hurt like that. I've been abandon by a lot of men but to have my best friend/sister leave me when death was at my door was too much. How do I trust her again? Can I? Or do I do like Kelly Clarkson says, just walk away.

Make Sure You Stop! But NO Hammertime!

So we all have these dreams of how awesome our lives are going to be when we grow up. I don't know about you but I was going to be a lawyer-doctor-teacher-ballerina-baseball player-singer married to Donnie Wahlberg or Jon Bon Jovi. Weird how that didn't work out. I was also going to have four kids and houses all over the world so I could just go to which ever one I wanted when the place I was at was boring me...looking back now, it is easy to see how life always did bore me. Well, none of those well paying professions really caught hold partially because I was busy fucking off, partially because my parents didn't want to help pay for me to go to a real college partially because no professional baseball team was looking for a chubby mediocre female baseball player. I did however try my hand in the education business. I loved working with students. I worked in special education for 15ish years. Working in the actual "teacher" role was never my favorite...too many rules and too much paper work. Although I am not one who favors being told what to do, I loved working as a para because I actually worked hands on with my students. In 2013, my son had a terrible traumatic brain injury. I gave up working with my kids because more than anything being a Mom was what I loved. The last three years have been something of a rollercoaster in flames and Picasso piece of art; Hell on wheels but beauty in motion. Last week, my son had his second brain surgery. For about four days I felt good about it...I feel the worry and anxiety creeping back in. It started when he said his eyes feel like they were growing too big for his head, then the ringing came, then a headache...see to most people it means nothing...even to his surgeon. To me, I know this means his shunt is failing. So tonight we went in for an MRI. On the way in I passed out five mg of Ativan like they were M&Ms. Strangely, they didn't kick in right away. His Ativan journey started on the way out with a little giggle. Then came "We should have a family fun night!" This was followed by an explaination of how we could go to Target and have a light saber fight and "FREEZE!" anytime someone came near us. We were suppose to let them come near us then STOP! but not Hammertime. After, we were to go to dinner and show everyone how we are the most "somistomufacated" people who have ever eaten without our suits on. We can do that eating without our elbows on the table and napkins on our lap. As the finale' we were to go see "the best movie ever." During which we were to have a popcorn fight and throw Milk Duds at each other as weapons. At the end we were to stand up and cheer. Now, One must remember, my son is sixteen. He was definitely high as a kite. We did stop at Target and have a light saber fight and freeze...we also wore masks. I don't understand why people were staring at us. His trip turned out not so hot though. On the way home, he started telling us about the future. I can't lie, it kind of freaked me out. He was CONVINCED it was 2024. If I didn't know better by the way he was telling me things, I would have believed him. It was creepy. He started crying so hard about not being able to save Daddy. He tried saving him when the bombers came and this and that...then realized Daddy was driving. Which scared him because it must have been the robots that had taken over. Now one looks just like Daddy. It took a good 3 hours to convince him Daddy was not a robot. However, whatever daydream (or whatever he had) has imprinted on him so I have a husband snoring (loudly) in my bed, a large sixteen year old having pain tremors and night terrors in the middle and I am teetering on the side waiting for the laundry to finish. Not sure why I didn't work harder for that really awesome job I was going to have when I was younger and where the hell all those excess houses are but I am pretty sure at least one of them has a California King I should be in right now because this is bullshit!

The Dog Took My Spot at the Table

About two weeks ago, I made a commitment to a few friends that I would post 5 things I was grateful for everyday. This was my wild idea of a way I could be one of those positive people I was bitching about yesterday. Today, I stared at my computer when it was time to come up with my 5. I'm sure there are way more than 5 things I am grateful for but today I didn't feel like listing any of them. I felt like being mad at the world. You see, about 8 months ago, I decided that my Mother wasn't a person I needed in my life right now. She and I tend to have an on again off again relationship. Sometimes she gets what she needs from me...sometimes, I'm the devil incarnate black sheep whom all things Satanic flows through. It just got to be too much for me and I came to a fork in my life's road where I just needed to deplete some toxins. It was a point that she became one of them. It didn't mean that she would always be...It meant for now she was. Right now, she is a toxic person for me and I have enough other shit I need to deal with. I didn't know that when I chose to "Just Say No to Mom," that solidified my black sheep status in my family. The entire family went on a virtual Katie Strike. Which leads me back to today's angry piece...Last week my son had to have his second brain surgery. Out of guilt, I felt compelled to contact my parents and let them know what was going on (God forbid anything happen.) I also Facebooked all of my siblings and gave them the low-down. I got a brief message back from just about everyone...Even if it was just a "Good Deal!" Although, my asshat brother never opened my email. Another story for another day. That being said, several times a day, I post updates and status about my son and surgery. They've never contacted us. They never visited. They never sent flowers or called him. They never commented on a status or even liked one for that matter but hey, people get busy? Yet, an AQUAINTENCE of ours found their dog had cancer (sadness, I know) and that she would need to be put down Monday. Everyday, my sisters sent support and condolences. They still are. I get it. Pets are family. Wait...I thought nephews were too...fuck, I knew I missed something in genealogy class. I've just come to a place where nothing is shocking to me anymore. I love dogs just not as much as my nephews. I didn't know that removing something that wasn't good for me at a time in my life would mean that it would have such an effect on everyone else in my life. I thought making myself better and healthier would be easier. When does shit stop hurting? I've always been such a happy person...why do I have to feel like this to "grow?" I don't want to grow. Fuck growing.

And you get a fuck you...and you get a...

Have you ever tried to just start your life over? Life one day you could wake up and say "Fuck it. I'm done with everything that happened before." I feel like I keep trying that every morning but the snooze bar is soooo close that that just seems more reasonable. When I finally pull my ass out of bed I check my Facebook book and see all these inspirational messages from people about living a better life and spreading positivity then *POOF* magically everything is better. Strangely, I offer smiles to the people I see. I say nice things. Hell, I even pay for the Starbucks sometimes for the people behind me in line...yet, my life has still happened. Honestly, the last three years of my life has been shit. So, my question is...how do I just start over? How do I act like those things didn't happen? How do I deal with them and just move on? I started therapy. I am a pretty "positive" person but starting to wonder if that is a bit of a joke. During my appointment last week, my therapist ask me if I ever thought of being a therapist. I was like, "HUH!?" Aren't you supposed to be fixing me and all my brokenness? In order to start "fixing" these last three years (not even touching the 33 before them) I thought I'd start forgiving people. "Hey person! It's cool that you destroyed every bit of trust I had. You were my best friend and I love you." "Hey Sister, It's cool you weren't there for me during my child's major life changing illness...oh wait, mine either. I forgive you. Huh, you're mad I decided not to come out for your birthday? I'm sorry. Please forgive me." The list just rolls on. I don't feel sorry for myself. I am deciding how far I bend and when I just walk away and say, "HEY! HERE'S A BIG FAT FUCK YOU!" Unfortunately, I have learned I am not a really good loner and my heart is more tender then I ever thought it was. It sucks. Why can't I just say Fuck You and leave it at that?