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Capulet

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Blog Entries posted by Capulet

  1. Capulet
    Hi, everyone.
    Here's hoping you're all well this week!  How am I?  I don't know, honestly.  Mentally, I'm fine.  Physically, I'm falling the fuck apart and I don't understand why.  You would think that losing over 40 pounds (yes, yes, I did...consider that your small, harmless weight update without details!) would make me feel better - and it has.  But lately, after bowling, my left hip has been hurtin' something awful.  It's usually fine if I sit stationary, but getting up to get a water refill or to do simple household tasks - HURTS.  It's been gradually happening; and most noticeable the days after league bowling.  It'll feel better a day or two afterwards and then I go bowling again and am back at square one.  I feel like an old lady. 
    BUT y'all will be proud of me when I tell you I've ALREADY been to the doctor...better yet, TWO doctors.  The first visit was to my primary care doctor, had to go see him in order to get the referral to the orthopedic.  He was my second visit and took x-rays of my hips.  He found nothing.  It's not arthritis, it's not any other issue with my hip.  He did ask me where exactly it hurt and when I pointed, he said based on the location, he feels it's more of a muscle/back strain, and prescribed 2x a day over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, ice after bowling (which I'm not going to do - I don't like ice) and physical therapy where they can work some of the muscles out and perhaps teach me some exercises I CAN do at home that may lead to my back/hip feeling better, overall.  My first PT appointment is this coming Friday.  I'll keep you all posted.
    Had my monthly visit with my mother, AKA 'Oompa Loompa.'  She was supposed to come LAST week, but forgot that she had promised her free babysitting services to my sister, who had a wedding to attend.  So the week before's visit was rescheduled to this past weekend.  She arrived early on Saturday, we had lunch here (sandwiches) and she spent some time with the kids before they went back to their Dad's.  Then, we actually did something we never really do with her - and we went to a movie - we saw Peppermint - not a very realistic flick, but still was nice to get out of the house and to go someplace where we didn't have to entertain each other by actually talking (see what I did, there?) to each other.  When we got home, she went to sleep.  That was the gist of Saturday - it was painless, it was 'busy' and she had time to enjoy her grandchildren during the day.  Sunday was a little different - she needed the local craft store because my eldest niece will be turning 1 next month and she's making the centerpieces.  So I drove us down to the Hobby Lobby - knowing fully well that I was going to be exposed to all sorts of FALL things as soon as I walked into the store.
    She went off looking for what she needed and I kinda lingered around where the garlands were.  
    Lemme explain a little something else that I may not have shared before - I'm not a fan of the fall.  I never was.  When I was a kid, 'fall' meant school was starting and summer vacation was over.  I hated school - I was constantly picked on and bullied - back in the 80's, they didn't have preventative measures in place so the kids that were fat, handicapped or different in any other way were getting bullied left and right - and because I was 'the pudgy deaf kid,' I was an easy target. 
    When I was a late teen, the fall was the season when I started college as a freshman, and also the same time of year that I was raped.  My 22-year anniversary is approaching - October 4th is the 'date.'  I do have to say though things have gotten MUCH better, the looming season change has always been accompanied by triggers, memories, little ugly-cry fests (for no particular reason) and bouts of depression, moodiness, sluggishness, etc.  I almost always feel crappy during this time of year.  Even though many years have gone by since my assault, it's almost an automatic fuck-with-your-emotions-thing at this point.
    I however, DO like Halloween - I know it's a 'fall holiday' but it was always, ALWAYS my favorite.  I loved the idea of being someone (or something) other than myself.  I hated myself - why like me?  No one else seemed to!  But yeah, Halloween...too bad it only comes once a year, right?  And there's CANDY...lots of it.   That made it all worth it.  I don't know if it would have made any difference, but when I finally walked out of that party where the assault took place, I did NOT see any Halloween decorations.  The walk from the party site to the diner at a local intersection was not a long one, but still - considering the time of year, I was pleasantly surprised to not see any carved pumpkins.  It might have been too early for that, though, the carved jack-o-lanterns don't usually come out until later in the month if not on Halloween night.  I might also have not seen ANYTHING but the tear-blurred pavement in front of me.
    So, at the craft store, there is a section dedicated solely to Halloween - here, you have all your black, orange, green and purple wreaths, the window clings, your skeleton/skull stuff, your cobweb netting, other decorations that you can 'add onto' existing wreaths or garlands, (these are called 'bits') and so, so much more.  You can literally go nuts in this store - and I did.  I actually found more season-related items than I did Halloween - I do already have some things to decorate further with in the garage - last year's 75% off sales at Walmart were amazing for such findings.  
    Anyway, what I DON'T have is too much generic 'fall decor.'  The most I'd ever done was put out my (fake) sunflower bouquet and then when it got closer to Halloween, I'd put out some (also fake) pumpkins and gourds...if I'd made it to the supermarket for a real pumpkin, I'd carve it on All Hallow's Eve and put him out on the front steps for the trick-or-treaters to enjoy.  
    So, I found some leaf, berry and pine cone 'bits' for half-price, then I found a 'fall leaves' garland that was lighted - my creative juices were flowing - I can't explain what came over me in that moment.  Here I am, I hate the fall and I'm standing here, appreciating the prettiness of these fake leaves, acorns, etc.  What the hell, man?  I have no reason to have this idea but here I am, thinking about how I could pretty this garland up even further by adding the 'bits' to it and securing them with thin pieces of twine.  I have a lovely mantle in my home that the finished product would look nice on.  And so, I filled my cart with small items that I could add to the (also half-price) pre-lit garland.  My mother, in the meantime, found everything she needed to put together centerpieces and met me up front.  We paid for our items and were on our way home.
    Once it was quiet-ish, (as much as it could be with my mother's nonstop mouth) I laid out all my 'bits' and the garland on the floor in front of me.  I then got to thinking as I began stringing together the garland and the bits - maybe I've been looking at it all wrong, all along?  Yes, the fall will forever present as a 'bad time of year' for me, both because of being bullied at school and the sexual assault having happened in the fall.  But the season really had nothing at all to do with what happened.  People didn't treat me poorly because the air was chillier, because the leaves were changing colors, or because to was October.  Hell, classmates or other people have fucked with me at least once or twice in the spring, summer, in the winter, my ex probably had made me cry at least once a month, so all bets were off as far as what my worst time of year actually was.  My hatred of the fall really doesn't have to do with something so beautiful; maybe the gorgeous fall scenery should be a distraction rather than a reminder.  Maybe instead of grumbling whenever I saw pretty colors up in the trees, I should have refocused on its natural beauty - for that's probably what I needed rather than focus on the ugly memories.  I'd been holding onto this particular dislike of the fall for the wrong reasons - and for too long.  
    I should add, this will be my second fall in an entirely new state - I remember last year's fall - we were still new to the area.  I had to pick up my son from school daily, and so the drive through the back roads was always SO scenic and absolutely gorgeous in the fall, and then of course, in the winter after snow had fallen.  So maybe new state = new slate?  Is it time for me to seize back a love for those things that are natural?  They ARE more beautiful here than they were in New York City!  Plus, here, I was not abused or bullied.  Here, I have no reason to dread the change from summer to fall.  Here, I have a new life and am sure being three and a half hours away from where I was assaulted is a huge help.  
    Perhaps I can learn to appreciate these things again, or even for the first time in as long as I can remember.  
    I'll ATTEMPT to get a picture uploaded of my finished garland.  I still have that irrational fear of the wasband coming across this blog and seeing all the things I've ever said about him, and as he's a frequent visitor in my home (kid transfers, holidays, drop-ins, etc) he knows what my mantle looks like and would be able to pick it out of a line-up (of mantles).  I'll play with photoshop and see if I can't crop it a bit and make it a little less incriminating...
    I WILL say that despite my unspoken rule of having to hate anything having to do with the fall, it IS quite nice to look at - and I enjoy having it lit up in the evenings while we watch television or a movie.  I feel at peace with my creation - and for the first time, with the season.
    Now, I FULLY expect to go through all the motions as my 'anniversary' nears - but perhaps this year, I will allow the scenery to provide me comfort rather than remind me of the inevitable - fall's going to come along every damn year - it's how I embrace it that matters.  And perhaps this sudden burst of creativity will make this upcoming anniversary and anniversaries to follow a little bit easier.  This year, I made a garland...and I think that on the 'anniversary,' I will make it a point to sit outside for a little while and take it all in.  And next year, I'll do something ELSE to reclaim the fall - to take back what, all along, I should have been enjoying but couldn't.  
    And that's progress! 
    Hoping you're all having a good week.    I'll update again soon - likely this weekend with a PT update.  
    - Capulet
  2. Capulet
    Hello, all.
    I'll say this entry is part one of two - I will owe  you all a very brief entry tomorrow morning after I have faced the scale.  Oh, yes, I shudder at the thought; last week's numbers having gone in the wrong direction certainly does a 'number' (pun partially intended) on one's motivation to step back on!  But I held myself accountable for it and I'm hoping that I am ready for tomorrow morning's outcome.  I've taken my usual Sunday night cocktail, hoping that Friday night's steak dinner (no fries on the side, skipped the before-supper unlimited bread and butter, had a salad with my meal, although the dressing was the most lethal part of it, AND I didn't even finish the whole steak!) isn't held against me; I was extra vigilant with my food intake on Saturday and today, hoping that reflects on the scale in the morning.  
    I'm also starting this entry now because as I type, I'm fighting off the urge to make myself a bowl of popcorn.  Stomach is growling, likely because I had my supper at 4:30pm.  Usually we eat hours later, but my fiancee brought a pizza home from work when she got out at 3 and we all know the best time to eat a pizza is when it comes out of the oven!  Soon as she got home, we each had two slices and a couple of delectable garlic knots.  I know I have a few more points (insert Oompa's voice here...."points") that I'm allowed for the day, but have decided to skip them if I can, the numbers have more of a chance of being more favorable if I do!
    Y'all know I'm good for a brief update in the morning.  Just say a rosary for me if that's your thing! ;)
    Anyway, I had a bit of a surprise when scrolling through Facebook earlier.  A friend (and I use that term lightly, explanation to follow) of mine, someone I knew BEFORE I met the wasband, just became a grandmother.  Her son, whom I remember being five or six years old at the time and the equivalent of Hell on Earth, just became a Daddy.  
    She posted photos of her brand new grandchild, a little girl.  She posted photos of her and her husband, cradling the new addition.  The years haven't been too kindly to either one of them - she's recently had some health problems and he's looking a bit gaunt.  When I remembered/spent time with them both, they were in their forties already.  He was working at the fire department and she was a SAHM; (stay-at-home Mom) they had a little side company deejaying on the weekends and would invite me to their karaoke nights (which is kind of silly considering I never could hear the music or sing along) and I'd go, for the free drinks if nothing else.  I'd then be drunk at the end of the night and their guest bedroom would be where I stayed until I was sober enough to go home.
    Some background information here - I'd met her online, we both volunteered for an AOL sponsored writing forum and upon conversing, discovered we lived 20 minutes apart.  This was back in 1998, just before the two-year anniversary of when I'd been sexually assaulted at a party.  So, that being said, I was NOT in a good overall frame of mind.  I was eighteen, nearly nineteen.  The flashbacks, the sleepless nights, the constant mini-breakdowns were common, and she acted as a sounding board during a lot of those times - she had some CSA issues in her background, and she kept my secret.  My family remained clueless.  Online, I had a small group of supporters - AOL had a chat room for survivors that I would frequent whenever the house was empty and I had ensured privacy - but in person, I had no one.  I kept to myself, I stared at the floor more often than I looked in front of me, I rarely made eye contact with anyone.  I was soft-spoken, I wrote my thoughts down.  My grades had slipped, so I focused more on pulling them back up than I did being social.  I didn't want to be around people who were my own age.
    As far as friends went, she was the most available.  The few friends I'd gone to High School with were either away at college or simply too busy to be hanging around with me.  She was home all the time, so whenever I didn't have classes or before/after school, I'd trek over to her house.  We'd to go lunch, go shopping, we'd spend hours talking.  I spent countless weekends at her place, usually following a Friday night karaoke session.  
    I eventually told her that I had trouble trusting men.  I shared with her my feelings of a developing bisexuality and told her I felt safer and more comfortable in the company of women.  I would later come to discover that this was true even before the 1996 rape, but it was a feeling that I couldn't shake at the moment.  I remember her laughing at me when I told her that I thought I was 'bi.'  I asked her why she would laugh at that, and her answer was, 'because I'M bi, too!"  So rather than table this conversation for a time when my mental state was more healthy, I allowed her to lead me down a dangerous, risky path that I have spent the last 20 years regretting.  
    Now, please don't misunderstand me, here.  I don't for one minute regret the last ten years I've spent with a loving woman.  J and I have a successful, committed relationship and we are happy.  Y'all have seen and heard what we fight about and it's usually nothing more than what we're having for dinner that night.  I don't even regret meeting the wasband - without that fateful blind date, I would not have had my beautiful son and daughter to show for that relationship.  Sure, I would have liked for things to have gone differently and to say that an ugly divorce wasn't a part of my life, but if it ultimately means my life would have improved, then I'm okay with having gone through a (failed) marriage/divorce.  Those are things that happen to survivors and non-survivors alike, so these are things I never use the word 'regret' for.  To me, that's life.  These are bad things that have happened that bring forth some good.
    Here's what I do regret, though.  And I do think that I use this word mostly to describe the choices I made while being friends with her.  And if YOU are not in a good frame of mind as you read this, perhaps you will come back later or altogether skip the rest of this blog entry because I am about to share a little bit more about myself and most of it is stuff I'm not necessarily proud of.  Oompa knows NONE of this.  My J, though, knows all of it.  Now THAT's a relationship!
    Okay, so...
    I regret being weak enough to allow this woman to become my first female sexual partner.  I would have liked my "first time" with a female to have been a little more special than that afternoon.  I was at home in my room when she called me from her house, saying she wanted me to bring over some sign-language textbooks so that I could begin to teach her.  I didn't hesitate.  I grabbed my books, drove over to her place.  When I got there, I let myself in.  At this point, I either had a key or she left the door unlocked, knowing I'd be coming by.  Anyhow, I searched through the house and found that she was in the bathroom adjoining her bedroom, and she waved for me to come in.  I sat on her bed while she blew-dried her hair.  We exchanged some small talk about the usual everything and nothing.  When she was finished, she came into the bedroom, stood over me and asked me if I was going to take my pants off, or was she?  Just like that.  I was so surprised at what she'd just said and don't think I was even able to speak.  But I tossed the book aside and the next thing I know, she's 'showing me the ropes.'
    I think my eyes were closed for most of the time.  I didn't participate because, really, I didn't know how.  I don't think she cared, nor minded that I wasn't reciprocating; she kept at it until I managed a weak orgasm.  When she was finished, I got dressed again and went home.  I felt different.  Not violated, because, well, if it was something I didn't want, wouldn't I have said something?  Wouldn't I have told her 'no?'  I didn't.  A part of me felt more mature because now I'd been with a woman and it was an experience that I no longer had to be curious about.  I think I also felt a slight bit of guilt because she WAS married and her husband wasn't 'in the know' of the new nature of our friendship.
    I didn't feel guilty for very long.  As time went on, I learned a lot of things about my "friend."  Things that led to more and more of the subsequent "bad choices" that I made.
    Not only were we fooling around on a regular/weekly basis (we took a few small road trips, we'd sneak in some activity while her son was in school and husband at work, etc), she was also known to fool around with other men behind her husband's back.  She was overly friendly online and made many of her online flirtations a reality, especially if the gentleman caller of the week was "close by."  I'll never forget accompanying her to meet one of them.  She spent most of the one-hour trip ranting and raving about how attracted she was to him.  Then when they finally met, I sat in the car and waited while she got into his back seat.  No details needed there.  
    She also made it her personal mission to promote my sexual health - she'd attempt to set me up with men.  I don't know if this is because she felt the need for me to have an all-the-time partner, just like she had her husband.  I didn't object.  I trusted her.  I was more comfortable with women, but I was also not ready to commit to a long-term relationship with one.  My family would never have understood nor approved of that.  And so, I allowed her to "introduce" me to some of her men.  
    I dated a guy who consulted with her on a deejay/karaoke gig.  This was short-lived; we just had very few common interests and he eventually moved on.  She attempted to set me up with various men that she knew from servicing her house at one point or another.  And I only agreed to date the carpenter because he looked like Matt Damon.
    (He really did.)
    But that didn't work out, either.  
    She sent me to meet a car salesman.  I don't even remember WHY...all I remember is going into a motel room with this (older) man and waking up naked.  I don't even remember his name.  His face.  Nothing.  I could have walked past him on the street and wouldn't have recognized him.  Yet, I consented to this, apparently.  I'll later attribute my fogginess to likely dissociation - I certainly don't feel as if I was violated by him.  But back then, I always thought and believed sexual assault to be what I'd already experienced it to be - the crying, the kicking, the screaming.  Not this.  This was more along the lines of my not giving a shit about myself and just doing whatever I thought would help make me normal again.  Whatever she thought would help me be normal.  Help me ENJOY sex.
    Whenever she and I were together, she'd make small comments that, in hindsight, give me more questions rather than answers.
    "You're like a robot," she would say to me, after we'd been to bed together, "You go somewhere else whenever I touch you in a certain place."
    Back then, I had no idea what she was talking about.  Now, I do.  I was dissociating.  I was 'checking out.'  It was my way of blocking out whatever it was that I was SUPPOSED to be feeling.  Because it wasn't right.  It wasn't wrong, we were both consenting adults at this point, but there was always something there that I didn't quite understand, nor could put my finger on.  Something wasn't right.
    Just like it wasn't right on the night I was drunk after karaoke at the bar and I'd retired into the family room.  I'd just fallen asleep when she came in, took my hand and led me into her own bedroom, where she whipped the covers off her naked husband.  I didn't object, I simply obliged.  I had sex with both her and her husband that night, all of it a drunken blur.  I can't say I was too drunk to remember what happened.  I could have stopped this if I wanted to, though.  I will not convey details of the 'during,' but the 'after' left me ashamed - mostly with myself for having done what I'd done and furthermore, wondering if this woman really was my friend.  Following that night, there were a couple more threesomes, both while I was lucid, each one leaving me more and more uncomfortable with myself and with them.  I began to hate myself and what I was doing, I felt unclean, I felt more damaged than I'd been at the start of this "friendship."
    And, so, I began to distance myself.  I stopped going to the karaoke events she worked, I stopped visiting her home.  I cut down on our communication, saying that school was keeping me busy.
    I met the wasband around this time, too.  From the moment he and I began dating, there was no more physical contact between her and I.  
    They eventually moved to Florida.  It was a number of years after I'd married the wasband.  By now, the son was a toddler.  She'd send a yearly Christmas card that I'd chuck into the trash when it was time to put away the holiday decorations.  Then, she found me on Facebook and both she and her husband sent me friend requests.  I accepted.  Don't ask me why, I think a part of me felt badly for dropping the friendship, even if deep down, I knew it was an unhealthy one.  Over the years, I've flirted with the idea of deleting them both but haven't done so, yet.  I don't know why.  I don't understand it.  I think a part of me holds onto a point in time when I trusted this woman with all of my secrets and cared about her.  I guess keeping her as a Facebook friend was my way of watching from afar and was harmless - perhaps it's a good thing to kind of know what she's up to without having to spend time with her.
    So, here's another thing I have trouble admitting, mostly to myself.  Because from a different, outside perspective (yours perhaps?) it is far more clear.  
    I never classified her as an abuser, and I've always had trouble with this kind of thing.  In my mind's eye, abuse is something you don't consent to.  It's rape, something I've experienced, thus making it easier to recognize.  It's violent.  It consists of the yelling, the screaming, the hitting, the crying.  It's repetitive.  I could have said no to her advances/propositions, but I didn't.  I allowed whatever happened, to happen.  I was silent through it all.  I did not cry, I did not experience any violence with her.  Eventually, I began to participate, although slowly.  It's just not something friends do to each other.
    I know now that when someone is being abused, a fair percentage of the time, they don't even realize it.  How else do you explain child abuse?  Spousal abuse?  A child is most likely to do whatever he/she feels will please their abuser.  Only they don't understand they are being abused.  A wife will move heaven and earth to appease a controlling husband and say it's because she made a vow to obey and she's afraid of what he'll do if she doesn't comply.  That's abuse.  Mental abuse is abuse, too.  It took me years, YEARS to realize and recognize the many forms of abuse.  And it's taken even longer to figure out which forms I can hashtag, 'me, too.'
    I'm older now.  I'm smarter.  I'm not a child anymore.  When she and I were friends, (again, throwing that term out there lightly) I was an adult only in years, but have come to realize that I was a child in so many ways, stuck in a child-like mentality when it came to sex and experiencing sexual things.  Yes, that was because of what happened in 1996, and this wasn't her doing.  However, she knew my reasons for becoming 'a robot' and she took advantage of that.  She hurt me without leaving visible bruises and scars, and with each passing encounter, she further battered my self-respect until, finally, I had none left.  
    When I met the wasband, I was a broken down, submissive product of this relationship.  It's hard to call it a friendship now; to refer to it as an 'unhealthy relationship' seems more appropriate.  It makes more sense now that I think about it and am writing about it - why I jumped from one poor relationship into another.  The light bulb, that's been flickering for many years, is now brightly lit.
    So, earlier this evening, seeing her picture scroll by on my newsfeed, I couldn't help but stare at the screen in disgust.  It became so much more clear.  She's an abuser.  Whether she realizes this or she doesn't, I can safely say she is an abuser.  And on top of that, this woman is now a grandparent.  
    I sure hope people change.  I know I did.  I suppose meeting her and being "friendly" with her for about two years shouldn't be a total regret, either - she taught me a lot, even though some of these lessons took years to be fully learned.  And I think she continues to teach me, even if she raises question after question on nights like this one.  I answer them all, even if just to myself.  And then, I ask them again, again, and again.
    On that note, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, folks.  What happened, here?  And how or why was I so blind to it back then?  Or was I just stupid?  (I mean, yeah, I know I made plenty of stupid choices!)  How does someone just do that to someone else?  
    In closing, I also want to mention to you all that I've forgiven her as well as myself.  That was something I needed to do in order to move on, bury the bad relationships as far away from me as possible, and proceed onto a happier, healthier union, such as the one I share with J.  I think keeping her on as a Facebook friend is part of this forgiveness/evolution.  No, I will never look back at those times and smile; but I'll at least say I learned a lot from those experiences and they're certainly not things easily explained.
    Okay, so...tomorrow's part two will consist of either happy me (numbers down) or pissed-off me (numbers up).  It won't be as long as tonight's entry, I promise. 
    For now, good night.  My  to you all.  
    - Capulet 
     
  3. Capulet

    Meet my pet, Peeves

    By Capulet,

    Let it be known that we have five adopted pets that I adore with all of my heart.  All of them are currently of the feline species, but contrary to the title of this blog entry, none are named ‘Peeves.’  
     
    I think though, that in the future, I’ll consider calling a kitten by the name of Peeves, simply because the term ‘pet peeves’ is not only a humorous play on words, it’s my favorite way to describe those itty bitty details that annoy me to no end.  Not to say that a kitten would add to my level of annoyance.  Not at all.  I am a complete sucker for kittens.  They’re cute, they’re playful and I’m proud to say I’ve bottle-fed my share of kittens and rescued and still have a couple others.  I just think it’ll be kind of cool to refer to an actual pet as ‘Peeves.’  I like to think I’m creative that way. 
     
    On a serious note, let it also be known that cats are the most blunt little assholes you’ll ever come to know and love.  They don’t sugar coat anything.  They let you know when they’re pissed off.  They knock shit off of the countertops while looking you in the face at the same time.  They challenge you.  They take chances.   They turn any room in the house into their own personal playground, regardless of how many times you’ve tried to offer them alternatives.  They take turns playing ‘chase me!’ in the middle of the night when everyone else is trying to sleep.  By now we know that any random crashing or shattering of objects during the wee hours is the likely result of having five nocturnal children who have no idea the difference between a dollar-store figurine or that vase passed down by your great grandmother from Italy.  Buy them a thirty to fifty dollar scratching post only to find they prefer to scratch the side of the $1200 couch, instead.  Order them a fancy-schmancy cat toy, they’ll show you gratitude by demonstrating that they prefer the plain old cardboard box it arrived in, instead.  Cats are highly intelligent little shits that KNOW it annoys you when they do these little things, and frankly, they don’t give a damn.  You can holler all you want at a cat and in return, you get a view of their behind when they walk away from you.  They simply don’t care.  
     
    I think these little jerks are onto something, though.  
     
    One male cat we have is highly temperamental about his back paws being touched.  We can pet him anywhere and he will purr like there is no tomorrow, but when we get anywhere near the back paws, he’ll give us that look that tells us that if we proceed, we WILL require stitches.  Another cat we have is very apprehensive in general about any new people he encounters, but absolutely loathes my ex-husband.  Which, of course, we don’t blame him for.  He’s not our favorite person, either.  My ex has tried to pet him, only to be rewarded with the full-on, ears-back hiss that would make even the lion tamers at the circus think twice.  Then we have three female cats that each have their own specific quirks of their own.  One of them, a rescue, doesn’t like to be touched at ALL.  She will however allow you to pet her for no more than two seconds before she decides that she’s had enough of the likes of you and she’ll saunter off.  There’s one who will sit at the table thinking we will give her food (and she’s usually right, we end up tossing her some scraps) and there’s our oldest girl, that doesn’t care if you have had a hard day or are simply too tired to pay her any extra attention…when she wants affection from you, she will demand it by plopping herself on whatever pillow she wants, even if your head is already on it.  
     
    I think, basically, what I’m trying to say is - a cat will effectively let you know when it’s time to back off, and they have no fear of making you aware when something bothers them.  They don’t care if they offend you in the process.  It is after all, not about you at all. 
     
    I think this is something I need to teach myself.  I never want to offend anyone, especially when I know that to be bothersome is not the initial intent.  I’ve done a lot of apologizing over the years for times I’ve reacted unfavorably to something done by someone else.  I’m also of the belief that some of these little peeves are as a result of my history, leading me to the creation of this entry/post.  
     
    Here’s an example of one of my personal peeves…
     
    My lovely wifey, J, and I go bowling twice a week.  When we go bowling, it’s mostly just to get out and have fun…but at the same time, it’s a league so there is the competitive element behind it all.  However, it’s not that competitive that we can’t show decency, respect and sportsmanship.  When someone from the opposing team throws a strike, the nice, sportsman-like thing to do would be to hold your hand out for them to ‘five;’ it’s a league thing and simply a nice thing to do.  Every league I’ve been on has this unwritten rule, or a code, for lack of a better word.  Anyway, I’m fine with showing sportsmanship even if my team isn’t doing well at that time.  
     
    So, that being said, let’s rewind to last Friday’s bowling night.  We were getting slaughtered.  Not only was the other team bowling WAY higher than their averages, we, in turn, had forgotten that the purpose of bowling was to knock down all ten pins.  None of us were marking (getting a strike or spare = 'mark') and we were all kind of thinking to ourselves why we sucked so badly.  Anyway…I hold my hand out next time one of the guys on the opposing team throws a pocket shot.  He comes back and instead of the traditional quick hand tap, his ‘five’ seemed more like a ten or a fifteen.  His hand kind of lingered on top of mine.  Now, I know that’s not something that would normally bother someone (or is it?) but I didn’t like that at all.  Still, I’m certain the guy didn’t mean anything by it.  If anything, he was being overly friendly.  
     
    If I was a cat, though, I probably would have hissed and let them know with a unexpected swat that that didn’t please me.  But then that would have raised the question of my sanity above all.
     
    Instead, the next time he threw a strike, I decided to change things up a little.  I still held my hand out, but decided that I was going to call the shots.  A five is a five.  Not a ten or a fifteen.  Not a caress.  Not a palm reading.  Not a let’s-hold-hands-now moment.  Nope.  A five is a five.  And that’s IT.  

    So my hand is out.  He goes to tap it.  As soon as his fingers touched the palm of my hand, I pulled it back and did not afford him the opportunity to make it last any longer than the second of contact.  Done.  I am all done, sir, and so are you. 
     
    I am entirely comfortable with sharing little pet peeves with J.  In fact, she does this thing with cutting her nails with the little metal clipper we have in our end tables.  The noise it makes…I don’t know.  I guess while some have issues with nails on a chalkboard, the clipping of nails has the same effect on me.  No idea why.  Being avid bowlers, we aren’t long-nail type ladies, so we both trim regularly.  I’m not bothered when I cut my own; maybe because mine aren’t as thick as hers.  I don’t even hear it when I do cut my own fingernails.  But when she does hers and I’m nearby enough to hear it, I literally want to break something.  She’s gotten around to apologizing when she cuts her nails.  I’m sure it’s because she knows I’m trying to suppress the urge to walk away.  She knows I love her with every fiber of my being though, and if this is the only thing she does that annoys me, then I can live with that.  
     
    But this is even more important to take note of - this little peeve is something she thoroughly knows about as opposed to the days where I’d say nothing whenever something bothered me.  It should be always okay to share what bothers you.  I also feel that now, I am able to share without fear of offending her.  I know that because she has made me aware of things that I do that irk her, too.  Even if they’re not things that cause her discomfort, she can find the humor in the situation and we can laugh comfortably about it.  
     
    For example, my obsession with having TOTAL, PITCH BLACK darkness when it’s time to go to sleep.  
     
    Huh?  Okay, let me tell you about that, too.
     
    I’ve NO idea where this even came from.  My mother knows about this, as it’s been a thing of mine for as long as I can remember.  She refers to it as light-sensitivity.  I don’t know if that’s even a thing.  Is Count Dracula my father?  Because when it comes to light, even the littlest dot of light (like the power button to the cable box that even when the cable box is off, remains illuminated) I need to NOT see it when I’m trying to fall asleep.  I need to see nothing.  NOTHING at all.  It’s gotten to the point that sleeping somewhere else where I cannot control where any/all light may be coming from, is a nightmare.  I will go to lengths to avoid sleeping anywhere other than my own bed.  A visit to my mother’s house or even to the in-laws’ house is always dreaded, even if I have two or three weeks’ advance notice.  I’d sooner stay in a hotel, I think partially because I always feel nothing short of complete and total embarrassment having to do this nightly darkening ritual on someone else’s turf.  You can ask J about the time we went to Disneyland and I had to stand on a chair to cover the light on the smoke alarm.  It didn’t matter then because I wasn’t in someone’s home and I didn’t have to worry about them waking up to discover a well-placed sock on top of their DVD player.
     
    Even at home before bedtime, I’m going around the room, draping t-shirts or other items of clothing over the cable box, over the clock, over any little teeny tiny red or green dot that I can find.  This is of course, in addition to the drapes being closed, the blinds shut, any and all lights in the hallway turned off.  In the event that a hallway light is left on for whatever reason (a guest, kids still being up, etc) I will resort to blocking the light from underneath the door by laying a pair of pants across the floor at the foot of the door.  J will sit in bed and wait patiently while I do all of these things.  There are times when I’ll THINK I got them all and ten minutes after crawling into bed I’ll realize, NOPE!  There’s a little light on my cell phone flashing and I’ll get up and cover that, too.  I know she laughs at me, but that’s okay.  Is there anyone else who is like this?  I mean, I know there are some who prefer a little night light but this?  I don’t like bright lights.  I kinda feel like that cute, but skittish little Mogwai dude from Gremlins.  Bright lights!  Bright lights!  No bueno.  I prefer the soft ambient lights to those damn brights, any day.  
     
    Sunlight is not my friend, either.  I’m known to chain-sneeze whenever I step outside after being inside/unexposed to direct sunlight for an extended period of time.  That’s not a peeve, though, that’s a fact.  It’s called Achoo Syndrome.  And believe it or not, it’s actually a thing and it’s supposedly genetic.  My son and nephew are also sufferers of such a syndrome.  
     
    Mmm…I am also reminded that somewhere in Long Island, there is a nail salon that employs an Asian woman who was accidentally kicked in the face because she made the mistake of trying to massage my feet and toes during a pedicure.  I think it was one of the first times I’d ever gotten around to getting my feet done and it would also be the last for a very long while.  And fortunately for this poor woman, it was the last time I ever showed up at that particular establishment.  I did leave her an extra tip for her troubles, though. 
     
    I guess I don’t like my back paws touched, either.  Let’s add that to the list, while we’re at it.  I purposely avoid pedicures now, to protect other manicurists from suffering the same fate.    
     
    As I write this, my cats are asleep at the foot of my bed.  They’re such fascinating little creatures.  So full of personality.  So honest.  You know when they’re happy.  You know when they’re sad, scared, nervous.  You certainly know when they’re hungry or thirsty.  And you damn well know when they’re pissed off.  I admire how these cats fully grasp the concept of conveying their feelings.  I wish it was that simple for the human race.  Ever think about how much more simple life would be if we were all masters of that thing called communication?   
     
    How do you guys reckon a peeve is even born?  How does it develop?  How do you work through them?  (That is, assuming you don’t hiss, bite or scratch. If that’s your way, then my cats have already explained that part to me.)  
     
    Just a few things to ponder for tonight.  Hope everybody’s doing well.  Time for me to go cover some lights.
     
    - Capulet
  4. Capulet
    It’s time to smile.  I know a lot of things you’ve seen from me have been deeper, more serious stuff, so here’s something light for today.
    I have a funny story for you guys to enjoy.
    This morning, J and I were in a dead sleep.  She was planning to be up early-ish this morning for a work thing, and I was also planning to be up so that I could get a head start on drinking a 32-oz bottle of water prior to having an ultrasound done at 11.  Alarm was set for 8am.  
    That wasn’t what woke us, though.
    Okay, so, there we are - we’re sleeping.  Snoring, perhaps.  Either way, we were OUT.  And, in my sleep, I feel my back being pushed.  I hear nothing, of course.  I open my eyes a bit and see that sunlight has begun to seep into the bedroom through the blinds.
    And I smell…something.  Doesn’t smell bad, but it’s not something I’m used to smelling first thing in the morning.  It was NOT the unmistakeable scent of freshly brewed coffee but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, either.  It was just plain unidentifiable given having just woke up.
    I turn over (major belly sleeper here) and there is my daughter, with this cheshire cat grin.  She’s holding a plate overflowing with scrambled eggs.  Ahhh.  Brain and nose made a connection right about there.
    “I made you guys breakfast!” She’s proud of herself.  “I texted you to tell you.”
    “Huh?  What did you do?”  I jumped up out of bed. The first thoughts that ran through my mind were 1) What the hell time is it?? 2) Are we dreaming?  And 3) Considering the daughter NEVER cooks unsupervised, what does my KITCHEN look like right now?  
    I checked my phone for the time.  It read “5:49am.”  Additionally, there was a text message from the daughter, sent 10 minutes earlier, letting me know that she was making us breakfast.  J also got a text.  However, neither of us was awake to receive these texts.  And if you already know what my sleep habits are, you know as well as I do that 6am is still considered to be the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT for me.
    I groaned.  I’d JUST laid down at around 2:30am.  Not blaming the daughter for my lack of sleep...I know that's entirely on me...but now I was posed with another question.
    “Did YOU even go to sleep at all last night?”  
    I’d gone to say good night to her around 2am.  She’d been face-timing with one of her school friends and I’d told her THEN to go to sleep.  She waved me off, saying she would.  But as it is summer vacation, I am not as strict about when she needs to go to bed.  And so, I left her in her room and turned in….but, now, I’m thinking I should be a little more adamant on when her bedtime is - a little later in the summer, but still no later than eleven or twelve, the absolute latest.  This staying up all night shit - that’s MY thing.  Out of all the things I could ever inspire my child to do, I wouldn’t want that to be one of them.
    “Nope!” She was a little too cheery.  And again, she’s holding up this plate of food she’d just prepared.
    “Oh, hell, no!” I said.  I might have been prepared to unleash a string of obscenities along the lines of “You need to go to SLEEP when I tell you to go to sleep!  You’re not supposed to be sitting up all night! (I know, I know, pot calling the kettle black!) What the fuck were you thinking, coming upstairs at this hour and cooking without help!?  What if something had happened in the kitchen, what if you’d cut or burned yourself?…”  And a whole bunch of other things that sleep deprivation would have certainly inspired.
    But, instead, I quickly bit every corner of my tongue and stopped myself.  
    Ya see, she’s standing there holding the plate of (seven!) eggs.  Smiling.  She’s proud of herself.  And, if I’ve learned anything about parenthood…it’s as follows.
    When your child brings you something they hand-drawn or hand-made, you hang it up or display it, even if it looks like the equivalent of a two-year-old’s scribblings or something made with cracked, drying Play-Doh.  If your child is ACTUALLY two, you’re to tell them it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen and you think it belongs on display in a museum.
    When your child wrecks something accidentally, you stifle any and all of your feelings of sadness, anger, or that are otherwise unfavorable, and tell them with a smile so forced that it looks real, that it’s okay - it wasn’t as important to you and can be replaced.  Even if it was passed down several generations and is truly lost.  Kids are generally destructive and chances are it’s your own damn fault for leaving whatever it was within the kid’s reach in the first place.
    And when your child makes you seven scrambled eggs at 5:45am, you get up and eat it.  Even if you’re not hungry.  Even if you’re slightly annoyed at the hour.  Even if your kid makes you something that closely resembles animal vomit, you eat it and hope it tastes a hell of a lot better than it looks…you also hope they didn’t use anything that was on its way to spoiling because kids aren’t known to check the expiration date on the refrigerator contents when they’re in the mood to be creative.
    And so, while J stifled her laughter into her pillow, I ate the eggs, trying to hide my “WTF” face in between forkfuls.  J had a few bites, too.  Several hours later, I’m happy to report that the eggs stayed down, they were actually cooked very well and that although this spontaneous meal resulted in us being super-tired today, it made a pre-teen genuinely happy.  
    She went to bed after we ate (at about six-thirty in the morning, she was apparently wide awake all night long but still overtired enough to drift off to sleep as soon as breakfast was served) and I first surveyed the kitchen to make sure nothing was on fire before putting the milk she’d left out on the counter away and then attempting to try and go back to sleep.  
    However, we were unable to do so and our day started at 7am.  
    And so, today, I’m tired.  We both are, actually.
    Tonight, the daughter goes to bed at 11.  I have already informed her of this.  Additionally, I told her that as much as we appreciated breakfast this morning (we otherwise would likely NOT have eaten anything at all before work/appointments) and as much as we LOVED that she wanted to surprise us, to please make 8am the earliest time breakfast is served.  We are not morning people in this house.  
    On that note, I also gotta say that the kid who woke us up this morning is the same kid who REFUSES to wake up when she has to get ready for school.  What the hell is that?  I literally wake her for school at 6:10, which is LATER than the time she woke us this morning.  
    I usually start by walking into her room (with shoes on, of course, because if I’m not careful, I end up stepping on whatever she leaves on the floor the night before) and I’ll start pulling out and rearranging the pillows from underneath her head to the back of the bed.  I pull down the blanket, thinking the fan being on will give her a chill and she’ll get up.  Nope.  She’ll instead pull the blanket back up.  I’ll holler her name in 20-second intervals, followed by, “GET UP!” or “If you’re not up in five seconds, you’re losing your iPad.”  Or “Okay, iPad belongs to me, now.  Wanna lose your phone?  Get UP!”
    Nada.
    I’m not sure if it’s the frantic “YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO GET DRESSED, BRUSH YOUR HAIR AND GET OUT THE DOOR!” that does it, but she’s not missed her bus ONCE this past school year.
    Yet, when I can get a few hours of extra sleep, she’s waking me up at 5:45 in the morning with scrambled eggs.

    Hope everyone's having a blessed day.
    Best wishes.
    - Capulet
     
  5. Capulet
    Greetings, everyone!!
    Hoping you're all having a good weekend - we had a 'backwards' couple days.  To explain, we had our taco dinner on May 4th ('May the fourth be with you') and on Cinco De Mayo today, (May 5th) I am invoking the force (fourth) and we're having chicken for dinner.  If no one cares, I guess I won't either.  I'll just note both 'May days' have been duly observed, one way or another.   Additionally, the state of Pennsylvania is drenched - it's done NOTHING but RAIN most of this week.
    So, I had a counseling appointment on Friday with M.  We were also planning to discuss with the volunteer coordinator at the Women's Center some opportunities for me, since volunteering is a pathway into the 69-hour class they offer, as well as interning with them and eventually being able to apply for work there.  M has spent the last six months getting to know me via group meetings and individual counseling sessions and is aware of my 'plan.'  It was, in fact, her idea to discuss the next steps with the volunteer coordinator - whom, while she wasn't present in our meeting, has instructed M on what to suggest.
    Basically, in order to volunteer at this particular center, apparently, you cannot be receiving services affiliated with the Center.  This means, no counseling, no attending the support groups, no receipt of ANY 'help' whatsoever, for one year.  This is what they consider a 'transition period' - which makes sense - in order to be providing assistance to others, we must show them that we are in a proper frame of mind and we are not needing their assistance, ourselves.  
    Of course, I may attend their community events, the public come-one, come-all ones - and M will likely see me at those events - along with the other staff members at the center - they will see that I am still present, and still keeping up with the Center's activities, and there is still interest in becoming one of their volunteers.  M has also told me that I'm welcome to reach out to her if I ever needed a session or wanted to attend a group.  I was still allowed to do this and am still entitled to services - but then, that would 'reset' my year.  
    It was also explained to me that it is during senior year that I'll be expected to do interning/field work - and to cease counseling now will give me my entire junior year to prepare for that - my senior year would start in 2020 if I'm on track - and by then, my required year away from the Center will be up and I'll hopefully already be volunteering for a few months.  I can also hope to have that class taken that they offer, if it's a prerequisite to volunteering.  
    I explained to her that my reason for joining their groups in the first place was not because I was/am in crisis - because I am not at a point where this has been consuming me.  I joined the group first - I was simply seeking connection, to become acquainted with others that I could relate to.  I am still new to where I now live - I don't have too many familiar folks around me and I am having trouble emerging from within this self-protective bubble I've formed around myself for the last couple of decades.  The only reason I started counseling was because I needed a place to vent some of the frustrations that I was having with some of the changes related to my out-of-state move, my relationship, my decision to go back to school.  Change was/is never comfortable for me - and while I wasn't in crisis, I needed a place to put all of it.  My counseling sessions with M were never meant to be long-term, and I accept that our sessions have to come to a close.  I've gained some insight and perspective from it all - and we parted ways saying I've come a long way and I've 'graduated.'  
    And thus begun my 'transition' process.
    On the drive home, it hit me - I now have even LESS connections.  At least - not in person.  I know that here, in this space, there is NO shortage of connections.  And I will continue to make them here.  There is great importance in having these connections available to you - be they online or in person.
    In person, though, I have just ONE connection - at least one that is 100% safe - the one I have with my fiancee, who knows absolutely everything there is to know about me and about my past.  She's the one who understands me the most - as she's a survivor, too.  Yes, this made such a connection MUCH easier to form in the beginning - and all additional connections on top of this main one has been an incredible bonus.  Ten years later, we're still going strong and while I'm not looking for intimate connection with anyone else, I'm feeling that, emotionally, this is a time of evolution for us both - while we still love each other very much and have a strong understanding of one another's issues - we are BOTH making changes in our lives.  I've decided to pick up where I left off 20 years ago with my return to school and she's been spending the last six months in therapy working on coping with suppressed trauma that happened over 12+ years ago.  The EMDR has understandably taken a toll on her and she has been throwing herself into work and social activities to keep both mentally and physically busy - and I've felt very distant, very lonely - and that was my reason for researching and finding the support group in the first place.  
    And now, that's gone.  It's going to have to be, if I want to keep putting all of my eggs in this one particular basket.  The basket, representing this particular Center, where I very much like the environment, the staff, the atmosphere.  It is exactly where I want to be two or three years from now - working with M as a co-worker, being able to work with those who truly ARE in crisis and need that assurance that someone's listening, someone cares.  I want to be giving back.
    I do have upcoming opportunities to 'put myself out there,' this fall.  I'll be starting school at the end of August.  There is a huge difference though - and I think this is what I'm realizing...
    You see, I made a statement when I joined the Center's support group.  I let them know that I was a survivor of sexual assault, of domestic violence, and possibly of CSA.  I didn't have to say these words - my being there, being present and my participation in the meetings, was all that was needed.  These other ladies were getting to know me, already knowing this information.  The HARD stuff was already out there - without my having to put any words to it.  It's a nice thought, and for the moment, it was a comfortable one - not having to explain myself, not having to explain why I'd 'tune out' during discussions or even describing why the simplest of thoughts were harder for me to explain or even to convey to someone else.  I think this is what made it easier to sit through these meetings, knowing that I wasn't obligated to explain these things - they already knew and understood.
    What statement am I making when I walk into my first class at the end of August?  There's no pre-existing knowledge of who I am as a person and how I've gotten here.  There's no instruction manual.  There's nothing.  One GIANT unknown.  I am going to HAVE to work at making these connections from scratch.  These people are not having statements made, other than I'm a 40-yr-old who's decided to continue her education after 20 years.  And for me, I know nothing about the people I'm going to be sharing a room with two or three days per week - I'm not going to know whether I can relate to them on some level unless otherwise revealed.  
    I KNOW that this isn't something that EVERYONE has to know about me.  I've managed to keep it from my family for my entire life.  But even so, there's a very difficult-to-explain craving for that connection to exist, even if just as a starting point.  I do currently have a small handful of friends - the lady I bowl with being one absolutely terrific character - then there's my neighbor, a 60-something, who has always been very kind to us and who takes care of our animals whenever we are away for a couple days.  These two DEFINITELY have friend potential but they, sadly, do not know me the way J does.  There still remains in place a barrier - I only allow them to know things that are 'general,' things that are 'safe.'  There are things I'd never say around them.  Important, telling information, that would explain me in ways that I've never been able to allow...because, gee - what if they don't get it?  (Yes, I know I can't live my life like this - I need to afford others the chance to let ME know whether or not they can relate to any of it, rather than either yank the chance away or maintaining the we-can-be-friends-but-I'm-not-letting-you-get-too-close mindset!)
    This is yet another part - another step - of my own personal evolution - and perhaps the Center has unintentionally given me more 'preparation' work than I bargained for.  It isn't just this transition that I've got to get used to - I've been somewhat ready to take on a different role for a while, now.  It is more so the realization that there won't always BE this pre-existing knowledge when dealing with new people and forming new connections and relationships.  I've always known this, but have been plodding along, regardless.  Plus - I'm studying to be a social worker - I've got to understand the 'outside' world just as much as I understand the 'inside.'  If that makes any sense at all...and skills there, I don't have just yet.
    This next 365 days is the time to open up my mind to further personal growth, isn't it?  Especially in the area of forging safe, healthy friendships and connections.  Going to the groups, to counseling was just one way to get started, to prepare myself for the REAL tests that lie ahead - the ones that will start when I become a full-time student.
    This is going to be a hell of a self-imposed challenge that I've a year to rise to. 
    It took a few days to process all of this - being a rainy weekend has helped - spent time reflecting on my 'final' counseling session, on what is expected of me - even if it's more so a self-expectation than anything.  In between reflection, I've managed to get some spring cleaning done - lots of things getting thrown onto eBay, (who would have thought there was value in a broken XBOX that had been collecting dust for years?!) and the daughter's room, I've discovered, has a floor.  Mind blowing.
    Anyway - wanted to put out there an update on the brain traffic for this past week - hoping next week to see a reduction in clutter but as Mother's Day is rapidly approaching, I do sense another jam coming on.  Thankfully, Oompa will be out of the country, (she's going to Italy) but her absence never seems to stop the gears from turning, the constant stream of thinking that usually goes along with any reminder that I have a mother.  I'll likely be back in a few days to decompress.
    Hoping everyone had a good weekend.  As always, my good thoughts are with you all.
    - Capulet
  6. Capulet
    *Trigger warning - this very lengthy post discusses some of my broken up/fragmented memories and behaviors as a child.  No actual CSA details are shared, simply because I can’t remember any.  But some of these memories may be triggersome and I ask you all to please take gentle care while proceeding. 
     
     
     
    Today, I want to talk about something called validation.  Or the lack of, when it’s otherwise referred to as its counterpart - invalidation.  This is a term known all too well by survivors of sexual abuse and the many ugly forms it takes.
     
    Validation is something we seek more than we do most other things.  It’s that priceless feeling of being given air when we’ve been deprived underwater for long enough that we feel close to drowning.  It’s a form of relief that doesn’t come easily and I don’t know if I’m divulging a huge secret here - but it’s what we, as survivors, want more than anything else as we heal from the emotional turmoil that we now recognize as a permanent stain in the fabric of our lives.  
     
    Looking back at myself when I was a child saddens me.  Not only did I have the worst haircuts and a wicked overbite, I also had secrets that although I knew they were very real for me, they wouldn’t be considered normal if I were to be compared to my peers.  It wasn’t as easy as comparing stickers in an album or whose Barbie doll had nicer clothes or who had more charms on those 80’s plastic charm necklaces (remember those?).  My questions for them were ones that I knew even as a child that it was inappropriate to ask.  And so, I didn’t.  I said nothing, I went on thinking that I was different, I was crazy, I was the weird one. 
     
    You see, as an adult, I now have too many thoughts, too many contributing factors, too many suspicions preventing me from throwing up my arms and walking away from it all.  Especially since I cannot remember the possibility of certain events or occurrences that would have caused me to react in certain ways.  But even I can’t lie to myself anymore and say that there’s nothing there.  If I don’t have memories, then there’s nothing to remember, right?
     
    Wrong, wrong, WRONG on so many levels.
     
    I do not remember the circumstances nor the order of events, but I know now that something was truly off in the early years.  That’s the only explanation I can give for my subsequent behaviors as a young child.  There was something wrong with me.  Something happened, and I can’t say what the cause was for every effect, but overall, I know this…children don’t behave in an unnatural manner unless this behavior is learned or otherwise adopted as a means of self-preservation or coping.  Children do not come equipped with the knowledge or understanding or even the correct words to explain or describe their feelings.  No, that comes much later on in adulthood, and usually not before they are able to identify that what happened to them was likely a result of sexual abuse.
     
    And now, I’ll talk about the things and behaviors I do recall, now that I’m at least thirty years older and wiser.  I’m sure many people wonder why I dredge it up, why now, after so many years have gone by and nothing is going to be done about it?  Why not just forget it?  
     
    I’ll answer that, first. Partially it is because I still feel like I personally, for my own peace of mind, need to make sense of it all.  It’s part of the fine-toothed comb method of analyzing myself as an individual, identifying my past and present behaviors and trying to make sense of them so that I can finally move on, only this time with a wealth of information that will enable me to accept things that I can now recognize as facts.  Another part of me wants to be heard, to be believed, and to be validated.  I guess it all falls within the whole theme of this post. 
     
    One day, when I was a child, I remember being asked by an adult (unsure of what role she played…Was she a teacher?  A counselor or therapist?) why, during playtime, I made the Ken doll inappropriately touch the Skipper doll.  When asked who Ken was supposed to be, I said, “my uncle.”  I remember my mother being called.  And then, I never saw that lady again.
     
    I do remember soon after that, two different ladies showing up at my house with questions.  One of them pointed between her legs and asked me if I knew the name of that body part.  There was an investigation, not sure if it was official or unofficial, as no one ever took the time to explain to me why they were asking me such questions.  I do not know what went on behind-the-scenes, I was never made privy to any of that information, not back then and certainly never after it was all over.  I do recall my mother feeling the need to speak for me, though, possibly because as an individual, she is constantly trying to keep the peace, even if it means sweeping things under the rug.  I don’t know whether she fully understood the seriousness of the situation, or chose to turn a blind eye because it was something she couldn’t handle properly.  Either way, she convinced me, and quite possibly herself, that I, at the age of six, had miscommunicated the situation.  Had he only “smacked” my rear end because I didn’t behave?  To that, I answered yes.  Because my genitals/behind were in the same general area, that seemed an acceptable answer to these investigators.  Then, I remember nothing further, after I eventually told the ‘investigators’ myself, from my six-year-old mouth, that it had all been a horrible mistake.  
     
    I do believe that whatever had been going on prior to this, ended here.  Nothing more was done.  I maintained a relationship with my uncle. I saw him at family gatherings, I saw him at holidays.  A lot of time was spent together.  He used to take me to movies.  I remembered NOTHING from before the investigations, even though I would have been more likely to remember things back then, being only a few years away from the actual time frame where this would have occurred.  I’d remember more back then, wouldn’t I?  Certainly I couldn’t make more sense of it now that so many years have passed?  Time has repeatedly proven that theory incorrect.
     
    Even though I had no concrete memories of the possible causes, the ‘abnormal’ behaviors continued in the background.  And this is where it used to be embarrassing or shameful to share.  I mean, who would?  It’s private, personal stuff that would have been the exact reasons my classmates picked on me or made fun of me when I was a child and that would have been my worst nightmare.  And so, I said nothing, I held on to my secret behaviors, I hid them from every living soul.
     
    I, however, am now at a point in my life where I want to console, and also, validate that younger version of myself and tell her that I now understand why.  I understand why she repeatedly soiled herself, mostly during the elementary school years.  I understand why her hands wandered, mostly in the bathtub.  I understand why she craved the feeling a climax/orgasm provided, craved it enough to bring it on herself when she was as young as eight years old.  And I understand why this behavior continued all the way until she was in high school.  I understand now why I was brought to my first therapist when I was also around eight.  What I DON’T understand is why the therapy ended so abruptly a couple years after that.  I can only assume that since a resolution was never presented, that perhaps she was getting too close and it was nipped in the bud before any more ‘damage’ could be done.  I suppose that’s laughable considering how much had already been done.  
     
    The days, months, years that followed made me further question myself and who I was as a child.  For the most part, I knew that I was me.  But I also knew there was something very wrong with me.  Something that I didn’t have the tools to explain, and wouldn’t otherwise recognize until I was much older, much smarter and much more aware of the sick and twisted world we live in.  
     
    It all came to a head when my son was just under a year old.  My Grandmother’s death played a very strange role in my coming to terms with what very possibly happened to me at the hands of my uncle.  Let me explain.  When she was alive, she lived in a 2-family house, he resided in the apartment upstairs from her.  They had every meal together.  She took care of him.  He never married, he never had a family of his own.  He basically had his mother prepare every meal for him, he would come downstairs only to eat, or whenever we came over, but for the most part, he was a hermit living the better part of his days in that shit-sty he called home.  He was/is a priest, for crying out loud…a priest.  *insert the bright red flags here!*  He was never a ‘real’ priest to me.  He didn’t get paid to do what he did, he had a small chapel in his apartment upstairs.  He said mass daily, in his chapel, to a congregation of statues.  I am remembering he had the Blessed Mother, Jesus, Joseph, other saints in statue form, and more often than not, those made up the audience he preached to.  He didn’t belong to any church we could have visited him at.  If you ask me, he was entirely full of shit, he was a fake, he wasn’t a good person, and I could tell this of him without any of the past examples that still fester in the darkest corners of my mind today. But regardless, he was my uncle and a part of me loved him even if only for that reason.  His faults and shortcomings were overlooked, because a child’s affections are unconditional.  
     
    (And now that I think of it, this is probably where most of my issues with religion and faith come from!  But, that’s a topic for another time.)
     
    Anyway, Grandma fell ill when I was in my very early twenties.  It was ultimately complications from her osteoporosis that she passed away from, and devastated us all.  I was married to my (now ex) husband and we had our son, who was just under a year old.  The time came for us to go through her belongings, so I went to the house she shared with him to sort through what I might want to keep of hers.
     
    As soon as we walked in, it was like, a flip had been switched.  From off to ON.  The workings of the mind have always been fascinating to me, but this was by far the most intriguing self-realization that I’d ever experienced.  
     
    All of my Grandmother’s belongings were gone.  The room that used to be her bedroom was now empty and he had transferred those stupid statues from his chapel upstairs to downstairs, and there they all were, where my Grandma used to sleep, not even a week prior.  There was Jesus, Mary, Joseph, St. John the Apostle, other people from the Bible I didn’t know the names of nor did I ever want to know their names, having always experienced a sort of a mental block whenever it came to learning religion.  
     
    That wasn’t even what did it, though.  I looked at him and listened to him as he shared his plans to expand his chapel and to make the entire downstairs his own personal space.  All this when my Grandma hadn’t been dead a week, yet.
     
    At this moment, an overwhelming, freezing feeling came over me.  It hit me like a speeding train.  What was once dark was now bright and was staring me in the face.  Everything in me tightened, even the muscles in my brain.  It’s so difficult to explain but perhaps that was the part of my brain that held onto what I only knew and still know as only possibilities.  Either way, thoughts were coming at me from multiple directions, almost comparable to the image of a stuffed animal, tied to a post and arrows being shot at it from every available angle.  None of these arrows caused me (if we’re using the stuffed animal analogy, then that would be me) any pain, but to remove them all would have left behind multiple holes.  Holes, that I know can be patched up in time but never will this stuffed animal be the same.  No, not when now, this stuffed animal, this wounded creature, now sees these holes.
     
    I realized at that moment that I loathed this man.  My uncle, the priest.  The man I spent so much time with when I was a very young child.  The man who used to walk over at night and tuck me in before bedtime.  FYI, I attribute this time frame to be from when I was about three to four years old, because I remember my mother to have been single at that time.  He was the default babysitter/caretaker while she worked or was otherwise busy, which was easy, considering we lived in a tiny little studio apartment around the corner.  He’d have made comments about how he used to come tuck me in at night, and when asked about it now, I don’t remember.  I don’t remember him coming over at night AT ALL.  So what else was there that I didn’t remember?  That, along with other things, flooded my memories and I found myself having to sit down while I processed these new thoughts.
     
    I hated him, I hated how he looked, I hated how he SMELLED.  He has a birthmark on his hand.  I hate that birthmark, too, it makes me feel uncomfortable.  It makes me feel uneasy, sick to my stomach.  My feelings of hatred were joined by feelings of nausea and I had to keep myself from vomiting all over St. Anthony’s porcelain sandals.  I left there that afternoon and in the weeks that followed, I found myself questioning all of the behaviors I’ve talked about so far.  Was this the reason?  Was this why I was taken to therapy?  Why can’t I remember if he did anything to me to cause this overpowering feeling of hatred?  It’s not something I enjoy admitting that I feel about another human being but there’s no alternative word that fits.
     
    So here’s the dilemma.  At this point, I can’t remember details.  I don’t know what he did to me.  I’m fairly certain something happened but have absolutely no evidence to support it.  So I kept a distance.  I began to decline his invitations to go for lunch, to come for a visit.  It was progressive, but it was made clear to him that now that my Grandmother was no longer living, there was absolutely no reason for me to go to the house anymore.  And so, I saw very, very little of him in the few years following her death.
     
    Aside from the epiphany I experienced at my late Grandmother’s house, there have been very minimal “telling” moments, one of which came at a time the sonofabitch got sick, himself.  He was hospitalized, and my mother called to strong-arm me into going to see him.  Out of respect for her, and because he was her last living relative, I agreed to go and see him.  I told my husband to leave the car running and went up by myself.  I went to his room, where I found him laying in the bed alone.  He wore a gown.  He looked like the most pathetic excuse for a human being I’d ever seen in my life. 
     
    I sat in a chair, saying nothing.  I think I managed a weak “hello, how do you feel?”  It might have come out as one word.  “Hellohowyafeelin’?”  Either way, I was not there for him or for myself.  I was there for my mother, because I knew it would have made HER happy that I was there.
     
    He started sobbing.  His shoulders heaved.  He blubbered something about how sorry he was that we were enemies.  He then says in between tears that he didn’t mean it.
     
    I didn't know what the hell to do with that.  I told him that M had the car running because there was no parking.  I had to go.  I couldn’t sit there any longer.  And so, I got up and left.  I didn’t look back.  
     
    I did the next best thing that I could do for myself.  I cut him out of my life, completely this time.  I refused to visit him anymore.  I did not respond to any of his emails, his phone calls, his letters.  There was a point in time where he sought me out on Facebook and tried to initiate a conversation.  I deleted it without answering.  He may be still living on this Earth, but to me, he’s dead.
     
    I wasn’t and still am not ready to share with my mother my reasons for losing my shit whenever I hear that he’s going to be present at a family function such as a wedding or a funeral, these things cannot always be helped, but I’m ALWAYS requesting that he be seated as far across the room from me as possible.  She has asked why I’m so angry with him and I admittedly hide behind my Grandmother’s death and tell her that I have a hard time dealing with how he was able to move on so quickly and so disrespectfully, I didn’t like how he treated her when she was alive.  Of course, there’s a whole lot more than that, more reasons that I don’t dare share with her.  For now, that quells her and she knows now that I want nothing to do with him.  Additionally, if I can’t help the situation, (him being at the same family gathering as me) I do not allow him near my children, even though they are past the age where most damage can be done.  Still.  I don’t want him looking at me, I don’t want him looking at them, telling THEM how much they look like me.  I want none of that, as much as I want answers, I want the truth, I want validation!
     
    Here’s the tricky thing about validation, though.
     
    When you have no concrete memories, how do you  know the validation you receive is of the truth?  Just because it’s your own truth, doesn’t make it one hundred percent accurate.  And that is one of my fears.  I don’t know that I want validation for something that I question, something I have doubts about.  I need to be sure.  I need my truth to BE the truth.  I’ve asked myself that if he were to confess, would that be enough for me?  Was what he said in the hospital the closest thing I would ever get to a confession?  
     
    As of today, it is.  So I’m going with that.  
     
    In closing, I can’t help but wonder what a difference it would have made if I’d had the validation I didn’t know I needed when I was a little girl.  Validation from my mother, who instead of being the number one protector in my life, became my first invalidator.  Validation from the stupid-ass therapist I saw for two years, who obviously didn’t know how to do her job correctly.  (And I say this knowing that I don’t have the full story.  She may have said or attempted to say something that resulted in the subsequent pull from therapy.)  Either way, I have no answers there.  
     
    And so, I shall remain forever invalidated by my mother.  I will maintain the not-too-close, not-too-estranged relationship I have with her, because let’s face it…she’s my mother and I do love her.  She does a lot for me and for my children (perhaps out of guilt she’ll never admit to) and continues to do a lot for us today.  She did not physically harm me.  She did what she felt needed to be done at the time for my own protection, not necessarily the best course of action, but I accept it as the ONLY thing she felt she could do.  I imagine it got too overwhelming for her, so she threw up the blinders and hoped for the best.  I know that, now.  
     
    I can safely say that not only because of childhood, but because of other contributing factors, my trust has to be earned, and her actions have made it very difficult for me to trust her.  And so, given she did not effectively protect me as a child, I continue to refuse to share with her other things that have happened, things unrelated to my uncle and his suspected abuse.  
     
    Thinking back, I believe it’s a tit-for-tat kind of thing.  She had one job, one chance to do the right thing.  She didn’t, for whatever reason, or at least, she didn’t do it properly.  So, in turn, I will not share with her parts of my life that I feel are important enough for a mother to have input in.  For example, the first time I had sex.  I’ve had sex with multiple people and to this day, I tell her that I’ve only been with my ex-husband and my current partner.  It just saddens me that she is not someone I want to share with, these little things/first experiences that a daughter would ideally go to her mother for.  But I think all this mother stuff may be better reserved for a future post because there’s more that lies under the surface there; more that I need to fully comprehend in order to put it all into words.
     
    Anyway.  That’s my take on validation/invalidation for now.  I know a lot of other stuff seeped through, but it all goes hand-in-hand with the topic of validation. 
     
    I’m always, always thinking.  My eyes are wide open, as is my mind.  Please bear with me while I try and make sense of all of this.  I thank you all for listening and reading, if you’ve made it this far.  I welcome any thoughts and/or comments.  Like so many others, I’m trying to figure it all out and I know no one can do this alone.
     
    - Capulet
     
     
  7. Capulet

    Fly By Faux Pas

    By Capulet,

    A light blog today, just because.
     
    Last night, we had a laugh as a family.  It hasn’t happened in a while but, damn, it felt good!  Not saying we aren’t a family that laughs, it’s just so easy to get caught up in the more serious day-to-day routines.  Sometimes we forget to laugh, to cherish these little moments that bring us a chuckle when times become challenging.  
     
    As most of you know by now, we recently moved from the city and became country bumpkins this past summer.  To find a supermarket, bowling alley, restaurant, movie theater or just about any other place after five o’clock in the evening means driving down the pitch-black back roads for about fifteen to twenty minutes and bringing ourselves to the busier part of the town, where there is everything.
     
    Everything, except for an Applebee’s.
     
    For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a popular US chain American restaurant.  They’re everywhere.  It’s J’s favorite place to get a Caesar Salad and my son’s and daughter’s favorite restaurant, overall.  I personally prefer Texas Roadhouse (which we DO have locally) but I do rather enjoy the Wonton Tacos that Applebee’s serves.  The closest Applebee’s is about 30 miles away.  So it was arranged last week that yesterday, when J got home from work, we were going to get into the car and go treat ourselves to our favorite Applebee’s meal or appetizer.  
     
    Let me just insert a little story-supporting factoid here - when we first moved here, J began working for Amazon.  Yes, that Amazon, the one everyone shops at online. We thought it would be pretty damn amazing, plus the 15% discount she’d get on her own Amazon purchases were a perk we would have loved to enjoy come holiday shopping time.  However, J found that the bar was set way too high and the level of training was too strenuous and strict, they not only were inadequate in their methods of teaching and left very little margin for error.  Let it be known that J is an exceptional, thorough worker and she is the type to do well in just about any job she takes on.  Amazon, though, aside from being far too physically demanding, was too fast paced and simply didn’t want to take the time to properly train their new people…let’s call them one big-ass mindfuck, because at times, she would try to maintain accuracy and her job performance was better, although slower.  They apparently rate your quality of work and her quality was not matching up to the quantity…so they basically because of that criticism, she sped things up to try and appease them and I believe the problem wasn’t in the work she was putting in, but actually the presence of technical, computer errors with her scanning device she was using.  It was entering into the system incorrectly, resulting in the “too many errors” reason they gave her when she was terminated.  She worked there for three weeks before they fired her.  Normally, she’d have argued that the termination was unfair and unjust, but at that point, after constantly feeling overworked and underappreciated by them, she’d dosed herself with a healthy amount of ‘fuckitall’ and found a different job with better hours, benefits and pay.  And a note to Amazon before I continue, in the event one of you should happen upon this post - your company SUCKS.  I will still shop on Amazon simply because you do have the best deals at times, but the way you operate is absolutely ridiculous.  You put my wife through the wringer, worked her to the point of collapse, you didn’t step up and help her make any necessary corrections when you saw she was struggling…instead, to show your appreciation for her hard work and efforts, you fired her.  Y’all ought to be ashamed of yourself and your company.
     
    So, anyway…back to my tale for today…on our way to Applebee’s, we passed the Amazon Warehouse.  You can see this huge, white building from the highway.  J and I both flipped off the building as we sped past it, for they are a distant, but still unpleasant memory.  
     
    We found the Applebee’s, went in, sat down, ordered and ate.  Everyone got their favorite meals.  The bill came to just over $100 including a tip, but everyone was happy and so it was worth it.  The kids even suggested we do this every couple of months. 
     
    On the way home, we were soon to pass the Amazon Warehouse again, coming from the other direction.  J was being funny and in her tour-guide voice, says, “And over to our left, we will soon see the Amazon Warehouse that fired me.  Let us all show them our middle finger in appreciation.”
     
    All our middle fingers went up and toward the driver’s side of the car.  
     
    Yes, even my 11-year-old’s little middle went up; while I’m sure I’m not in the running for any parent-of-the-year awards, I still allowed for it because I feel she’s old enough to learn to express herself if the situation presents.  Plus, she’s seen and heard f-bombs come out of my and J’s and her father’s mouths on MANY occasions.  If she can successfully watch her mouth more often than letting a word slip, then I feel she’s earned the right to use a swear word when she feels the need to.  Because to me, swearing is simply your way of not sugar-coating anything and letting someone know how she REALLY feels about something.  If you ask me, swearing is healthy, but should still be done responsibly and she should be sure not to use such language around someone who could be offended by it (an older relative, grandparents, etc) or otherwise influenced by it, for example a younger sibling.  I know that personally, I feel better if I let out a string of well-placed swears rather when I say “oh, poo.”  I normally don’t condone unwarranted displays of vulgarity, but in this case, we were sticking up (our fingers) for one of our own.  
     
    What we DIDN’T count on, though was the car that had pulled up next to us on the left lane.  We were in the right lane and between the Amazon Building and our car, there was now another car full of unsuspecting people who, I’m thinking, probably thought we were flipping THEM off.  And they’d rather conveniently pulled up, JUST in time to see all of our middle fingers go up at the same time.  Add to this whole funny situation, the overhead light in the car is usually on when it’s dark outside so that lip reading is made easier…which means that not only were the cars next to us able to see our raised middle fingers, anyone driving along that highway at that particular moment could also see quite clearly our little family display of expression.
     
    When we realized this, we all quickly put our fingers away, there were a few “oh, my GODs” and “whoopses” and then, we erupted in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.  I’m sure my and J’s faces were red with embarrassment, but as soon as the car had passed us and was already a half dozen or so car lengths’ ahead of us, we joined the kids in hysterics.  We giggled at the pure timing of it all.  At what the occupants of the other car could possibly be thinking they did to piss us off.  At what the sight of a sweet, baby-faced, frizzy haired, 11-year-old with her middle finger up must have looked like, especially with her two moms and brother’s fingers up right next to hers, all pointing in the same direction.  At least, we’d given someone else something to ponder for the evening.

    We laughed for several minutes.  We laughed until the tears rolled.  We laughed until it hurt.  
     
    Then we just smiled at one another, for a memory has been made and tucked away for one of those times where we feel we need to pluck them from the reserves for one of those instant-smiles, because there ARE times we scramble for one of these 'remember when?' moments.  
     
    And, no one got hurt or arrested, so in my book, that’s a win. 

    Live, love and laugh a whole lot.
    - Capulet
  8. Capulet

    Say cheese!

    By Capulet,

    For the last two or three years, I've gotten the holiday cards with a blank framed slot in the front for the 4x6 photo insert to go into; that's usually the time of year when I have to literally threaten the removal of any and all electronic devices from my kids' possessions until they agree to take a photograph that I can have 20+ copies made of.  
    They'll protest, still...even if I threaten to change the wi-fi password until they comply.  And I'd probably change it to something SO silly, something like, "cheese," JUST to annoy them even more once photos had been successfully obtained and I've freed them.  Once the holiday decorations have been put out, (and today, we've finally finished decorating the house, inside and outside!) I'll whip out the camera and tell them to get in front of the tree, it's 'holiday card picture time.'  
    "But Mahhhhh.....we're getting too old for this..."  The moaning and groaning starts.  From both of them, even though they SHOULD know better, by now.  It happens EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.  The son will attempt to retreat into his room after I'll have warned him earlier in the day that a photo shoot was planned for the evening.  Daughter will say she's having a bad hair day.  Or she'll say she has a rash on her teeth.  Anything but pictures!  
    "No, you're not too old!"  I'm doing all sorts of head acrobatics as I'm nudging the both of them into the direction I want them.  "Move to the left.  No, not you...your sister.  Now, bring your heads closer together.  Now, smile....(snap...snap...) Would you STOP giving me that look?"
    Let me add that the daughter thinks that smirking is smiling.  To a sixth grader, maybe.  But for a Christmas picture, it's just not appropriate.  We're sending these cards to people we actually like.  
    "Listen," I finally said to both of them after many failed attempts at good photos, due to closed eyes, smirks, deadpan looks..."If you two don't want to take a picture, then fine...just know that I am not opposed to finding the nearest JC Penney's portrait studio.  I'm still a member of the portrait club and being a member, I get free sittings.  If it means I have to drive forty miles away to get a free sitting, you bet your asses, I will do that.  And you'll have to be dressed in your Sunday best clothing, your hair will have to actually be combed, you'll (I point to the son) have to shave that mess you call a the beginnings of a beard, find a button-down shirt and tie...and YOU (I point to daughter) will have to actually detangle your mop of hair, which requires a heavy brushing by yours, truly (I point to me now, with a big smile on my face).  Then of course, you'll have to get a nice pair of pantyhose...the nicer the pair of tights, the more itchy it is...or maybe you can wear the ugly Christmas sweater you got last year from Aunt So-and-so in Kissimmee. (We don't have one of those, but you get the idea)  Then, once we get to JC Penney's, you two can drive the photographer crazy, and I'll make sure she takes out every single stuffed animal prop she owns and I'll tell her that it's the only way to get you both to smile properly.  Either way, if I have to go through all of that to get a decent picture of both of you ungrateful brats, then so help me, lord, I will.  Or you can smile right now, cooperate, say 'cheese,' and this can be over in five minutes."
    The two of them exchange a look.   They look at me again, mouths hanging.  I stand there with my camera in one hand, the other hand on my hip.  My eyes are saying that I'm dead serious.
    "So, you want us in front of the tree, yeah?"  The son was always the smarter one.  He's now nudging his sister, who's nodding frantically.  I must say, the thought of having to sit through a hair-brushing was what did it.  Her hair is very much like Hagrid's from Harry Potter.  Just PICTURE trying to run a brush through that.  It's certainly not worth all the smirking she had been doing!
    "Correct."  Camera's at the ready, I'm delighting at their change of heart.
    "And...oh, we'll pretend we're giving each other a gift?" He bends and pulls a box out from under the tree, then smiles as he hands a gift to his sister, who, in turn, smiles nicely. "Like this?"
    (snap, snap)
    Mission, accomplished.  
    I didn't really want to have to go to JC Penney's, but it's good to know that threat still works.
    - Capulet
     
  9. Capulet

    Deja-Vu, no thank you!

    By Capulet,

    First of all, I’ve been told today (at this point, yesterday) is “National Kiss-A-Ginger” Day.  My orange haired cat got a big-ass helping of love earlier.  Luckily, the other four don’t really care whether they get extra kisses, they just want the Greenies.  
    Secondly, I know I talk an awful lot about my kids.  If you’re sick of hearing about them, you need not keep reading, because the majority of this blog entry has to do with my younger spawn.  
    At least, understand that my reasons for writing about them is simply because, well, they teach me things about myself.  The little things they do, the things they say, you name it.  Their experiences (the ones they tell me about) remind me of my own.  They made me who I am and in turn, I am STILL learning how to mold them into exceptional human beings that will have a far better life than I did, especially when it comes to school.
    I’ll start off with some news about the son, since there is less about him this week.  Yesterday, he took his road test.  And…he aced it.  Which means he is now a licensed driver.  
    Have I mentioned how terrified I am about this!?  I am sure I have.  I do have to admit that I am a step ahead of him, here.  He will NOT be borrowing my car to get to and from school until he speaks to someone about getting a parking permit so that he doesn’t get me a ticket for parking in the wrong place.  This would be a ticket that he wouldn’t have any money to pay, either.  So, I told him that until he gets that permit from the main office, he will not have car privileges.  I’d also prefer to wait until spring before I allow him to take my vehicle to school, which is 10 miles away from home, 10 miles of winding, narrow, mountainous roads.  Did I mention, ICY?  This winter has been wack-a-doo, to say the least and I’m not 100% confident in his driving skills, so I’m going to hope he takes his sweet time in getting the parking permit…  He takes his time with everything else, why not this, too!?
    So, that’s the son.  Moving onto my pre-teen...
    My daughter revealed to me earlier this week that one of her friends (one of the two girls who slept over at our house before the holidays) is no longer her friend.  They’re ‘in a fight,’ she says.  What the hell does that mean, anyway?  IN a fight?  Like, you're IN a pool, IN a car, IN a circus tent?  IN a fight?  I know, I've got teenagers but my son wasn't big on that kind of lingo, so I'm assuming she left out the words "the middle of" and she's simply saying she's in the middle of fighting with one of her ex-besties.  I’m sure there is drama (my favorite!) and that it will continue up until their graduation in 2020.  Then, perhaps spill over into their high school years until they realize they don’t remember what they were fighting about in sixth grade and they’ll kiss and make up.  (Or high-five, mind you…if she's anything like me, she wouldn’t dare open up THAT can of worms until at least, college!)
    Now, I was 11 years old once, so I know how the majority of 11-year-old girls are.  They are rotten, hormonal little shits with a bone to pick about every stinkin’ thing.  They’re loud, they’re rude and they ONLY care about themselves or their social status.  Every damn thing is a competition.  Who has better hair, who has better make-up?  Who’s got the cutest boyfriend (oh, horrors!!)?  Whose mother is the coolest?  
    (In my daughter’s case, she, hands-down, has the best mother.)  
    Or, do these little competitions start in high school?    
    But either way, my junior high days were nothing short of nightmarish and I often went home crying because of the cruelty of my classmates.  I was quiet, I minded my own business, I ate lunch alone, I read books, I wrote in my journals.  Whenever I tried to get involved in any group conversations or team sports in phys ed, they’d almost ALWAYS find something to pick on me for.  I didn’t follow conversations very well.  I didn’t run fast enough.  I misunderstood something, and they found it funny.  This, sadly, was a regular occurrence because of my poor hearing.  And, so, I kept to myself for most of the three years I was there.  I had a small handful of friends who were too smart to get sucked into the middle-school bullshit.  Unfortunately, though, none of these friends went to the same high school as I; we moved to another city the summer after my 8th grade graduation.  
    My daughter, though, is JUST like her father.  Not in the respect that she’s a difficult person to be around.  No…she has far more people and social skills than I ever did.  She probably STILL has a better chance of making a friend than I do.  She’s popular, ALWAYS face-timing one of her friends.  She’s got her phone in her hand CONSTANTLY, with the exception for the one week it took to get her phone repaired when she dropped it and cracked the screen.  For this, I’m happy for her - at least she’s having a better go at the whole middle-school thing than I ever did.  The wasband, too, was a leader more so than a follower, and no one crossed him.  She isn’t a fighter or a bully, but usually, she is surrounded by friends and is known to be a good kid, overall and everyone LOVES being around her. 
    So, she tells me that she and this girl are ‘in a fight.’  I ask her what happened.  Immediately, she clams up.  “Nothing,” she says.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”  
    Still, I pressed on.  And she refused to tell me.  This went on for fifteen minutes before she had to go to sleep.  I figured they’d be friends again before she even told me what they were fighting about, so I left it alone again.
    Now it’s Friday, and they are still at odds.
    Finally, I asked her if in any way, shape or form surrounding this ridiculous little fight, she was in the wrong.  She nodded her head and admitted that she had indeed done something wrong, but at the same time, so had her friend.
    “Well, you know, two wrongs do not equal a right,” I explained to her, “If you were wrong and you know you were in the wrong, then you’re responsible for owning up to whatever it was you did.”  She said she understood that, she would when she was ready, and she STILL didn’t want to discuss their quarrel.  And, so, I dropped it.  Apparently this was something they needed to figure out on their own.
    Okay, so this evening at the bowling alley, I had two different experiences that I’ll share with everyone.
    The first was with a woman on the opposing team.  When I tell you this woman was the biggest whiner I’ve ever met since moving here, I’m NOT kidding.  There is a gal on my Monday night league, who loathes J because her high score bested hers. J is the new lady, the outsider…and she single handedly beat this lady's 3-game series and high game one week and since then, has been in the number one slot.  I must say I am very proud of my fiancee, she’s turned out to be quite the bowler.  Monday Night chick though, is NOT happy and we get a lot of eye-rolling whenever J is on a roll.  No pun intended.  This lady I’m going to tell you about, though, is far more immature than most five-year-olds I know.
    During our 10-minute practice before league play began, the pinsetters were malfunctioning.  A first ball would be thrown and if there were any pins left standing, the pinsetter would knock them down instead of picking them up and clearing the excess fallen pins before putting them back down for a spare attempt.  This happened several times before we let management know about the problem and we got a late start because their repair person took a few minutes to fix the malfunctioning pinsetter.  
    Well, it was MOSTLY fixed.  
    The first problem occurred in game 1.  The woman on the other team, let’s call her Whiner, just for the heck of it, throws the ball down the middle.  She leaves the five pin standing.  My entire team and I saw the pin was still standing when the pinsetter came down and knocked it down, tricking the machine into thinking that Whiner had thrown a strike.  An ‘X’ appeared onto Whiner’s score.  She was giddy, thinking that we wouldn’t care enough to go and ask for the five pin (the one in the middle) to be put back up since it wasn’t knocked down by her ball in the first place, but by the machine in error.  She threw a hissy fit, called my entire team ‘cheaters’ because the machine clearly said that it was a strike, and here we were, saying otherwise.  J and the rest of my teammates were sitting there in disbelief while she carried on and on and ON about that terrible injustice done to her.  She even went to the front desk and complained to the poor guy who managed the alley.  He, too, had to tell her that occasionally, the machines make mistakes and that scores sometimes have to be changed due to those errors.  Then he looked at us and shook his head.  Apparently this was a crazy he’d gotten used to over the last few weeks.
    She huffed and puffed, and then loudly announced that she was going out for a smoke and taking her ‘sweet-ass’ time and ‘didn’t give a shit’ who was waiting for her.  Unfortunately for her, by making US wait, she was also holding up her own team.  Her husband at one point was telling her to knock it off.  Then, she threw a legit strike and nastily hollered in our direction, “should we put the five pin back up again?”  
    We just looked at each other and rolled our eyes.  I wanted to rip off my bowling glove and tell her that we weren’t going to have that bullshit, weren’t going to stand for being called cheaters.  We were honest, we all saw that pin still standing.  It wasn’t our fault that she’d turned around and was walking back before the pinsetters came down and she hadn’t seen the machine break.  Was this woman serious!?  I mean, this woman was in her fifties, maybe early sixties.  She was acting like a damned child and making a fool of herself at the same time.  We were there to bowl and have a good time, and here was this psychopath running her mouth and saying we were cheating, even when the broken pinsetter continued to break down numerous times after that whole episode.  To say I wanted to punch her in the face is an understatement, but I don’t think I’d last very long in prison, so I kept my glove on, my hands to myself and my mouth shut.  
    I can’t...I just can’t with this lady, though. 
    The second experience involved my daughter.  She accompanies J and I on Friday nights to our bowling league.  The bowling alley has a nice little arcade and she usually meets up with some friends from school, tonight being no different.  First, a different friend was there and hung out with her until the end of the evening rolls around and the friend she’s currently ‘in a fight’ with, shows up.  The first friend who had been hanging out with my daughter, subsequently drops her like a hot potato and goes to hang out with the little shit she’s bickering with.  The lanes we were assigned tonight were literally right next to the arcade, so I had a view of her the entire time.
    At one point, she was sitting by herself next to the air-hockey table.  The friend she’d been hanging out with for the last hour and change, was now standing on the opposite side of the arcade, with the ‘frenemy.’  They were chatting about likely everything and nothing, and my daughter looked bummed out in general.
    Deja-vu hit me then.  I flashed back to when that was ME, standing alone, because kids were too cruel to consider how I might feel.  Then there were the other two, kinda rubbing it in her face, eating ice cream and not speaking to her or including her in their conversations.  My heart broke a little bit.  (Okay, a lot.)  I wanted to smack some sense into the kid she’d been hanging with before the other one’s arrival; that was flat-leaving and I wasn’t cool with it.  It’d happened to me too many times when I was a kid…they’d hang out with me only if there was no one better, but when their real friends arrived, I was a thing of the past.  
    That shit hurts.  BIG time.  I could tell that my daughter wasn’t enjoying her alone time, but she was trying.  She was playing with her iPad and doing a pretty good job of ignoring the other two.  And the other two were giggling and having a great time.  
    Oh, hell no.  My maternal instincts were SCREAMING.  WHY am I not doing something?  Why am I not getting involved?  Why do I not have my daughter’s back, here?  How do I even do so?
    But at the risk of further mortifying my daughter and wrecking her social status and jeopardizing my cool mom status, I did nothing, even though in an alternate reality, I would have LOVED to travel back in time and have my 11-year-old self punch them in the face, too, because this was all too familiar to me.  We were almost finished when I noticed she was alone, so it would not have made any sense to say anything, as much as I wanted to.  Once our balls were packed and our jackets were on, I called her and let her know we were leaving.  
    She came out of the arcade with a grin on her face.  In the car on the way home, she told J and I that she HAD made an attempt to apologize for her part in the ‘fight.’  She said she verbally apologized and when she was ignored, she sent a long text to the other girl, and in turn, her nemesis ‘blocked’ her phone number.  Then she referred to the ‘first’ friend as a “fake” friend, for having left her high and dry upon the arrival of the other kid.  I told her that I had noticed that too, and that it was NOT cool in any way.  She should never do that to another person. It’s just a damn shame that she’d experienced it first-hand, but I guess it’s all a part of growing up.  Is THAT where the term ‘growing pains’ comes from?  Wouldn’t surprise me.
    I told her I was sorry to hear that her friends (and I was referring to both girls at this point) were ‘fake,’ stuck up and rude, but was proud of her for owning up to her contribution to the whole situation.  I then told her that the ball was now in her ex-friend’s court and that it was now up to her to make the next move.  My daughter claims she doesn’t care and that she isn’t bothered by any of it, but I know better.  
    See, she is big-hearted and sensitive.  Yes, she is a headstrong and pigheaded pain in the ass at times but she is also someone I have raised to always, ALWAYS think back on her actions and if she’s wrong, she’s responsible for admitting to it and then freeing her own conscience.  She needs to ask herself if she did the best she could to rectify a situation.  What she does with that information is entirely up to her and I’ve always told her that she can confide in me about anything, whether she is right or wrong.  In this particular case, she didn’t want to talk about what she’d done, but judging by the behavior I’d seen the two girls display, I sincerely don’t care if they’re ever friends again.  If they are, great, because I DO think that a small part of her cares more than she’d like to admit.  If not….oh, well.  Still, it's a loss she'll feel more than I, and that's not something I want her to experience, so young in life and over something undoubtedly petty and silly.
    I have to admit, she eventually made me think about the Whiner as well as this 11-year-old brat my daughter once considered to be a friend.  I think it’s amazing how she and I both had to handle ourselves in two unrelated situations this evening and ultimately, we both learned something new tonight.  I'm not sure how to put into words what I learned, other than some people never grow up and it's better to allow them to make an ass out of themselves than to put myself in a bad situation by losing my own shit.  She, though, learned an important lesson.
    She understands that we're simply not responsible for how other people act.  We're accountable only for our own behavior and how we handle any form of conflict.  Punching other people in the face, although tempting, is never the answer, as that's likely to land us in jail facing assault charges.  As we go through life, we're going to be repeatedly upset or offended by the words and actions of others.  Learning how to handle such situations is important, for the people we keep around us in the long run end up being the people who are also well-learned in the same form of mature conflict resolution.  
    I guess it takes some people longer than others, though.  I'm truly proud of my kid, though; she's certainly better at it than I was at her age.  My mother NEVER talked about these things with me, so I was ill-equipped to deal with any form of confrontation and as a result, a very weak child.  So, mission accomplished, on that. ;)
    I am now going to extend the "National-Kiss-A-Ginger" Day and give my boy some more love before I hit the hay.  That is, if I can find him.
    Til next time.
    - Capulet
  10. Capulet

    Mela-what?

    By Capulet,

    Sleep.  A very simple word, yet so complex.  Such a natural thing, we all do it.  We spend most of the beginning of our lives sleeping - and I guess, sometimes, the very end, too.  We all know how to do it - we rely on it to revitalize and to refresh.  
    I USED to know what sleep was.  I used to both love and hate it.  Now, I just plain hate it and WISH I could love it.
    I fought it when I was little.  I was the typical 'five more minutes?' kid when told to go to bed when I was in grade school.  Sometimes I would be forced to go to bed at 8:30, when MacGyver was on from 8-9.  I know, who does that?  My mother, that's who!  I'd plead with her, but when the 8:30 commercial came on, she'd clap her hands and tell me it was bedtime - she'd tape the rest.  And this was back in the day when we had to record on VHS - more often than not, it'd not even record properly and I'd have to wait for the re-run. Still, there was no arguing with Oompa - if I didn't go to bed on time and when I was told, she'd make me go to bed a half hour EARLIER the next night!
    FYI, Angus MacGyver (the Richard Dean Anderson version) was the first man I ever had a crush on.  I remember going to bed wishing he'd save me.  Maybe it was because I would be pouting over missing the second half of the episode but even on non-MacGyver nights, I'd lay there and dream up scenarios where he'd swoop in and rescue me.  From what, you ask?  I don't know.  I was maybe 9.  This was not a time I suspect anything was happening during - but perhaps subconsciously, I knew something wasn't quite right and I was in search of a hero.  And MacGyver was my favorite - mullet and all - he always saved the day.  Or night.  He was my superhero, one that didn't fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes - but still someone who, although fictional, made me feel safe.
    I was a sleepwalker in childhood, too.  I am unable to say for sure when this started but it was MOSTLY stopped before I hit my teens, although there were a couple of isolated incidents as a teenager.  This, I don't know too much about, save the 'stories' my parents would tell me - they saw me walk the hallways, they wondered if I was up for a midnight snack - I'd open and close kitchen cabinets, I'd wake up with no memory of any of it, and it was never really made a big deal of - it was normalized - and I wonder sometimes if this was done so in order to further prior coverups/explanations that this was another 'deaf' thing.   
    Another unusual sleep-related event that is probably pertinent to mention - I was (and still am) a rocker.  I rock to FALL asleep.  I rock IN my sleep.  I rock as a prerequisite to sleep - sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for several - before flopping onto my belly and finally being ready to fall asleep.  This started in very early childhood - the self-rocking prior to sleep.  'It's a security thing,' Oompa had said, 'maybe it's because you can't hear?'  (I've yet to meet another deaf rocker, so I honestly don't think this has anything to do with hearing - especially since Oompa ALSO would try to encourage me to 'stop rocking' by way of incentives and 'rewards.')  Eventually she would also give up on this; perhaps when she realized it was something that couldn't easily be helped and I'd be rocking IN my sleep and in most cases, automatically.  I do remember this being a topic of discussion between her and my T that I saw when I was a child.  This was one of my 'behaviors' that she couldn't make sense of.  One of the behaviors, I think, she felt better attributing to my hearing loss rather than to the possibility of there being something worse.
    In high school, though, I NEVER needed to be told to go to bed.  I was in bed, rocking, by 9pm and I'd STILL give Oompa a hard time when she woke me in the morning.  She worked as a schoolteacher at the time, and she'd wake me in the mornings with a rough swat, shake or a poke - she'd be getting herself ready for work and didn't have time for the gentle, loving wake-ups.  I'd get annoyed and growl, 'I'm UP,' when I, in reality, was still trying to finish the dream I was having and would drift back off as soon as she left the room.  Minutes later, she'd return and she'd be PISSED if I was still sleeping.  
    I STILL remember the time she walked past my room and I still wasn't out of bed.  This particular morning, I wasn't feeling well and was having trouble.  I was propped up by my elbows in bed, not quite asleep but still trying to wake up.  She stormed past my bedroom to get to hers (next door) and when she saw I was still half-covered up with blankets, she hurled a hairbrush at me - like one of those uber-talented knife throwers at the circus - and the thicker part of the brush hit me RIGHT in the middle of my face, which caused my nose to bleed immediately.
    Yep, that got me moving.  And no, she never apologized for that.  I do remember making a smart-ass comment about it, to the effect of, 'do you even realize what you DID to me this morning?'  I want to say there was a moment where she looked slightly remorseful but, 'if you'd gotten up when I woke you - that wouldn't have happened,' was likely what she replied.  The nosebleed went away, but the memory did not.
    (Karma bit me on the ass on this one - MY 12-year-old is VERY difficult to rouse in the mornings!  Still, I do not bring hairbrushes with me when I go wake her - instead, I stand over her until she not only is awake, but is OUT of bed, too.) 
    My mother was not an explainer or a reasoner.  She was a warner, and then a smacker - physical discipline was what she'd been taught in HER childhood - her smacks stung, but were not to the point of being abusive, but still not a means of punishment that I've ever felt the need to take part in when it comes to handling my own kids - she feared the wooden spoon - my kids currently fear the wifi password being changed without their knowledge or their devices being taken away from them.  THAT, is equally as torturous as what I feared as a kid, for no such technology had even been invented yet.  My sisters and I were raised by different men - their father is a screamer - and day after day, he would come home from work and the three of us would sit on the couch and listen to his daily fit.  He'd scream about something.  It didn't matter what it was - something my mother said, something one of us kids did, an issue with the car, an issue with the house, an unexpected bill...no matter - the man screamed for up to an hour - every single night.  I had the luxury of 'turning him off,' (removing the hearing aid was usually the best course of action) and I'd sometimes find a small amount of amusement watching him 'muted.'  There were some VERY interesting facial expressions.   Additionally, he too was a smacker, more so toward his own two kids but I got my share of swats whenever deserved - won't lie.  I had my moments.  MY father, though - was a 'if it's not an issue of needing money, let your mother deal with it' kinda man.  Lord Capulet NEVER raised his voice to me.  He smacked me - ONCE - in my entire forty years of life - and it was one single smack onto my arm.  LOL.  I'll never forget that, actually - I was a teen and mouthed off to his wife, who had been annoying me in some way - hell if I remember what the issue even was.   His palm came down onto my forearm.  Didn't hurt.  Surprised me more than anything and effectively shut me up.  THEN, I got my (90's-style) laptop taken away for a week.
    Anyway - I seem to have strayed from the topic of sleep, which is what I originally set out to discuss.  I'll get back to that, now.  Everything mentioned prior to this was all before the age of seventeen, when the idea of 'normal' sleep would forever change for me.  Aside from the rocking. That remains the case, and this may be a good place to add a shout-out to my J, who has spent almost every night for the last decade, in the same bed as me and thankfully, can sleep through my rocking, rolling, flopping, leg-swinging and kicking, and from time-to-time, talking.   I got a good one.  I know I did.  
    I know I've discussed my poor sleeping habits before - we all know by now how sexual assault can affect sleep - I am no different in that respect. Aside from now wondering if some of these habits originated for reasons I've not yet come to understand clearly, I am finding that it's a constant struggle, even so many years after my own sexual assault.  I was a mother four years later - and mid-night feedings were a piece of cake because I was usually ALREADY up. This was NEVER something that I said to myself, 'Ok, this year, I'm going to get back on track with my sleeping.  I'll go to bed early, I'll get up early, I'll eliminate morning naps, I'll do this, I'll do that.'  Nope.  Never happened.  
    You would think that sleep was something I actually ENJOYED, based on how hard it was for me to get out of bed in my early teen years.  And I want to say I DO like it.  When it comes naturally and without hours of tossing and turning and without unnecessarily dosing myself with NyQuil just for the knock-out effect.  When it didn't usually bring forth unwelcome dreams, night terrors or the jolt-awakes.  Lately, I'm not able to sleep unless I'm EXTREMELY tired - in which case, the rocking lasts for no more than three to five minutes, and then I'm out cold.  Usually, to get to this point, I'll have had to have two or three consecutive nights of restlessness and be fully ready to crash.  I've taken to, though, trying to stay awake/occupied until my eyes are literally closing on me - because if I try to force the issue and go to bed before I'm THIS tired, I will end up tossing and turning and frustrating myself for hours before sleep takes over.  Then, by the time I'm sleepy enough to actually indulge in some REM, it's time to get up to get the daughter ready for school!
    Lately, it's been recommended that I try taking Melatonin twenty minutes before attempting sleep.  Over-the-counter stuff, no prescription was required.  'It works,' I was told.  It's not NyQuil, it's not addicting.  It's safe.
    I might be getting ahead of myself since the recommendation wasn't made directly.  It was actually J who introduced me to the 'swig' before bedtime - it was never really a full dose of NyQuil, but just enough to make her (and me when I'd join her for the swig) drowsy enough to drift off to sleep.  Now J's T has her on additional meds and has recommended Melatonin - something that J is finding hard to do because by now, she's got a long-standing NyQuil dependency.  We did, however, buy two bottles of Melatonin - one containing 5mg doses and the other containing 10mg doses.  
    I started with a 5mg tablet a couple nights ago.  I went to bed around 1am  - popped the Melatonin a little after 12:30.  I did feel tired soon after - and by 1, I was tucking myself in.  Did my few minutes of obligatory rocking and was soon asleep.  
    You'd think having taken a sleep aid would mean I'd sleep for more than two or three hours - I was jolted awake a little before 4am.  I have NO idea what happened here - if I was dreaming, I don't remember it.  It was still pitch-black in our room - usually it needs only for a light to come on three rooms over and I'm awake but that was also not the case.  And then it took me almost another two hours to go back to sleep.  Not too big a deal, but still disheartening.  And it's not even that I'm wide awake; I'm still TIRED after this little sleep, but my body just doesn't want to give in too easily to that deep sleep I crave.
    I've yet to try the 10mg tablet and will do so tonight.  If THIS one yields the same result, I'll assume that my body is simply too used to its current sleep cycles and patterns.  I don't think I'm even capable of sleeping more than three hours, four MAX, at a time.  I might have spent too many years training myself to function on little sleep, and now that I'll be hopefully starting school in September, I'm likely going to have my work cut out for me - trying to undo all these years of trying to avoid real sleep!
    Suppose I'll keep y'all informed.    And no, no real point to this blog entry, other than to say that getting this under control is something I'm going to have to work at.  Something I am going to have to be patient with myself in order to do, and I DO imagine there will be countless more tossy-turny nights before the restful ones show up.  
    But this sleep thing?  This, like so many other things in my life - is a struggle I strive to understand - and something I definitely need to correct.
    Anyway - sweet dreams and good night to you all.  I'm going to give it another try.
    - Capulet
  11. Capulet
    To be or not to be…
     
    No, wait…that isn’t right.  Let me get out of Shakespeare mode.
     
    To blog or not to blog?
     
    Better.  Moving along.
     
    I guess you can say I’m not a newbie to blogging.  I had one a million years ago, when my life was one thousand percent different.  I was married to the biggest baby in the world, also known as my ex-husband, will refer him to just ‘M.’  Most of my blogs back then were about my life raising four children and tending to the needs of aforementioned big baby and posts were nothing short of chaotic.  Usually, I shared my daily experiences with the kids (I raised four children…two that I had with M and two that were a result of M’s first failed marriage.)  Besides his inability to keep a wife (third time’s the charm, right?) M was also completely clueless as to what the purpose of a BLOG was.  
     
    If you ask me, you’re supposed to be honest with yourself more than you are to the folks who care enough to read about your insane everyday moments.  You’re supposed to share things, no matter how ridiculous they may seem to be…because at the end of the day, the feedback is what makes writing about it all worthwhile, right?  And you’re not supposed to be afraid of what other people may think of what uncensored thoughts spill onto the computer screen…because, really…who gives a shit?  They’re your thoughts.  Your life.  Your ponderings.  According to M, to share things of a personal nature with people outside of our home, our family, was the equivalent of putting it across the sky in neon letters.  
     
    And so my previous blog was strictly about being a mother/stepmother to these psychotic kids and on occasion whenever I referred to M, I referred to him as my ‘darling hubby,’ (yes, you may gag) on the off chance he got interested in reading my blog after I’d gone to bed.  I personally think he was afraid that he would appear to be the problematic one in our relationship, so I had to make sure that his reputation as the outstanding family man was well protected.  I had to suppress and sugar-coat a lot, for fear that he’d disapprove.  
     
    During my divorce nearly ten years ago, I’m sorry to report that I stopped blogging.  I didn’t only jump ship, I did a running dive and because of all these years of inactivity, my precious blog was purged.  Either that, or I just can’t seem to access it anymore.  I no longer have the password-recovery email, I don’t remember the login, I don’t even remember the URL to where it was.  I’ve googled the name of the blog in hopes of it popping up on search engines.  Nada.  
     
    I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.  In hindsight, while my previous blog did contain a lot of precious stories of the little angels I raised, (that’s where the ‘grain of salt’ comes in) a lot of it was written with the fear of M not liking or approving of what I had to say.  God forbid I talked too much about my son’s little psychotic episode when the seam on his socks didn’t line up properly with his toes, or that time M had a little hissy fit when a pack of his cigarettes went missing and he impersonated Adolf Hitler and made the kids search all over the house for them…only to find them in his car hours later.  Totally blog-worthy stuff, but I didn’t share that.  I can, now, though!  I’m free!
     
    My life with M is over.  Our divorce was more emotional than our marriage had been.  He took his older two children, now aged 23 and 21.  We share custody of our 17 and 11 year old.  He’s now married to Wife #3 who brought a 14-year-old son with her from a previous marriage, and together, she and M have a 5-year-old.  While a part of me is angry that my one marriage didn’t work out, I can’t help but giggle whenever his new wife shows up to pick up the kids and instead of heading straight back out, will sit and vent about the aggravation M causes her.  Even my children have stories for me when it’s my time with them, and I can’t help but be relieved that he is no longer my problem.
     
    Nope.
     
    In fact, some of you know that I am in a relationship with a woman, now.  We are engaged to be married.  No date has been set, yet.
     
    Say, what?
     
    It was jokingly said that I’ve gone to the Dark Side.  I don’t know if that is because I can do a wicked imitation of Darth Vader when I breathe…it’s either severe allergies or simply the fact that I can’t hear myself breathe.   It could be that, or it’s an actual term used to refer to a female who no longer is attracted to men and goes to the other team.  But stick with me, there’s always a method to my madness and in time, all will be revealed.  
     
    I’ll refer to my fiancee as ‘J.’  She’s just amazing.  Literally the light at the end of my tunnel.  We met shortly before I was officially divorced but after M and I had decided to split.  I wasn’t looking for a relationship, nor was she.  We had been talking for a few months before it hit me.  
     
    For example…you know those Ambien commercials?  Where the too-attractive-for-TV lady sits up in bed, stretches her arms over her head, hair looking like she had just come out of the damn salon, big perfect smile on her face?  I mean, really?  Who the hell wakes up like that?  But, anyway, if I could bottle that phrase/feeling, that’s probably what it would look like.  It was a moment of clarity.  I knew we had something very special.  A connection far deeper than I’d ever shared with M or anyone else.  It felt right, it felt like the TRUTH, in a world where I was so accustomed to lying to myself and putting on a front to hide the unhappiness and loneliness that I'd felt being with M.
     
    Fights with M were almost ALWAYS won by M.  I could go on and on about how much of a pain in the ass he is/was.  But before I say too much more about my ex-husband, I just want to put out there that 1) NO, he never laid a hand on me in violence.  I will give him that much.  He shoved me once, and once only, and that was because in a heated moment during one of our fights, I slapped him in the face.  Don’t ask what came over me.  I can’t even say for sure.  LOL.  And, 2) He was not a good husband to me but he is a very good and very involved father to our children.  Yes, he is harsh and oftentimes the kids express how much they disagree with his perspective on things, but he provides.  They are never without.  Unfortunately, I can’t deny him that, either.   
     
    Mostly because of reason #2, I will always love and respect him on some level, even if it’s the smallest level possible.  We get along MUCH better now that I don’t have to share a bed or a household with him.  He’s almost tolerable to be around and I do feel that it’s in our children’s best interest that he and I remain a unified front and co-parent despite the differences we have had in the past.  So, I’ll try not to complain too much about him in this blog - no promises, though. 
     
    My fights with J…well, here’s the gist of it.  She’ll ask me what I want for dinner.  I’ll ask her what SHE wants.
     
    “I asked YOU first.”
     
    “I’m not the picky one.” (That would be me.  I will eat absolutely anything that isn’t disgusting or slimy.  She’s got some issues with food textures and such so only likes certain things.)
     
    So…after about ten minutes of that back and forth, we’ll decide that neither one of us wants to cook.  Fast forward to twenty minutes later.  We’re both in the car.  Still no location in mind.
     
    “Okay, so where are we going?”  (J)
     
    “Where do you want to go?”  (I never said I wasn’t a pain in the ass.  If you ask her, she’ll completely attest to that.)
     
    We’ll sit there for the next half hour batting names of local eateries back and forth.  Sometimes it ends with J pulling over and stopping the car before we end up crossing state lines without having decided on dinner.
     
    “Listen here, Capulet…” (of course, she doesn’t call me Capulet, but was I effective in describing how annoyed she is at this point?)
     
    “All right, all right.  Let’s go to Wendy’s,” I’ll say.
     
    Yes, really.  After all that, we end up at Wendy’s.  This is, believe it or not, a common argument that we have at least four to five times a week at dinnertime.  And while we’re stuffing our faces with oversalted french fries and nuggets that are only perfect half the time, we’ll laugh at ourselves and just how silly we are on a regular basis.  
     
    And that’s okay.  
     
    I think it’s healthy to be able to laugh at your soulmate, your better half, the love of your life.  This is the one you’re going to be safe saying exactly what you feel, the one you’re not afraid the truth will offend, the one who will laugh with you.  It’s all done out of love, a love that I never knew I was capable of until I met this woman.  I mean, sure, there are times I roll my eyes.  Like earlier tonight when we were watching The Walking Dead.  I had just gotten cozy in my recliner with my blanket draped over myself, dessert in hand, when she noticed a spider crawling on the ceiling.
     
    “Kill it.”  (J)
     
    “Why don’t you kill it?  You’re taller.”  (me)
     
    She leaves the living room for a moment.  Comes back with the broom and a lone sneaker.  Stands over by the recliner looking all cute and holds out the broom and sneaker.  Says nothing.  Just the 'here ya go' look on her face.  Yeah, she was serious.
     
    “How do you expect me to get that damn spider?  It’s on the ceiling.”  I didn’t really want to get up.  I was comfortable, damn it.  In response to this, she jiggles the hand with the broom.  There’s a pause.  Then the hand with the sneaker jiggles.  I sigh and get up.  “All right, fine.  Give it here.”
     
    I whap the spider on the ceiling.  It falls to the floor, legs up and curled.  I smoosh it with the broom.  Mission accomplished.  Didn’t even need the sneaker.  J is pleased that there is no longer an eight-legged guest in our living room.  Go, me!!
     
    Gosh, I love this woman.  With all of my heart.  She changed me.  She made me a better person.  She taught me what relationships were SUPPOSED to be about and I am a lucky, lucky woman.  I owe her my sanity.  And I thank her every single day, even if not verbally, for putting up with me when I slack off on the housework, or I forget to transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer, or I eat too much Mexican food and my ass isn't pleasant to be around.  Either way, this one is a keeper!
     
    Here’s another important tidbit I wanted to add before I close out this blog entry.  Back when I had my old blog, she was a follower/reader.  So if you’ve enjoyed this entry, you may thank my fiancee, J, for encouraging me to start a new one.   I'll always be honest here, I'll not be afraid to share my challenging times as well as the good/funny/sad, etc.  I'll always tell the truth, no matter what.  I'll always be sweet and respectful (and here comes the chocolate!) to everyone, unless of course, I'm mad at you.  Either way...welcome to my blog, I hope you'll stick around and enjoy the randomness that is my mind.  Comments are welcome.  In exchange for the laughs I'm sure to provide on many occasions, I accept payment in Dunkin Donuts gift cards.  
     
    (Yes, I'm kidding about that last part.  Everything else, though, I'm quite serious about.)  
     
    - Capulet
     
  12. Capulet
    Also posted in Share Your Story:
    Installment One: The Formative Years
    I was born on a snowy winter morning in 1978.  Originally, I wasn’t planning to reveal my age – but felt there was some importance in divulging the time frame.  I DO believe that there is FAR more awareness now than there was back then.  Maybe, just maybe things would have turned out differently.  Maybe it would have set off an entirely different chain of events. Maybe I wouldn’t be writing this, now. As life is full of too many maybes and not enough definites, I’ve decided to chuck the what-ifs into the (digital) trash where they belong, because regardless of what the maybes are, they’ll never be proven and we cannot dwell on them.
    My mother was a schoolteacher.  She’d been teaching kindergarten up until shortly before giving birth and my father worked in insurance.  They married young.  I’d learn years later that I was not their first child – before they married, my mother, at seventeen, had become pregnant with my brother – that pregnancy was terminated, likely for a number of reasons but two main ones stand out – one – they were young and not yet engaged – and two – although my mother claimed she was ambiguous and would have birthed my brother, my father was of the mindset that they weren’t ready to have a child, yet.  So, they’d made the decision to terminate, and didn’t have me until eight years later and after they’d already been married for seven of them.  
    When I was six months old, my parents noticed that I was not responding to loud noises or to my name being called.  I think an investigation was sparked when my father set off the smoke/fire alarm, alerting all tenants of the apartment building we lived in, (I must say that his cooking has not improved) and I slept through it all. There was enough concern that they brought me to have my hearing tested.  The audiologist took out a cowbell and stood directly behind me and rang it.  My parents could hear it.  The people in the office next door likely heard it, too. Hell, the people outside probably could have heard it. 
    I, however, did not.  I remained stationary in my seat and unfazed.
    “Your daughter is deaf.”
    The diagnosis rattled my parents to their core. They thankfully didn’t waste time seeking out second or third opinions – they’d likely have gotten the same responses.  They liked this particular audiologist, too, and felt comfortable with her and her advice to get me fitted with hearing aids as quickly as possible.  
    “What happened?”  They did ask her.
    I am the only one in my family history to have a hearing impairment, so they knew this was not genetic.  After discussing any and all possibilities, the one theory that seemed most likely was my mother’s (while being pregnant) having come into contact with a student of hers that had come down with the measles.  Another way that ‘back then’ was different from today – there wasn’t so much stress on the importance of vaccinations and kids were showing up to school with brewing illnesses and sharing them with their friends, or in my mother’s case, with their pregnant teachers.  So, the reason that’s been put down in all of my medical charts is, ‘birth defect.’  
    It was also explained to my parents that I’d likely never speak, having never been able to ‘hear’ proper speech.  It’s been suggested, although never confirmed, that I was born with a severe hearing loss and it had rapidly declined into a profound loss by the time of diagnosis.  It was recommended that I be taught sign language as a primary language – which would have meant that both my parents, who combined, didn’t know a single word in sign language, would have to first learn it themselves in order to teach ME to communicate.
    The sign-language route wasn’t an option that my mother was willing to accept as a primary plan.  It quickly became a secondary, back-up plan as she decided to quit her teaching job and to focus on taking care of her special-needs child. I’m unsure if it was due to her strong background and focus in education, or if it was a personal mission of hers that she undertook at this point, but early intervention was her mindset and quickly became her obsession.  If speech training could not be implemented into my day-to-day life, then they’d revert back to Plan B.
    EVERYTHING was a lesson.  A learning experience.  I am partially glad that I have no memory of this, either.  The way my mother tells it, every waking moment was spent teaching me. Every time she spoke to me, she’d place my tiny hand onto her throat so that I could feel the vibrations of her voice. She’d also say the names of things she’d pick up, and make sure I was looking at her when she did, so that I could see how they looked on her lips, and put the image together with the words. Cup.  Ball.  Book. Toy.  The list goes on.  And the colors….this is red, that’s blue…etc.  There were flash cards, too…she’d cut out photos from magazines and make these herself.  She would eventually be able to say a word and have me point to the picture.  

    She didn’t do all of this, herself, though. She also took several trips into the city, sometimes as often as three times per week, where trained professionals would also work with me on speech and language development.  Being at home was just a constant continuation of all of the work they did there.  In addition to being my mother, she became my first and most important teacher.  
    My father wasn’t as involved with all of this.  I’m not sure if this was where they started having problems or disagreements, but they were divorced before I had any memory of him living with us or being a constant within my very early childhood. 
    My mother was given sole custody.  My father didn’t fight her.  While I know he loved me very much, he was clearly happy with having her do most of the parenting and he’d take me on weekends and holidays.  I was 2 when their divorce was final; Mom and I moved out of the apartment that my parents shared.  My Dad would remain in the same place for the next decade.  As she needed time to get onto her feet, she moved in with my grandmother for a little while.  My grandmother owned a house that had been in the family since HER mother bought when SHE was a child.  It was a brick, two-story place that had been converted into a two-family home when my mother was still a kid.  Now it was the very early 80’s and my mother’s brother and his ‘friend’ (a male roommate/his best friend/possible lover?) lived in the upstairs apartment while my mother and I lived in the downstairs apartment with my grandmother. This was only meant to be a temporary arrangement, as my mother, following her divorce from my father, had returned back to work.  As soon as my mother began to gain a steady income, (along with my father’s child support) we moved out of my grandmother’s house and into a small basement apartment just a few blocks away.  My mother, until she eventually re-married, made sure to stay close to my grandmother – and also my uncle.  
    You see, she needed help with getting me to my appointments into the city for continued speech therapy.  I was not yet in school, so my uncle, who was not working at the time, was tasked with taking me back and forth via city subway.  There was a train station literally behind my grandmother’s house and it was one train from there to the city, where my uncle would bring me for my appointments while my mother worked.  On days I didn’t have appointments, he was my babysitter – and would watch me at my grandmother’s house until my mother got home.
    A pause here, to tell you a little bit about him.
    He was (I suppose I shouldn’t say ‘was’ as he’s still alive – but my grandmother is not) my grandmother’s eldest. My mother also had an older sister, who at the time was married with a couple kids, lived elsewhere (although not too far) and had her own issues at the time – so was unavailable to help out. My uncle had joined the seminary years before I was born.  I’m unsure if doing so had to do with his sexual orientation – or guilt and confusion relating to it.  Either way, he became a Roman Catholic priest – and still lived with his ‘friend,’ a man I knew for my entire life and adopted as a second uncle.  From when I was born, he was there.  I’d never known my uncle to be without his ‘friend.’  To this day, they are still living in that apartment, even though I think now, he’s moved downstairs and is occupying the space that used to be my grandmother’s.  But, anyway – I rarely saw him in anything other than the black pants, black shirt, priest collar.  He never confirmed that my second uncle was anything more than just his friend, and no one wanted to ask.  We all just went along with it, not wanting to know what went on behind closed doors.  None of that was our business.  My uncle was the equivalent of the ‘housewife’ while my ‘bonus’ uncle worked a regular nine-to-five – so unless it was a weekend or Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s or a holiday or family gathering, I rarely saw him.  
    While we lived within walking distance from my grandmother’s house, my uncle would walk over in the evenings to ‘say goodnight,’ and usually that consisted of him telling me a bedtime story and tucking me in.  Usually it was the same corny story.  He would put me in as the main character – he would also insert my cousins, (my aunt’s kids) but always make me the heroine.  There was no doubt that I was his ‘favorite’ and he made sure to tell me often.
    I spent a LOT of time with him when I was between the ages three to five. When I started elementary school, the trips into the city had lessened from three times a week down to two, and they’d likely be after-school appointments.  He would still take me to those, as my mother’s work schedule often consisted of after-school tutoring, to earn a little extra.  
    All that being said, let it be known that I have no memories of ANY of this.  I only remember all of the above as that’s how it was told to me.
    By the time I turned six, my mother had just re-married.  My new stepfather was a decent guy and a hard worker. My first sister was ‘baking,’ my mother had become pregnant shortly after her wedding.  My father had also remarried within months of my mother.  I now had two ‘bonus’ parents aside from my biological parents – I still lived with my mother, though, and we’d moved into an apartment further away from my grandmother’s house – meaning my uncle could no longer walk the distance to ‘tuck me in’ at night anymore.  
    I’m not sure how this came to be – it might have been suggested that I was struggling socially in school, but my mother eventually decided to put me into ‘play therapy.’  It was church sponsored and free – but being six, I didn’t care about the ‘therapy’ aspect of it all.  All I cared about was the fact they had a Barbie Dream House in one of their playrooms, and I LOVED the idea of being able to go play with it for an hour. There were a WHOLE lot of toys to pick from…blocks, puppets, stuffed animals…but that Dream House was all that I’d go for.  They had a range of Barbies that I could play with, too, which only made it all better. I remember a Dream House of my own being added to my Christmas list, but it never did show up under the tree. Damn that Santa Claus!
    That’s where my memories start.  I remember nothing before going to play therapy.  I, however, remember THIS particular afternoon at play therapy where I clenched a Ken doll in one hand and a Skipper doll in the other. This is where it gets fuzzy.  I don’t remember what the dolls were actually doing.  Perhaps I’m not allowed to remember.  I DO, however, remember the lady waving her hand to get my attention, and then when I looked at her, asking me who the Ken doll was.  What was his name?
    I could have said, ‘Ken.’  Even back then, I’m sure I was a smart-ass.  I did know that was the name of Barbie’s boyfriend.  But I didn’t.  In this representation, he wasn’t Ken.  Instead, I named my uncle.
    The lady told me I could play for a little while longer.  She would be right back.  I didn’t care that she left me alone in the playroom.  Thinking back, I’m sure she was going to speak to my mother and properly ‘reporting’ what had just been said.  At the time, though, nothing registered.  I was oblivious and uncaring, as long as I had a few more minutes with the Dream House, I was golden…
    I never saw that woman or that playroom again.  I think I was more disappointed that I never saw the Dream House again, either.
    Shortly after my last play therapy session, two women showed up at our apartment.  They sat on either side of me on the couch.  My mother was there, too, standing across from where we sat.  I remember her telling the women that I was deaf and I needed for her there to interpret, in case I didn’t understand them. I remember vaguely one woman beginning to speak slowly.  She started out with some simple questions.  What was my name?  How old was I?  What was my favorite color?  What was my favorite toy?  When she was sure that I could understand her without my mother’s help, she put down the clipboard she had in her lap, and slightly opened her legs.
    “Do you know what this is?”  She patted her own crotch.  It was quick, a pat-pat when the word ‘this’ was said.
    I remember looking at this lady as if she were bat-shit crazy. Of course I knew what THAT was.  I had one too.  I knew the name, but I called it a ‘private part.’  
    I remember there being a brief dialogue between my mother and these two women.  My mother was someone that there was NEVER any issue lip-reading.  The person I had NO choice but to understand.  She was suggesting to the women that she’d spoken to her brother and he’d disciplined me because I was being ‘fresh.’  He’d admitted to swatting my bottom. Additionally, maybe that was why I was confused, and THAT’s what he’d touched, instead of where Ken had touched Skipper.  I assume that is why they asked me what (pat-pat) ‘this’ was.  ‘This’ and my bottom are not in the same place.  In hindsight, even at six, I knew the difference between that was in the front and what was in the back.  
    Why would I deny this, though?  My mother was the one person I knew I needed to obey.  Whatever she said was the truth.  One of the not-so-good things about her being my first-ever ‘teacher’ – I took every single thing she said seriously and as being the truth.  She was right about everything.  Whatever she knew, I was supposed to also know.  And like most students try to do with their teachers – I was eager to supply the right answer and to make her proud.  I wanted to please her, I wanted to be right and not wrong.
    So, when the women turned to me and asked if that was what happened, and that my uncle had spanked my bottom, I nodded.  Yes.  If Mom said that’s what happened, then that’s what happened.  I DID remember him doing that, after all.  Not details, but I DID remember being warned by my mother not to give my uncle a hard time on the subway. I was six, of COURSE I was going to get out of line a few times.  The subway had poles in the aisles and I’d love spinning around them…he’d probably complained about that and said I’d misbehaved.  I’d probably been swatted a couple times because I didn’t listen.  It wasn’t something done regularly.
    I suddenly felt very afraid.  Of what, I don’t know.  Maybe it was of these strange women and them being here and asking weird questions. They’d seemed friendly when they arrived.  Now, they were just intimidating, and I wanted them to leave.  I’m not sure how much longer we were talking but to an anxious six-year-old, time drags and it’s hard not to get restless.  
    “I made it up.”  
    Yes.  I said it.  I said it so they would leave.  Sure enough, shortly after, they gathered their papers and clipboards and left. My mother let them out and said nothing more of this.  Ever.  Not a single word.  You’d think something this serious would be followed up on.  It would be something that I’d need facts on. Something that would be too hard to ignore, but it’s something my mother had too little difficulty ‘forgetting about.’  
    I do think, though, my uncle was spooked, and if there was indeed something going on, it stopped here.  I did always remember that meeting with those women and telling them I’d lied and that I’d entirely made up what Ken had done to Skipper was always in the back of my head, bottled and stored in a place that would remain undisturbed for the next a decade and a half.  It perhaps stayed in the back of my mother’s mind, too, but unlike me, she’d never get around to re-opening this bottle.  
    I’m not sure if the behaviors began before or after this meeting with those two women.  I remember nothing from ‘before’ I started to believe that I was a liar, for having made up something so terrible about my uncle.  And now, looking back at the behaviors I remember so clearly, I was having to believe that there really was something wrong with me, too.  
    I remember beginning to take my own baths at the age of seven.  My sister had been born shortly before I turned seven, and my mother was now often busy with an infant.  So, every night, I would go into the bathroom with my bucket of bath toys and take a bath on my own.  
    This next part is one of the hardest things for me to admit – but I will do so anyway, as I’ve promised not to hold back, not to kick certain details over to the side because they’re too shameful or embarrassing.  It’s important.  It’s another huge, significant, blinking question mark when it comes to the whys behind it.  Another black void that I truly cannot shine a light on, to see what started it.  
    But – at age seven is when the masturbation started.  Water was how I did it, mostly with the shower head/spray. I don’t know if this means of masturbation was ‘discovered’ by accident or it was a previously introduced method, but it regardless became a routine.  At the beginning of ‘bath time,’ I would turn on the shower head and let the water hit me ‘there’ until I couldn’t anymore.  I had no idea what an orgasm was, but there was a point I needed to get to – a point  where I could no longer spray in that spot, because it was throbbing too much.  While a child knows nothing about masturbation – certainly not the proper term for it - she somehow knew that it was how to arrive at that ‘feeling’ at the end. 
    To experience that feeling soon became a bath time obsession for me. While it was something I had grown used to doing, and I am ashamed to admit I enjoyed, too – I also knew, deep down, that it was wrong.  There was something about it that didn’t feel right – and I ignored that nagging feeling. Instead, I hid this from not only my mother, but from everyone else in the household.   It was my secret, something I never told anybody about.  A few years in, my mother did eventually realize what I was doing when she walked into the bathroom and caught me in the process. She’d confirmed my fears – it was wrong, it was a sin and it was disgusting.  And because I’d become so intent on doing it, I felt even more so that this meant that I was not normal, I was a bad person, I was a disgusting, vile human being.  It was something she would tell me that I needed to confess to our parish priest (we were Catholic…I only say ‘were’ because I no longer follow the Catholic) before receiving Communion at Sunday mass.  So, every week, I’d shamefully admit to the priest (the face-to-face confessional was how I had to do it) that I touched myself.  I’d grow increasingly ashamed of it, and of myself, as I got older.
    An addendum to the whole ‘confessing my sins’ bit – I wasn’t thinking to add this as I was almost finished writing this installment when remembering this part.  As my mother insisted on my going to confession before church, and her brother was a priest, she would sometimes have HIM listen to my confessions.  There was a room in his apartment that he’d made a mini-chapel out of – he had an altar, his statues, the communion dish, the wine goblet, the incense thingy…there was a single pew where we would once in a while hear him say mass.  Or it was where I’d sit next to him and avoid eye contact while I told him the same things I’d tell our parish priest.  He would absolve me of my sins every time, and then give me my three Hail Marys or two Our Fathers to recite as penance.  I never really thought about how messed up this was – not until much later. I can’t help but wonder, looking back, what HE was thinking when hearing me say these things?
    Another behavior that also began when I was very young was soiling myself. This, I cannot explain the reasoning behind.  I would literally ‘hold it’ even if I needed to go to the bathroom – and usually would have soiled underwear at the end of the day. I’d taken to hiding them when I took them off, fearful that I’d be yelled at.  My mother would indeed yell, but usually it would be when she either realized that there weren’t too many pairs of my underwear in the laundry or when she’d find however many pairs that I’d hidden when she ‘cleaned’ a certain place in my room.  She also knew about my soiling – she’d shame me for that, too, telling me I smelled, and that nobody would want to be near me.  Perhaps, deep down, I knew that.  Either way, this, along with the masturbation, was likely one of the several reasons I met my first therapist when I was eight years old.
    Dr. M had her office in the basement level of a brownstone in downtown Brooklyn.  She was a Jewish lady with an 80’s perm, glasses, and a fondness for saying ‘what do YOU think?’ whenever I asked her a question.  Her office had a playroom, too, but alas, no Barbie Dream House. She did have wooden building blocks, plenty of paper, crayons and other crafting supplies.  Most of the time, we’d converse while I drew pictures or built something out of the blocks.  I don’t recall what we talked about, but I do remember wanting to know more about her. How old was she?  What was HER favorite thing to eat?  It would piss me off to no end when she would smile and ask what I thought.  I’d tell her, “I dunno.  That’s why I’m asking you.”
    I saw her for once per week, for one year.  It became something I looked forward to – it was hard, at eight, to view Dr. M as a therapist or to wonder why I was seeing her.  Mom would later say it was because I was having trouble at school and that I was imaginative.  Hmm. Imaginative.  Meaning, I guess, I was a liar, and that was just a nicer word for it.  I think she also threw in “well, your being deaf was making it hard for you to make friends at school.”  That doesn’t quite top the ‘imaginative’ reference, but it was also true that school SUCKED for me.  Kids were cruel, I kept to myself mostly, and shied away from as much social activity as possible.  Not that seeing Dr. M improved on that – school was a nightmare all through middle school – being deaf was simply what was wrong with me now, and what would be wrong with me for the rest of my life.  While the other stuff that was wrong with me was a secret, this wasn’t one I could keep.  There was constantly attention being drawn to my disability, and my classmates, not being mature enough to be able to see past it, would be merciless and consistent with their bullying.  
    To me, Dr. M was a kindly lady who talked to me, who drew with me, who let me tell her stories.  Perhaps those were imaginative, too?  I honestly have to wonder if any of my ‘stories’ raised any red flags, because suddenly, one Saturday morning, I was prepared to go for my therapy session and my mother informed me that I’d not be seeing Dr. M anymore.  “It’s too expensive,” my mother said.  In hindsight, I cannot imagine that being the case, as my father, who has always been comfortable with money, was funding all of this.  That’s basically his role in all of it.  My mother would tell him what she needed – money, take me to this appointment, pick me up, drop me off.  Dad never questioned anything or the cost of anything – he just did it.  She said to jump, he’d ask how high.  
    There was never any closure with Dr. M.  My mother stuck to the story that her services were too expensive.  I remember being disappointed – sad, almost, that I would no longer see my ‘friend,’ Dr. M, but almost as quickly as it became a routine, it became a thing of the past.   
    Life went on after the discontinuation of therapy.  My mother and stepfather eventually had another baby. Another sister.  My father and his wife remained childless; Dad always insisting that his one daughter was enough for him.  I was with Mom most of the time and spent every other weekend with my father. Family gatherings continued to be held, most of the time at my grandmother’s house.  We did all of the holidays – Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, birthdays.  My grandmother was a non-driver – as my uncle too, never got his driver’s license, either. So, we always went to her house, as to simplify things for my grandmother and uncle – and us, as if we wanted them elsewhere, someone would have to pick them up and then drive them back home.  My grandmother, up until she became sick, would insist on our visits on Sunday. Without fail, we went there on Sundays for dinner – even if it wasn’t a holiday.  She wanted her family together – it was what she loved more than anything. This, I’m realizing, was something she passed down to my mother – I am finding that this family closeness is what my mother wants, as well, but it is, unfortunately for her, not how it unfolded.
    Still, life went on as if what had happened when I was six – had never happened.  My uncle was no longer my babysitter, but he remained a constant.  He was present at all the holidays and birthday celebrations. He would, on occasion, take me to movies during visits to my grandmother’s house.  He didn’t seem to begrudge me for what I do remember having gone down with the dolls, and like my mother, he said nothing about it and carried on as if it was nonexistent.  I will never know what was said between brother and sister – and what the plan was between the two of them – perhaps because keeping the family together was of paramount importance to my grandmother, it was decided that nothing would become of any of that – especially if I wasn’t remembering it…or at least, giving off signs of remembering.

    After all, as I entered adolescence, the abnormal behaviors (the bath stuff, the soiling) ceased and stopped.  My mother had gotten her wish – I’d ‘forgotten’ about it.  It no longer existed and it had effectively been swept under the rug.  I carried on as ‘normal’ a relationship with my uncle as possible and ignored those little things that I would randomly remember for no particular reason.  He has a birthmark on the knuckle side of his right hand – situated between his thumb and forefinger.  His favorite breakfast cereal is Puffed Rice.  Whenever I’d pass the Puffed Rice in the supermarket, I’d think to myself how much I hated it.  He would call me ‘baby girl’ (his nickname for me) and I realized as the years went on, how much I hated that, too.  Still, I said nothing, and would shift my thinking whenever any of these things came up.
    Several years went by without a mention of anything.  Still, I remembered, but mentally, leaned more toward the theory that because I couldn’t remember any actual details, then I probably was confused and DID lie.  I did, however, see less and less of my uncle, as my grandmother eventually became much older and too weak to host the weekly Sunday dinners.  
    I know that this particular installment is really only supposed to discuss what I remember of my childhood and my young adulthood doesn’t really fall into this category.  I however, need to fast-forward for a moment, to when I was twenty-two years old.  This took place after I’d been raped at seventeen – after I’d moved out of my mother’s house, after I’d already given birth to my son and married his father.  After a series of poorly-made choices that I’ll get into detail on in installment three.  It was after life had succeeded in deepening the cracks that were likely made in childhood.  
    My grandmother, sadly, had succumbed to osteoporosis and other health issues, and died in her sleep at home.  A day or two following her funeral, my mother and I stopped by her house to sort through some of her things to see what could be kept, what could be donated, what could be thrown away.
    The minute I walked into her house, I was hit by a feeling of dread. Of unfamiliarity.  My uncle let us in, and we saw that he’d already began to ‘move on.’  He (or the ‘bonus uncle’) had transferred all of his religious statues from his chapel upstairs and there they stood, wrapped in protective plastic, in the bedroom that used to be my grandmother’s.  He told us of his plans to relocate his chapel downstairs, as well as take over my grandmother’s part of the house for himself – as his knees were declining and it was becoming increasingly difficult to climb up the flight of stairs every day.  He was already beginning to fix the cracks in the floors by replacing the rotted wood squares with new ones. 
    It was like a flip was switched.  For the first time, I became angry.  
    Grandma wasn’t alive anymore.  I no longer had to pretend.  I looked again at my uncle and realized how much I fucking hated him.  I hated the sight of him.  The smell of him.  I hated the ‘baby girl’ every time he saw me, I hated seeing that ugly fucking birthmark on his hand every time he reached out to hug me.  And he didn’t look like my uncle anymore.  Not the uncle I’d been telling myself for all of these years, was probably innocent and that I was a lying piece of shit for having put him through that investigation that nothing ever came out of.  No.  Now, a look at his face made me want to insta-puke.  All over his Jesus statues and new floors.  Floors he could have had installed while my grandmother was still living and might’ve had the opportunity to enjoy them!  Her body wasn’t even fucking COLD yet, and you’re redecorating!?
    I’d also, by now, experienced a sexual assault five years earlier – so I am thinking that, combined with the passing of my grandmother, was what made possible the swift, rude uncovering of those bottled-up suspicions that had been collecting dust in the back of my mind.  It became harder to believe myself when that tiny six-year-old voice said, “I made it up.”  Nothing made sense anymore.  I had more questions now than I had answers.
    Guess what I realized on that afternoon, other than the fact that I hated my uncle?
    I didn’t make this up.  Something happened.  Something so horrible, that my brain will not allow me to remember it.  A six-year-old kid doesn’t pull this shit out of thin air. Where the hell would she get it from? This started somewhere!
    I have seen my uncle only a handful of times since my grandmother’s passing in 2002.  I cut him out.  Completely. I wanted nothing to do with him.  I wanted my KIDS to have nothing to do with him.  I refused to attend any family gathering where he would be present.  I no longer invited him to ours.  I had to suck it up at the weddings of both of my sisters – he was there, and I’d had to be polite as not to arouse curiousity. I’d say hello and goodbye and avoid any interaction beyond that.  There was a time during my mission to remove him from my life when he’d been hospitalized with an infection, and my mother, thinking he was going to die then, insisted I go see him – the hospital was, after all, just down the street from where I was living at the time.  I’d told my husband to leave the car running and took the elevator up.  As soon as he saw me, he broke down into tears and blubbered, ‘I didn’t mean for us to be enemies.’  Not knowing what the hell to do with that, I left minutes later, saying that there was no parking and they were waiting for me to come back down. That was as good enough to a confession I was going to get out of him, and I left the hospital that day further convinced that cutting him out was the absolute best choice I could ever make. THAT was what convinced me whenever there was question, whenever there was that moment of doubt.
    My mother, who, for many years, had seen me ‘carry on’ as if everything were normal, eventually began to ask me why I was so angry with him, why I no longer called him ‘uncle.’  Why I snapped at whomever dared mention his name or sing his praises.  Why whenever someone said ‘he’s a priest!’ my face would scrunch as if I’d bitten into a lemon.  I would never be able to say anything more than that initial feeling I’d gotten when walking into my grandmother’s house and seeing that he’d gutted it and been so quick to ‘remove’ her from it.  He’d treated his mother like shit, he’d likely been anxious for her to die, so that he could redo her house and conform it to his selfish needs.  Additionally, I added that he’d cheated my mother out of her inheritance – something I’d find out not too long after.  Yes, she would have more reason to be angry with him over that, but it ‘fit’ and it was something more to add to my list of what to be angry with him for…but whether it was enough to hate him was probably unlikely.  
    I also realized that I was becoming increasingly angry with my mother.  This, though, was tricky and I couldn’t help but feel incredibly guilty each time I looked at my mother and felt periodic bouts of anger, mixed in with bits of hatred and disgust.  To this day, I cannot hug her with my heart – only my arms. I believe this is only because the physical affection was obligatory – a greeting, a farewell, a special occasion – all those things that require hugs and shows of affection – those were easy, mostly because there was usually more than just one person to greet/say goodbye to/congratulate on whatever.  I find it sad though, that I cannot hug my mother to show her love.  I cannot go to her for comfort.  I cannot trust her.  But I do love her, in my own distant, detached way.
    My mother was the one who supposedly loved me the most, the one who molded me into this greatly improved version of what they told her I would be.  She’s been there whenever I needed her to be. She helped us financially in the past, and she continues to, if she sees us struggling.  She genuinely (and probably) does more for me than she does my sisters.  While I’ll always appreciate what she’s done, I’m stuck on what she didn’t do.  What she refused to see.   For that reason alone, I’d chosen to not tell her about the things that would happen afterwards.  My thinking on it – if she failed to help me when I needed it as a child, then she certainly would fail to help me at an older age.  She had her chance to help me deal and cope with the aftereffects of abuse, whether it was child abuse or abuse I’d suffer in adulthood, but she failed.  I’m unable to find it within myself to give her another chance.  Especially now, in adulthood, where she continues to inadvertently insult me by repeatedly throwing her brother into my face.  Especially now, that his health has severely declined and he’s actively experiencing end-stage congestive heart failure on top of not being able to walk or do much for himself without assistance – and she’s made efforts to get me to mend fences, even if by way of a greeting or a brief conversation with him before his (long overdue) death.  Her efforts have failed, and will continue to fail, for he’s been dead to me for years, already.  He ‘died’ on that afternoon in his house when that bottle of memories that I’d tucked away for years, was suddenly knocked off its shelf and had shattered.  
    The idea of him had died.  My connection to him – dead and severed.  Unfortunately, his physical body has not yet died, despite a heart attack, a quadruple bypass, diabetes, obesity, knee and hip replacements, arthritis, that infectious disease he’d been in for when I’d visited him, and countless bouts of pneumonia and other respiratory issues.  I swear, this disgusting, vile, rancid, sorry excuse of a person has more lives than my five cats combined!  
    Anyway – I’ve seemingly gone off course.  This installment was supposed to deal with just childhood and what I remember of it.  It just seemed pertinent to discuss a little bit of my more recent attempts to reduce contact, especially since some of you have seen me bit*h and complain and moan about my mother and about having to be at the same family gathering as my uncle as recently as a few months ago.  
    In closing, I think that it is safe to say there were many victories within my childhood.  I succeeded where kids like me who didn’t have the extensive training did not.  I was always ‘ahead’ in language, vocabulary. I thrived in the ‘hearing’ community, when it was told to my parents that the likelihood of that happening was very slim.  I’d be more likely to graduate high school with a fourth-grade reading and vocabulary level – but that didn’t happen.  I’d learned to function within a hearing community, and I wasn’t that .  Granted, my mother had gleaned most of the praise for my accomplishments – having done all of the required foundation work. Perhaps that’s another mother-issue to analyze in another piece of writing – it won’t be done in this one.
    As there were successes, there were also several failures.  Most of them, though, were not my own.  Those two ladies who came to our apartment?  They failed to persist, to follow up, to see through my mother’s version of events.  They believed my mother when she said that I likely misunderstood.  I was easily confused, and probably didn’t understand the difference between bad touching and a spank on my ass.  So, they let this go.  Dr. M?  She failed, too.  Maybe she had been getting close to uncovering what had really happened.  Maybe not.  Either way, she’d later tell me (more on that in a future installment) that there had been no resolution, as my mother yanked me from therapy at nine years old.  My father – although he is someone I think my mother constantly lied to and therefore the person I truly believe was the most clueless of all of them, also failed by not assuming a more active role.  Him, though, I’ve forgiven and don’t begrudge. My mother is a powerful force – and a master manipulator.  She knows how to cover things up, how to lie, how to sway a child’s thinking.  How to self-protect.  Next to her brother, who also quite obviously failed me, she was the one who failed me the most, and in the worst possible way.  
    And for years – I failed myself, too.  Even unintentionally, I did so by denying, by burying, by ignoring things, by keeping silent.  By lying about what I thought, even if they were lies by omission.  By allowing someone else to speak for me, to tell a story that didn’t feel accurate.  To always agree, because I was a liar and it didn’t matter what I said – it was wrong. By also giving in and accepting the idea that there was something wrong with me and that was the reason for all those ‘abnormal’ behaviors.  
    Well…no more.
    It’s time to make this right.  Make those things I thought were lies, a truth.  Although I cannot correct what others have or haven’t done, it is time to turn my own failures into a victory - even if I do it here, first -  behind the safety net that I know will remain intact and where I know I'll be met with the love, support and validation that I truly need.  I do not know if I will ever be able to tell this story outside of this forum or to confront those responsible, but to be able to do it here at this time, is a freeing start.  
    - Capulet
  13. Capulet
    Say it isn't so...a blog entry that has MOSTLY nothing to do with my children.   I say mostly because I'll start off by saying a couple quick things about them, just as a courtesy follow-up of my last blog entry.  You're welcome!
    The Son is still accident-free, but that's only because we got about six inches of snow this week and he hasn't driven since he got his license.  I refuse to let him drive when there's even a small amount of snow on the roads.  Mostly because I've got about 23 years' driving experience and I'm STILL scared shitless of driving on wet/slushy roads.  Thankfully, he takes after me and hasn't asked to borrow the car, yet.  Small blessings! 
    The Daughter is still 'in a fight' with her 'fake friends.'  And as much as I want to stick my tongue out at these petty sixth graders, I am behaving myself and I'm 'staying out of it.'  At the moment, she's face-timing with a 'new' friend.  She's had a rough couple of weeks with these other little shits, so I'm going to let her continue to talk to this new person, even though she SHOULD be sleeping right now.
    Hell, I SHOULD be sleeping, but I'm not.  I'm here instead, with something on my mind.
    So, let's talk about me for a little while...I actually got this idea from a post I read earlier.  Someone talked about feelings of isolation, of not liking to go anywhere, not liking to be out of their element at all...
    Well, folks, this is me.  To a T!
    I don't like leaving my house.  Unless J and I have to go somewhere, I am truly happiest being home, being in my own bedroom.  We already know how wonderfully (yes, yes, there is indeed a smidge of sarcasm in this sentence) I do with sleepovers/visits to the in-laws' or overnight stays in places other than my familiar surroundings.  Oompa has been inviting me to stay with her since we moved.  Take a wild guess as to how many times I've obliged. ;)
    I HATE parties.  Mostly because there are too many people around and I'm just not socially adept in any way.  I am the most awkward human being you'll ever meet, if it's in a party setting.  I don't recognize music as anything other than noise.  ANNOYING noise.  I'll smile, say polite hellos and make (very) small talk but I'm usually ready to get home and put my pajamas on before the coffee comes out.
    I am sure that my reasons for being a hermit stem partially from being hard-of-hearing.  When I tell you that crowds are my worst fucking nightmare, I'm not exaggerating.  I'm okay with SMALL crowds; two or three people, huddled around a table...conversations are FAR easier for me to follow.  Even so, I miss out on a chunk of it...and I find myself laughing whenever they laugh.  I'm also PRAYING no one asks me if I really got the joke, because then I look even more like an idiot when I'm honest and say, "nope, I just laughed because everyone else was laughing."  
    There are times where I'll be with a small group of people.  The dinner table at holiday gatherings.  A family supper.  A double date.  Anywhere in general.  Even little gatherings at a restaurant with me and J and as few as one or two others.  I'll find myself being able to follow a conversation for a few moments, but then I'll trail off.  Words become garbled.  The background ambience just overwhelms and I no longer am present.  I'm staring off into space.  I don't mean to LOOK bored but I'm just plain lost.  I'm in la-la land...until someone gets my attention and brings me back to reality.  This will happen a number of times throughout the evening.  Then later on, J and I will reflect, and she'll ask me if I remember when so-and-so was talking about her new job and I'll shrug and say, "gee, must have missed that."  My love will then recap for me.  She's a gem.  My gem. 
    Either way, I'm CONSTANTLY avoiding being around other people.  I feel that if I'm not there to begin with, then there's even less that has to be repeated.  A family or friendly gathering that SHOULD be a joyful time, I'll usually dread.  (Especially if they're with my family.  They simply aren't my favorite people, if you hadn't noticed.)
    J and I have been together for nine years, so most of our friends are mutual friends.  The ladies we bowl with, mostly, because the bowling alley is where we usually go together and we have made many friends there.  Most of them, we left back in our old state, but we're starting to become very friendly with the couple we bowl with on Friday nights.  The wife also bowls with us on our Monday league.  She's a sweet lady and I'm quite surprised at how comfortable I am at conversing with her or cracking jokes with her in between frames.  
    I gotta say, though, bowling alleys are easy.  There is no deep conversation required...you go, roll the ball down the lane...occasionally say, "nice ball!" or "great shot!"  I have to say though, most of my friends from where we used to live were friends who knew that in order to talk to me about anything non-bowling related, they had to first make sure they had my full attention.  
    Let it be known that I freaking can't STAND it when people come up to me and start talking before it registers in my mind that they're talking to me.  It takes me a moment...I first have to make eye contact with someone, then my eyes look at their lips...add to that I'm getting old and slower by the year...by the time I realize they're talking to me, I've missed half of whatever they're saying/the beginning of a story.  (I'm also aware that this sentence may need to be re-read a number of times before it makes sense.  It's way past my bedtime as well as the point of legibility.)
    So...when I have limited information, the fake laugh and the quick, smile-and-pretend-you-know-what-they're-talking-about reflex kicks in.  And then again, I pray they move on and don't ask for my input...my luck, it's on something they said and I completely missed.  75% of the time, I get lucky.  The other 25% of the time I have to ask them to slowly repeat themselves.  This is something I hate to do...truly.  The Wasband was a pain in the ass and if, God forbid, I asked him to repeat himself more than once or twice, I'd get a snappy "never mind" and an eye roll.  Even J at times, even though she is MUCH nicer than the Wasband, gets frustrated with me.  I get a much nicer, cuter "never mind."  Most of the time.  
    I do SO, SO much better online.  Why can't I live online?  Why can't my address be on Dot Com Street?
    In a perfect world, everything is there for me to READ.  Everything is closed-captioned!  (I'll take a moment here to profusely thank my family members for not being tempted to turn the captions off on our television...sometimes the words block out parts of the picture and are unattractive in general...still, J and my children leave them on because at this point, television shows are weird without them!  Bless each and every one of their hearts!!!!)
    My dreams are closed captioned, for Pete's sake...I don't know how else to explain it.  I'm not hard-of-hearing in my dreams.  Or maybe I am, since there's never been a time when I wasn't hard-of-hearing.  It's just that...people talk and I understand it.  Every word.  There are no "say whats?" or instances of me asking them to repeat themselves.  Everything flows naturally.  They're normal.  Except when I dream of talking monkeys or other impossible things, then I start to question whatever sanity remains.  Maybe it's like watching television for me...when I go to sleep, I'm reading my conversations.  Or maybe because they're my dreams, I have a natural understanding and there's no 'hearing' required...the mind being an amazing thing as it is, I'm leaning toward the latter.
    In fact, my two long term relationships originated online.  The Wasband and I met through a mutual friend on AOL, back when AOL was an overpriced, addictive thing.  And you all know by now that J and I met here, once upon a time when I hosted the chats here.  The written word has ALWAYS been my best way of communicating.  I'm pretty good with texting too.   I can follow conversations as well as anyone else, and I NEVER feel isolated.  I never feel alone.  I can be in a ROOMFUL of people and STILL feel as if I'm very, very alone.  I'm used to this, I'll be the big 4-0 at the end of this year (and I'll not repeat that) and this has been pretty much the norm for my entire life.  
    I'm not without concerns, though. Or the famous 'what ifs' that I have trained myself to run away from...as fast as I can!
    When I was diagnosed with having less hearing than a piece of furniture when I was four months old, Oompa's first mission in motherhood was to instill language into me.  Sign language was not an option; my mother decided that I'd become 'lazy' and I'd prefer signing over the spoken word, and so she did not promote interaction with other deaf children.
    (Side note...I just had to correct myself...as a result of my tiredness, I almost typed in 'dead' children.  There would be no interaction at all if that were the case.)
    As a result, I never was able to communicate with the peers that were most like me.  I don't quite fit in among people whose ears are in working order either, what I've described above is a perfect example of how isolated I've gotten used to feeling.  So used to it, that it no longer bothers me.  I confess, I LIKE it, sometimes...I can spend HOURS by myself...sometimes DAYS, before the need for company arises.  
    I'd love to say that this, like many other things that piss me off on a daily basis, is my mother's fault. I'm not sure if this is entirely Oompa's doing, though.  There are people who hear just fine but still feel out of place at social events.  What's their excuse?  Is this just a thing that God decides for a person before he distributes us into the world to be born?  "You, (enter your name here), shall become a social disaster.  This is is my will, so it shall also be thy will, too," I bet the Good Lord declares upon our souls before he stamps an invisible expiration date on our asses and thrusts us into the stork's possession.  We're then born, and we're all just pre-destined to turn out a certain way?  Or does life occasionally factor in and interrupt what should have been?  I'd like to think that it does at times, and not even a Higher Power can intervene once we're out there on our own.  It kind of contradicts what we're taught as Catholics.  You know, about the 'Big Guy.'  He sees everything, he knows everything, he CREATED everything.  He LOVES us all, his children.  Yet, he 'allows' unfavorable things to happen to us.  I don't even think 'allows' is the correct word and forgive me, folks, but I will ALWAYS struggle with this concept.  I'll just avoid those dangerous (holy) waters; a religion debate is not something I want to get into.  Not now, anyway.  Perhaps in a future blog entry.
    So...here's a what-if.  What if I was born with functional ears?  Would I still be this way?  Granted, I would likely be able to follow conversations.  I'd probably be a fan of some God-awful music group that my son would cringe at.  I'd be MUCH easier to talk to.  I might constantly be on the phone.  I might have LOVED to get together with a group of my favorite people, instead of more boring, low-key, one-on-one gatherings.  I may be a party person.  Or maybe not, because I had a very, very bad experience in 1996 that took place at a party.  Is THIS a contributor to my constant self-isolation?  I'm guessing it is.
    I wonder though, if there is anything I can do to self-motivate to become more of a social butterfly as opposed to the antisocial caterpillar that I've grown entirely too comfortable being.  You see, I'm safe now.  I know that. I'm not the same naive, clueless teenager I was back then; what happened then would certainly never happen again, at least not in a similar setting.  I am wiser, I am smarter.  In those ways, I've improved, but socially, I am still quite dysfunctional.  I panic at the thought of being thrust into a situation where I can be surrounded by people and STILL feel like I'm stuck in a maze that I can't navigate my way out of.
    Yanno, guys...
    Maybe I'm thinking too much into it.  Maybe it's okay that I'm the way I am.  Maybe it's time to accept it all as gospel.  Maybe I'm meant to prefer solitude, and fate kicked in and made sure of it in multiple ways.  Maybe there's simply no changing the spots of a leopard.  (Or a caterpillar, if we're staying on topic!)  Maybe it's simply too late for me, at my age, to try and adopt new ways...and this I admit I am guilty of doing because I worry too much about what others may think of me.  And I make myself uncomfortable on purpose, because I, on occasion try to be someone I am not, even if just socially.  Trying too hard usually doesn't end well for me.
    Either way...despite many failed attempts at being more 'socially acceptable,' I'm still me.  Take me as I am, I suppose...  
    With that, this caterpillar is going to sleep.  I'm fairly sure that tomorrow (at this point, today) I will still be the same socially awkward individual that you have all come to get to know, and hopefully accept.   And I also have to say that as I conclude this entry, I feel a little bit more acceptance for myself, a level of acceptance that no one else is qualified to give me.  It goes hand-in-hand with the notion that before you can allow someone else to love you, you need to love yourself.  Self-acceptance is the same thing.  I consider myself a very lucky, antisocial woman that J wholeheartedly accepts me for each and every one of my quirks.   Very lucky, indeed!
    G'night, all.
    - Capulet
     
     
  14. Capulet
    Hey, all!  Hoping this finds everyone in good health...mental and otherwise!  As for me, I'm still...well...me. I dare not say for sure that I'm in good mental health because that, as always, remains a matter of opinion.   
    So...spring has finally sprung where I live...where there were gnarled, menacing tree branches, there are now lovely cherry blossom trees in bloom, colorful leaves growing, grass and flowers sprouting.  Rising temperatures are also lifting my spirits - although we've had more than enough rain, it's still nice to be free of the arctic nightmare that was this past winter.  I'm more motivated to go outside - this week, we're having a little work done in our backyard.  Next week, I'll be attempting to decorate.  The Son's graduation barbecue has been set for five weeks from now and I'm motivated to make our back yard beautiful.  The cherry blossom tree I want of my own is likely going to be next year's project; making the yard presentable is going to keep me busy enough for the next few weeks.
    Lost a little bit less than one pound,  bringing my total to 26.1.  Slowly but surely, I'll get there.  My water intake hasn't been what it should.  Will work on that this week.
    But, anyway...enough of the small talk... 
    Lately, I've been struggling with sleep, again. I thought I had it figured out, but I apparently do not.
    Tylenol PM has been deemed ineffective - two nights this past week, I took two and waited, waited and WAITED.  Sleep remained elusive, even though I had managed to cover every single little annoying light in the room.  I tossed and turned for at least another two or three hours before I finally fell asleep - an hour before the alarm roused me to get the kids up and off to school.
    I think I know what the problem is.  It's not until I'm trying to fall asleep at night that my brain (which has been inadequately programmed to accept SLEEP as an acceptable and normal way of life) decides that it's time to think about things that I don't necessarily have answers for.  At two or three in the morning, no less.  I'll be tossing and turning, intent on replenishing on my energy and strength and my brain goes something like this: "Pssst.  Hey, Capulet.  D'ya remember the kitchen drawer you meant to re-arrange and organize?  Well, it's getting fuller because you've been neglecting it for weeks.  How much longer do you think it'll be before you won't be able to open it?  And when you finally DO get to it, the knob you pull to open the drawer is loose.  You're going to need a Phillips screwdriver to tighten it.  The screwdriver is actually IN that drawer, too, so you don't have to look far.  You planned for that, actually.  And then when you're done with that knob, you're going to need to tighten at least a dozen other knobs throughout the kitchen and bathroom cabinets..."
    So, there you have it...there's me...at three o'clock in the fucking morning, there I am with the screwdriver, because my brain won't shut the fuck up about the knobs.  You'd also think - okay, all thirteen knobs tightened, am I going to be able to sleep now?  No.  Because then it starts with the next thing.  It's like my brain queues thoughts - things I push away when I have all the time in the world during the damn day, and it saves them for when I'm supposed to be sleeping.  But I think I'm a sleep superhero - I've mentioned previously that this was something I've been used to since I was in my late teens.  Sure, the day after, I'm a zombie and the night after, I USUALLY crash accompanying a NyQuil swig.
    So, a couple nights ago...I had a pounding headache.  Took a Tylenol PM - (and here's further proof that it simply doesn't work...I either need to take three or four or find something stronger) and headed to bed.  Few minutes in, there's the voice of my brain.  
    "Hey.  Hey.  Never mind sleep.  Tell me, Capulet, why do you think you don't like music?"
    I punch my pillow.  Oh, my God.  All I want is to SLEEP!  Shut up, brain.  SHUT UP!  I attempt to ignore the voice.  I think of other things.  I think of my beautiful nieces and my handsome nephew.  My cats.  My upcoming house projects.  The parties I'm trying to plan for birthdays, graduations, other marvelous life moments.  I try to "start" a dream...hopefully I'll drift off and finish it.  No such luck that night, though.
    "You're not going to sleep until you explain to yourself why you hate music.  Come on.  It's time to think about this and nothing else, because you're NOT going to be able to sleep until you do..."  I want to say Will Ferrell is the voice of my disobedient brain - simply because I can't stand him and find him annoying.  Very convenient, isn't it, to have him narrate my impromptu middle-of-the-night thoughts?
    So, I get to thinking about my dislike of music.  It's not because I want to or choose to, it's because Will Ferrell won't let me sleep.
    I always thought that it mostly has to do with the fact that I can't hear it.  I can feel the beat, I can hear, through the help of my hearing aid, the sounds.  But I cannot string together the words to a song.  I can't tell if it's a pleasant sound or dissonant.  I can't enjoy it, even in the smallest way.  I don't understand when someone tells me that music is more than hearing; it's an experience.  I don't get it when my fiancee rushes over to me after watching 'The Voice' with goosebumps on her arms and she says, "Oh, my god...their singing...it sent chills through my body...look!  See the goosebumps?"  And sure enough, yes, there they are.  I don't get it when I see people in the gym or jogging in the park with headphones in.  I mean, I guess I CAN understand - for these people, it serves as a distraction...when you can focus on your favorite songs while you work out, the exercise doesn't seem so tedious.  Maybe that's why I fail miserably whenever I DO bring my ass over to the gym. 
    I see people with song lyrics tattooed on them.  Lyrics I normally cannot identify the song they came from or who the artist is.   
    My mother loves music and enjoys Broadway...she goes to shows often with her (retired) friends.  My father, when he's not swearing at the Mets and their recent lack of baseball talent, loves music and occasionally 'jams' with his (also retired) friends - he plays the organ and the saxophone, for fun.  He's also known to enjoy American Idol when it's on.  My sister (the one who's a bit of a snoot) has been performing since she was a small child and much to all of our relief, she's now just had her second child and is just now focusing on motherhood, something she should have started doing five years ago when my nephew was born.  
    My fiancee loves playing her favorite music in the car or in the bedroom...she will attempt to tell me about certain songs, certain performers, and as much as I try, I can't bring myself to care.  In fact, J and I have an inside joke.  Whenever I see people sing, I have to admit to being amused by it and often referring to it as 'people screaming.'   Because, to me, it looks like they're screaming in pain.  Especially the ones who belt out in song and distort their faces so excessively, it reminds me of someone attempting to pass a kidney stone or preparing for childbirth.  And so, on J's days off, I sleep late (most likely because the night before was a restless one) and while she's waiting for me to awaken, she 'watches people scream' with her cat.  It works for me.
    And finally, my KIDS love music.  The daughter is constantly playing music through her iPad while she does homework, cleans, takes showers.  A lot of the time, I have to tell her to turn her stuff down, because it's giving me a headache.  The Son, a few weeks ago when I picked him up from school, expressed his sadness that I couldn't hear music.  He said he 'felt so bad' for me, that he found it devastating that I didn't know what I was missing.  I told him that I wasn't bothered by it.  I think I found it more touching that he was of the impression that we'd even have the same taste in tunes...
    I've even seen and met other deaf people (and it's safe to say they are just as deaf as I) who enjoy feeling the beat and claim to love music, even watching people sing/perform on television, even if they're not getting the full audio experience they still SOMEHOW manage to gain from music and reading the subtitles as a person performs.  I'll never understand though, how that's possible, either.  But I never questioned it. I don't think I ever really cared enough to do so.  I guess it would be a different story if I'd ever heard music.  If I'd been born with the ability to hear and lost my hearing later in life, I think I'd have been crushed, having something I enjoyed so intensely taken away from me.  I think that's what my son THINKS happened in my case, even though I've explained time and time again - you can't possibly miss something you've never had the pleasure of understanding or experiencing.  
    But...I have to confess...I hate music.  When I hear music playing through the radio or through someone's phone or from the TV, it sounds staticky.  It's just loud, annoying noise.  Oftentimes, it gives me a headache because that's what noise DOES.  When you can't make heads nor tails of it, you're left with unnecessary background noise that plays in your head long after it's been turned off.  I can't help but roll my eyes - is it really as hyped up as everyone says?  I mean - I've always said people were entitled to their own opinions, not everyone likes and dislikes the same things.  But almost every single person I know likes music...and I can't help but feel left out because this isn't something I can take joy in alongside them.  Ebenezer Scrooge's 'bah humbug' comes to mind whenever I see someone enjoying music or singing...and I just find myself disconnecting from any and all forms of music.  I allow myself to get lost in thoughts and if the 'noise' gets to be too much, I take my ear out.  I retreat into silence, because, for me - this is more comfortable.
    I have another theory, though, on why this is such a torrid topic.  And this isn't an easy theory to recognize but in hindsight, it makes a whole lot of sense.  I am going to issue a trigger warning at this point...okay?
    When I was assaulted at seventeen years old, it happened at a party.  I was in someone's bedroom (it was not my attacker's house nor a fraternity house - it was simply someone else's 'folks-are-away-on-European-vacation-so-let's-have-a-rager' house) and my assailant had locked us inside that upstairs bedroom under the pretense of making a phone call to someone who could pick me up since my 'ride' was downstairs and drunk.
    Anyway, at one point after things had gone terribly wrong, I was pinned down on the floor, with him on top of me, methodically ripping away my soul.  It was after I had stopped fighting him - any previous attempts to cry for help were not heard nor recognized and the door remained locked for the duration of the assault.  And although I may not have understood it in the moment due to shock and eventual 'check-out', I'd later begin to realize why no one came.  It's because, through the floor, I could literally feel the blasting of the music playing downstairs.  This kid must have had top-of-the-line speakers and stereo equipment because it was the type of loud that one could barely hear themselves in, never mind someone in a bedroom upstairs.  My body (back mostly) vibrated along with the floors.  Surely, no one heard my feet and fists stomping on the floor.  No one heard me scream.  No one came to my rescue because NO ONE HEARD ME.  During that life-changing moment that I will never be able to associate without the presence of loud "noise," I lost not only a huge part of myself, but also the ability to see music as anything but bothersome as well as loathsome.
    And there you have it, friends - I want to think that although the hearing impairment is likely the primary culprit, that there is also that secondary reason why I won't open up my mind to music.  I just can't.  Yet, I've been known to jot down some poetry and I was constantly writing things down following the sexual assault.  These were my most common outlets.  Both of these are closely associated with songwriting and with creation.  But for me - there was no musical vision accompanying these words.  While another artist might be able to put 'noise' and lovely melodies to these words, all I can manage, is silence.  I am sure that music in general is a beautiful thing - yet, I can't help but associate it with something so ugly and heartless, cruel, cold.  And this is something I don't like about myself nor to admit about myself, especially since I know that for so many people, whether they are close to me or not, this is a STAPLE.  People have said they don't know what they'd do without their favorite music...for to them, it's comforting.  
    As I near the end of this post, I do want to put a little disclaimer here - that if you are one of those who gain comfort from music, I certainly do respect that - I just would never be able to understand it the way you do!  And in no way do I feel differently about any of my friends who love something I dislike so much - for I truly feel we all have our valid reasons for loving/hating something.  I just feel that unless you can effectively explain and comprehend what your own personal reasons are, then you're not justified.  (I don't know if this is even the right word or even fair to say - it's just a feeling I have when it comes to my own likes and dislikes, and it's, as expected, nearly 3am right now so I've surpassed the point of translucent thinking.)  
    I truly wish that this was different for me and that I were more open to reading song lyrics, 'feeling' the meaning behind them, etc, but this is not something I can do right now.  If this will ever be possible, I don't know, but I'm not in a hurry.
    But, to me, aside from not being able to hear it properly, music is simply just noise...and likely a triggering one.  
    I'm not sure if writing this blog entry will enable me to completely understand or even to answer this particular pressing question that from time to time plagues me at odd hours of the morning.  I'm not sure if it's even validation I seek.  Either way...I'll hope that this interpretation appeases Will Ferrell as I hobble over to the bed.  I've taken the swig a few minutes ago and am hoping that shortly, sleep, along with silence, will overcome my otherwise busy, insomniac brain.  I'm sure that in the next couple nights, Will shall be back and he'll be asking me (at 2am) if I've remembered to feed the Daughter's hermit crabs or if I've remembered to transfer the clothes from the washer into the dryer or I've paid a bill or emailed an aunt for her birthday.
    My best to everyone.  And, until next time, adios!
    - Capulet
  15. Capulet

    Back from my bl-iatus!

    By Capulet,

    Wow. I know I haven't been here in a while.   I wish I could say that my OCD over posting my three installments in order, without a random blog in between that would 'interrupt the flow' was my sole reason for this blog-hiatus (or a 'bl-iatus') but I'd be lying through my fingers.
    I just haven't been feeling it.  This summer has been a rough one - and I've only shared with a select few, the details that have kept me somewhat absent from my blog.  While I've remained a constant presence here on the site, I HAVE been distracted and my work here has helped provide alternative focuses when they were needed.  Those details will not be shared here, as they are still very personal and raise some hurt feelings that I've not entirely been able to bury, yet.  I am chalking this up to being yet another hurdle that has been thrown into my path, and we know all too well that sometimes due process takes longer than we'd like.  Patience is key - in healing from hurts both old and new.  I know and understand this, and safe to say, my patience has been put to the challenge during the last couple of months.
    I did post three very 'heavy' installments to my story recently.  Thank you to those of you who have read and commented on those installments.  I've been at somewhat of a loss for words when it comes to returning responses on some of it, but that, along with many other things, ARE on my to-do list.  On one hand, I can't believe that I actually wrote out some of the things I did - and on the other, I'm emotionally drained and I think that for a while, simply reading the kind, supportive comments posted by others, has been hugely helpful.  In some ways, I'm still processing a lot of things, (particularly from installment three) and there is indeed a cacophony of words swirling around but the right ones aren't coming to me, yet - whether I need them to add to the installment, or to respond to others, or to make sense of them, myself.  My uncle's passing hasn't really brought up any new feelings, thoughts, concerns, etc - and honestly, I did fully expect it to.  Other stressors, I think, are defnitely contributing to this block (can't think of a better word), but for now, this is okay with me.  I think that again, my patience with myself is going to be put to the test as I continuously remind myself that there is a time and place for things to be dealt or coped with.  Sometimes, it's simply not up to me when these things happen.
    I am better, now, though, than I was before.  Things have improved and I've re-familiarized myself with a level of optimism that I didn't have two months ago.  So, that's something.   I'm hopeful that things will continue to improve as now I've restarted therapy after a decade and am working on me, in hopes of coming out of it all with a significantly healthier outlook.  I've not yet delved too far into my trauma history, but I'm pretty sure that's going to eventually become a focus as we proceed with weekly appointments.
    So, let's move along, now.   While I cannot promise that I won't become scarce again, I'd still like to make an effort to catch you all up on a couple things that have been going on in recent weeks.
    I started school this past Monday!  Right out of the gate, two professors emailed to let me know that they were delayed with family issues, one would not be there until Friday and the other won't be showing up until 9/9, but we should still attend because there would be a substitute there to teach in interim.  The first professor, as promised, has returned and we're underway.  My Diversity class, though, although the substitute is a very well-educated man, has been VERY hard to follow on account of his accent - it's Indian, I want to say, and I find myself often 'drifting.'  Thankfully the discussions are power-point supplemented so I'm able to just take notes and not worry too much about missed verbal content.  I really like the two introduction to Social Work classes I'm taking - one in particular taught by a practicing social worker who has an office and sees clients when she's not teaching classes!  The other professor has almost every letter of the alphabet after HIS name....BSW, MSW, LCS, Ph.D among others that I'm sure means he's highly qualified to teach a bunch of entry-level social work majors.  He was the giver of my first assignment, due in two days - a response paper detailing why I chose the social work field and what strengths I bring to the chosen area of practice.  Had to describe two practices that I'd be interested in focusing in and I debated on whether to explain that my reasons were somewhat personal but figured this would validate the 'strengths' question.  There was a third question that needed answering and it had to do with the basic guidelines of social work - code of ethics, etc.  Why are they in place?  I know, it seems to go without saying but I'm pleased to say that little by little, I'm learning more about the processes involved and I'm absolutely fascinated.  I turned in that assignment a couple of nights ago in hopes of my first 'A,' but know that as I've been out of the 'school loop' for 20 years, I'm likely to be rusty in a few areas. 
    I must also add that It's pretty neat seeing the Son on a daily basis.  We'll likely drive in together a couple days per week - he has classes within the same department (the Criminal Justice and Social Work programs/buildings are within close proximity) so I will see my firstborn during hallway passings.  The Daughter started 8th grade on Monday, too, and so far, so good.  I'm sure that as the school year unravels, we'll be hearing about excitement and possibly drama on all three fronts.  For now, though, I'm grateful for a successful first week.  11 more to go until winter break!
    So, in the interests of maintaining a successful balance with today's blog, I have a question for you all.
    WHY does shit happen on the weekends????  I mean, I know shit happens.  Life has a way of showing us this, ALL the time. But seriously, it's WAY easier when shit decides to happen during the week.  Preferably Monday through Thursday.  Because, then, if the shit that happens is urgent shit, we can at least have Friday to make any and all necessary calls to try and rectify said shit.  
    Still with me?
    So, Friday NIGHT - the daughter comes into my computer room and announces that we've got no running water.  She was trying to refill her water bottle and 'nothing was coming out.'
    SHIT.
    Let it be known that we have well water and it's via pump that it comes into the house.  Pump runs on electric.  If there's a power outage, we're also not going to have running water until either we're hooked up to a generator or the power is restored.  When we moved into our house 2 years ago, the pump quit within a month of us living there.  Woke up one morning and none of the faucets were willing to produce any water.  It was a $2000 fix; guys come and install a new pump.  Underground pumps are SUPPOSED to last for 8-10 years and it's only been 2.  Our last major power outage was in March of 2018, so that had been the last time, also, without running water.
    So, I went to bed on Friday night thinking, maybe it's not the pump, maybe it's an electrical issue, maybe it's a short, maybe it's something to do with the pressure tank, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, maybe it's something simple, and I'm losing precious sleep for no good reason...
    It's the fucking pump, isn't it?  That's what my brain kept going back to.  But it made no sense to wake my sleeping wife to alert her to the problem - who were we going to call at 2am?  (Yes, as it wasn't a school night, I decided that staying awake past 1:30am was going to be an accepted challenge...happy to announce that slowly but surely, sleep is becoming harder to avoid on nights before having to get up for morning class!) 
    But I slept like the shit mentioned above on Friday night, because my brain, very used to dealing with shit on a regular basis, was not allowing for sleep to take over.  Instead of just resigning to the fact that there was nothing that could be done about this shit at least until the morning, I was now laying there in worry over how I was gonna catch up on the dishes and laundry that had accumulated during this first week of school...  
    Trying to self-declare that it was ANY other issue than the pump, J and I spent a good portion of yesterday trying to get ahold of the gentlemen (or at least, the company) who installed the well pump in 2017.  Let us now refer back to the statement of shit only seeming to happen on weekends, and now point out that it's not only a weekend - it's a HOLIDAY weekend, so any shit that decides to happen on Labor Day weekend, you can be SURE is going to be extra nasty to try and deal with.  
    First, we were told that their technician was already out taking care of another emergency call - he'd call us back when he was finished.  Three hours later, the same technician calls and says he's not actually 'the plumber' and that he'd reach out to their plumber and we'd hear back from HIM.  'Momentarily,' he said.  When 'momentarily' never came, we called back and were told that we'd likely have to wait until Tuesday to speak with someone in their plumbing department.  They proceeded in telling us that the warranty on the pump they'd installed two years ago was likely expired.  Meanwhile, no one was calling back, we had no running water and we're both getting annoyed because we STILL don't know what the problem is.  
    At this point, the shit was becoming BULLSHIT.
    J called another company, and got a very nice man on the phone.  Apparently new water pumps SHOULD come with a five-year warranty.  So, now, we know the first company was probably jerking us around and didn't intend to come help us. They probably KNEW that this pump was SUPPOSED to be under warranty, and didn't wish to honor that warranty - or to send any of their guys out on a weekend.  We didn't want to have to wait until Tuesday to even get the issue looked at, so we decided to have this other company come out (at a higher weekend rate), and at least diagnose the problem.  If it was a simple fix, we wouldn't have to worry about warranties, about dealing with the first company.
    But, alas - it IS the fucking pump.
    The guy showed up and took a look at the breakers, at the water heater, the electrical wiring.  All of our fears were confirmed when he shook his head and said, "Yep.  It's the pump."
    GREAT.  (You may envision me swearing at this point because it's entirely accurate.  I'll refrain from typing it all up, here.)
    So we pay him the weekend rate (double, I'm thinking) for coming out and checking things out.  He left saying that should we go with his company, the money we paid for the initial visit would be applied toward the total price of the job of replacing our pump.  Incentive and motivation indeed.  But now, this leaves us with another dilemma.  Do we want to wait until Tuesday to get ahold of the proper person at the company who first installed our pump in 2017 and see if the warranty could be honored - especially after they already indicated that it was 'expired'?  Or did we want to go with these new guys who would be willing to come install a new pump first thing the next morning, and apply the three hundred bucks and change we'd just paid, toward the new pump they'd have to put in?
    Deciding that neither we, or our five cats, could stand being without water for the next three days, we decided to go with the first-thing-tomorrow-morning option and we're going to task the Oompa with dealing with the company who installed our first pump.  They acted VERY unprofessionally when we needed their help and they're NOT going to be without responsibility.  Even though the newer company referred to the death of THAT pump as simply being 'Mother Nature pressing the FU button,' and confirmed it was nothing we did nor was it caused by the workmanship of the previous company.  Likely during one of our summer t-storms, there had been a power surge, and the pump had shorted.  "It happens," he said, "but we do offer that five-year warranty!"  
    Oompa, despite her many faults that we've come to recognize, has many talents.  Dealing with difficult people is indeed one of them.  She's a woman who makes shit happen and gets shit done.  So, dealing with 2017's water pump company is going to be a mission that J and I will GLADLY pass onto her. 
    Tomorrow morning arrived and has become tonight.  The laundry that's been piling up on the bathroom floor has been relocated into the machine, that will remain unplugged until water flow is restored into the House of Capulet.  I've already had to disappoint a certain orange feline of majestic size several times this morning in letting him know that his daily indulgence of drinking from the kitchen tap was unavailable.  He's been giving me those sad amber-colored eyes ALL day - translation: "HUMAN.  I want my water.  WHY are you not turning on the tap!?"  I apparently do not speak 'cat,' so I've given him extra doses of kisses and for now, he's been catching up on his sleep.  Being pure royalty is such hard work, after all!  He's been satisfied, though, with the pouring of a bottle of spring water into the bowl he shares with his sibling cats.  
    The guys have been here since 11am and two trips 'back to the office because they forgot something' have been made.  It is now nearly six in the evening and we've STILL not showered.  There is enough grease in my hair to fry up a batch of chicken cutlets.  I feel absolutely disgusting.  MY HOUSE feels filthy!  As there are only a couple hours remaining of daylight, I'm hoping the job will be completed soon enough and that the shower we both desperately need is on the horizon!
    Anyway - will be back later next week with another update.  I have missed utilizing this space to talk about everything and nothing - and sharing with you all those things that aren't posted about in the forums.  And I know that lately, I COULD have opted to put these things into a coherent blog entry, but - timing is everything!  Perhaps as more clarity is gained, I will slowly be able to speak on some of the other things. Much in my life is beginning to change, and while some people 'pwn' these changes - I seem to take a longer time than necessary to adapt.  
    I've still missed everyone and I'm here to stay.  Even if my water pump isn't.    (And hopefully this new one will last longer!). I'm also hopeful that you've all had a good summer!  
    Sending you all love and light! (and let there be water!)
    - Capulet
  16. Capulet
    Hello from me in isolation - how's everyone doing?  It's the first time I'm blogging whilst in quarantine - you'd think I have all the time in the world, but even I'm having trouble getting used to a routine that I have no choice but to conform to for the time being.
    We are amid some very hard times, friends.  Very uncertain and very unsettling times.  I've taken several steps back from Facebook and only check my feed once or twice a day - all of the COVID-19 jokes are starting to become annoying.  I know humor is a popular and effective means of coping - I've used it on MANY occasions when I'd rather not cry.  But I've seen enough.  I don't watch the news....something said today won't be the same, tomorrow.  Everything is changing, and NOTHING is consistent.  We are on a lockdown, only allowed to leave our homes if the need arises for 'essentials.'  Even so, one must not dally about; it's right back home, after you've gotten whatever you need.  Local law enforcement has started to impose a $2000 fine for anyone caught out after a certain time of day - and they're not either coming home from or going to work.
    Now, those of you who know me well know that I am by NO means a social butterfly.  I'll go out of my way to avoid large group settings, I'll sit by myself in the cafeteria or student center (when I'm actually able to go to classes) and I'd rather watch movies at home on a Saturday night.  I'm not into clubbing, partying, or drinking....my 'scene' is slow-paced, and yes, I've been told it's boring.  But, it's still my preference, as I believe that when I was created, I was meant to later become the poster child of an introvert.  There's no other explanation for it.  
    Now, my mother is the complete opposite.  She's sixty-six years old and puts my ass to shame.  Seriously - you cannot have a ten-minute conversation with her without her phone going off at least a half-dozen times - and that's if she answers long enough to say, "I'll call you back!"  Granted, half the time, it's one of my sisters enlisting her babysitting services, but the rest of the calls are from her 'groups,' - that is, her various types of gatherings....the group of ladies that she goes into the city with every month to see a new Broadway show, the DIFFERENT group of equally as annoying female senior citizens that live in her retirement community that she has luncheons with every few weeks, or there's another group of women that all grew up on the same Brooklyn street fifty to sixty years ago that she insists upon reconnecting regularly with, and if they 'hit it off further,' planning vacations with.  I don't think my mother knows the name of ANY of my current friends, and the fact that I can identify hers by phone number is scary.
    So, you can imagine how she's coping with having to stay indoors.  With my stepfather, too.  Now, don't get me wrong.  He's not a bad guy.  He's kind, he's compassionate, and he's very giving.  He's been a part of my life since I was five - and he's someone I'm honored to call my second father.  He just does. not. stop. talking.
    My mother's terrible to him.  She'll tell him to shut up, and she'll dismiss him - the guy just likes to talk, he likes to converse, he likes being social.  She does too - just not with her husband. 
    Anyway, she's decided to take on the project of dismantling family photo albums this week.  She's on lockdown, too...she COULD go to the store for grocery replenishment if she wanted to, but she is also convinced that because she's older and has diabetes and other underlying health issues that she's going to contract the Coronavirus before she makes it out of her own driveway.  We've all told her that she needs to not feed into the panic, mostly media-caused, and to just keep a safe distance and keep her hands clean - but she chooses to keep herself shielded completely by staying behind locked doors and has tasked my brother-in-law with bringing her weekly groceries and toilet paper, if any can be located.  
    So, here we have a VERY bored Italian lady going through photos of us girls from when we were small.  A couple of times, she'd mistaken me for my youngest sister - and told my sister to ask her husband what he thought of a picture of me with my stepfather, thinking that it was actually my sister with HER father.  My sister, who works at a hospital, comes back with, "Um....Ma, that's not me."  She sends a photo of herself holding an infant me - with the date '1979' on the bottom of the polaroid.  "Who am I holding, here?' she asks.  I tell her that if we are to take the date written on the bottom as a clue, then that baby would be me.  She sent pictures of us wearing easter dresses and bonnets and Halloween costumes and vacation photos, pics of us with the family dog, until my middle sister got snippy and said, "Ma, it's 11:00pm....let's resume the picture sharing tomorrow."
    And tomorrow - at this point, yesterday, arrived.  I was working on some classwork and she chimes in with a photo of me on an amusement park ride - it was the Swing ride - don't know what it's called - but it's the ride where you sit in a swing (among other swings) and like a carousel, it spins you around.  This was a pretty good picture, though, and you could only see my silhouette - the ride was in motion and I was swinging across a sunset.
    "VERY nice shot," I told her, "too bad that moment will never be relived!"  I simply meant that my rump won't fit into that size swing anymore, but she seemingly was inspired to ask an entirely different question.
    "Maybe not that same experience, but what would you do over if you could?"
    It took me a few minutes to actually process her question.  My mother doesn't talk like that.  Granted, by now, she'd been talking a little cray-cray for a few days, already, but this was just WEIRD.
    "It doesn't do any good to dwell on the what-if's," I told her.  Sure, there's plenty of shit I wish I could do-over.  Choices I'd love to un-make.  We all have them.  I just wasn't sharing those details with my mother; I'd made the decision not to many years ago.  I wasn't about to start now.
    "There has to be something."
    I scrambled for a bit, then said, "I guess I'd change who I married," and then added, "But I don't regret what came out of that marriage."
    "Of course, not," she says, and then says, "My one regret was not forcing you to go to your first choice college."
    More weirdness.  And to hear that her one regret is that she was unable to FORCE me to do something that I obviously didn't want to do - well, yeah, you can imagine how well this was sitting with me.  I knew already how manipulative my mother was and is - I just hadn't realized that she'd been criticizing and judging my choices for all of these years.  And that THIS, of all things, was something she was regretting at that very moment. It was just seeming so...unusual.   
    "What are you talking about, Ma?"
    "They offered you a scholarship and you turned them down because you didn't want to dorm.  And I listened to you - I let you go to the community college, instead.  Your life could have and would have unfolded differently had you gone to the private university."
    "I didn't want to go to the other college," I insisted.  And I didn't.  Yes, it did have to do with the dorming.  I'd never been away from home and the idea of being far from family was unsettling - especially since back then, I STILL was not a social butterfly and being surrounded by people I didn't know was NOT a feeling that I was looking forward to.  This was pre-rape, so my reasons for self-isolation were more deafness-related than trauma-related.  And, ya know - she MAY be right - my life perhaps WOULD have unfolded had I not gone to the community college, but I stand by what I told her in the beginning of this conversation - it does NO GOOD to dwell on what could have been!
    "I could have made you go," texts back my mother.  Wow.  Such confidence!
    "No," I said, "I was just as stubborn back then as I am now.  You weren't going to win that battle."  (And I was getting pretty fucking pissed off at this point...I was THISCLOSE to texting one of my sisters and asking where the fuck her sanity had gone.)  I texted again, "Not going to that college is not one of my regrets."
    "Okay," she says, quite obviously disappointed that I wasn't feeding into this idea any further.  "I'm glad."
    "Isn't it what the Catholics believe, Ma?" I said, "that we're all born with a pre-destined script and that he has a plan for us all? And that before he sends us to Earth, we've also got an expiration date that only he knows, stamped across our ass?  Whatever happens to us in life is all for a reason?"
    "Yes, it is!"  She says.  She probably was excited to hear me make a religious reference.  I wasn't about to engage into a debate on this because y'all know that while I believe in there being a God, I'm really not one to put much stock into the Catholic teachings.  I believe in karma.  Treat people well, with respect and kindness - and don't murder anyone regardless of how frustrated with them you may be - you should be fine if you keep these basic, common sense rules on how to be a decent human being in mind.  
    Anyway - I told her I had a good life.  And I do.  I truly believe that while I've had some horrible shit happen to me that I'm never going to forget, I've experienced joy, I've got what I need, and I am, for the most part, healthy.  I think that there's truth to the idea that every single human being experiences some form of trauma within their lifetimes - trauma on multiple levels and scopes, and that some are more difficult to recover from than others - but still - we're all going to face struggles and trials and experience fear and despair - that's a given, no matter what.  I'm also inclined to believe that trudging through the bad times is what teaches us to embrace and appreciate the good times more.
    Didn't mean to get philosophical, but perhaps this is what isolation does to me.  Hopefully having extra time to think and process (and write) is a harmless means of coping and that my sanity (or loss of) is not in danger of mirroring my mother's.  I don't know how long this lockdown is going to last, but I'm hoping that for the time being, I've seen the last of her deep questions.
    Anyway, it's late - I'm seemingly back to turning in after at least 2:30 in the morning, given the shift in schedule and not having to wake up early for 8am classes.  I know - this isn't ideal at my age - or anyone's age, for that matter.  My body just refuses to try out that thing called 'uninterrupted sleep.'  I've heard of it, but it doesn't seem to apply to me.  Last night, I was in bed at three, didn't fall asleep until after four-thirty, then was up at seven - took me another hour and change just to FALL back asleep - (I wasn't getting outta bed, even though my body was urging me to...I won this battle, too) and finally, I threw the covers off a little bit after 11....  
    That being said, I'm ready to see how long tonight takes.  
    Be well, friends - keep washing your hands and adhering to social distancing recommendations.  I know it's hard and it sucks, but the longer people ignore the warnings and delay the containing of this bullshit virus, the longer it's going to be until we can all resume normalcy...I know that's preferred any day.  Hang in there and stay safe.
    Sending those of you who want 'em virtual huggles.
    - Capulet 
  17. Capulet
    Shouldn’t trigger, unless language/the discussion of guilt bothers you.  
     
     
    Today, I spoke to my mother, also known fondly as the ‘Oompa Loompa.’
     
    We were trying to finalize this week’s Thanksgiving plans.  A couple entries ago,  I explained how she is still breast-feeding my 30 year old sister, who just had a baby of her own.   She goes there every day, cooks for her, does the housework, the laundry, et cetera, because apparently my sister doesn’t quite know yet how to allow someone else to hold the baby while she cooks or shops or does something productive around the house.  So, my mother continues to enables her and picks up the slack of being a wife, mother, grandmother, caretaker of a newborn, cook and housekeeper all rolled into one.  
     
    Now, this isn’t a jab on my sister - I know we all have to learn somehow.  It’s her first baby.  I KNOW how hard it is and how overwhelming it can be when all they do is cry, cry, and CRY.  I know that sleep deprivation can render you useless at any given time…hell, I’m sleep deprived on a regular basis and don’t have a squalling infant to blame that on.  So I shrug off my feelings and tell myself she’ll know the ropes by the time her second kid arrives.  I do have to say though, the end result of my mother’s excessive coddling has been rough because now she’s exhausted and WE haven’t seen her in over a month.  The time I planned to go and see her was derailed when J and I both had a stomach bug and we wanted to remain cautious and stayed away from the baby.  Will be seeing my sister and the baby this Saturday, after Oompa Loompa comes here for Thanksgiving.  
     
    This entry isn’t even about my sister, though.  Or the Oompa Loompa, even though much amusement can be derived from talking about her and her shenanigans…
     
    Before we hung up, Oompa had some news for me.
     
    Her brother, my uncle, the ‘Reverend,” his unholy disgustingness, is in the hospital.   
     
    Little background information.  Other than looking like your classic creepy pedophile, he was always overweight and unhealthy.  He’s diabetic, has bad knees and always, always seemed to have something wrong with him.  Aside from mentally, of course.  And now, physically.  I’m surprised that no one else has the same effect from looking at him.  I personally want to literally projectile vomit whenever I see his face.  But I guess the point I’m trying to make…he was probably a fucking cat with nine or more lives in a previous life…I don’t understand why or how he’s still breathing.  If you ask me, he doesn’t deserve the air he breathes.  
     
    Yet, he keeps coming back to life.
     
    See…I remember this time from when I was eighteen and in college.  I was living at my father’s house since he lived closer to the campus.  I remember coming home from classes and my father telling me that my uncle was in the hospital, having suffered a massive heart attack earlier that afternoon. 
     
    He survived that massive heart attack.
     
    Then, when I was somewhere between 21 and 22, my grandmother passed, and we all remember the flood of emotions that overwhelmed me.  I might have cried if he didn’t survive that first heart attack, because this was before I came to realize that there was some suppressed feelings of animosity.  He was Uncle L, and I hate to admit it, but on some level, there was love for him, because that was simply what being a family member entitled you, regardless of what a piece of shit you really were.  And I know I’ve said it before but kids have unconditional affection for members of their families, especially the kids who don’t remember that they’re supposed to hate them.
     
    He ended up in the hospital again, after my grandmother’s death (if you read the blog entry, ‘Want Some Fries With That Invalidation?’ then you may remember a rather uncomfortable encounter I had with him there) riddled with infection, and he survived that, too.
     
    He underwent a quadruple bypass about three years ago.  He was told by his doctors that he was a ‘ticking time bomb’ and the bypass surgery posed multiple risks, but if he didn’t have it, he was toast…it would just be a matter of time…  Well…despite my secret prayers for a one-way ticket to hell, he survived the bypass surgery, too.
     
    Apparently, right now, his tiny, black heart is causing him some issues (I didn’t care to ask what kind of issues) and they admitted him into the hospital last night.  She has plans to see him the week after Thanksgiving.  In the meantime, he’s going to rot there while they run tests to try and figure out what his problem is, this time.  
     
    I hung up with Oompa Loompa and felt the corners of my mouth turn upwards.
     
    Oh, my God, guys…  I’m feeling like I’m a horrible, horrible person.  Here I am…I’m SMILING like an idiot.  I might have chuckled, too.  I don’t think I’ve laughed completely yet, but…seriously?  Am I that heartless?  Am I capable of such hatred toward another person?  A SICK person at that?  I don’t think I like that about myself.  I wasn’t raised that way.  I was raised to be warm, loving, kind.  To be gentle.  To forgive.

    Forgiveness is so tricky in this case, though.  I think I’d sooner forgive the man who SA’d me in 1996 than I would my uncle, and I can’t even remember why I hate him so much.  My brain simply denies me that information, and for now, that’s okay.
     
    The thought of him being in the hospital is simply delightful.  The thought of him spending Thanksgiving by himself while I spend it with my loved ones, is pure joy.  Of course, if someone in the family would go pick his disgusting ass up, he’d come spend holidays with us but at this point, even my mother, his own sister, doesn’t want to take the two-hour trek each way, because not only would she have to go pick him up, she’d have to bring him back home to his cockroach-infested shit-sty.  Not to mention she knows well enough by now that if he is there, I will not be.  
     
    I haven’t seen him since my sister’s (the new mother’s) wedding day.  It couldn’t be helped.  I made sure to avoid him completely.  Didn’t look at him, walked away when he walked past me in church to say hello.  I made sure to leave the room whenever he walked in.  And that’s been perfectly fine with me because I have not one shred of love left for this man and I’ve no desire to see him until he’s laid out in a coffin, or even more appropriate, a cheap-o cardboard box.  If it were up to me, that’s what he’d get, only because by law, he would have to be placed into a receptacle before being buried.  Then, I can spit into his dead, lips-sewn-shut face just before they put him in the ground.  
     
    And then, after he’s been buried, I, Capulet, am having a party.  My house.  You’re all invited.  Lots of junk food and laughs to be had.  I will celebrate his departure from this world, just as strongly as I mourned my grandmother’s.   
     
    I will have you all know, I feel terrible for having just said that.  Just plain terrible.  It’s not something that as a mother, I would ever teach my kids to feel when someone is sick, in pain or otherwise hurting.  The guilt over having said such cold things about another human being is present, but at the same time, I’ve been waiting a very, very long time for my non-human friend, Karma, to show up.  
     
    I just wonder…how many chances at life is this man going to get?  What has he done to deserve all of these tomorrows?  Why do so many good people suffer, and these monstrous sons-of-bitches who prey on innocent children keep on ticking?  If that’s not the most fucked up thing in the world, I don’t know what is.
     
    On another note, I’ve been told that his death (whenever Karma ever does do her fucking job) may bring forth a slew of memories, of actual remembrances.  Another epiphany may occur and I’ll know exactly why I hate him.  I will know why the thought of him being reduced into a pile of shit, maggots and formaldehyde makes me giddy enough to smile.  Maybe I won’t feel so guilty, if I find that later on, my suspicions turn out to be the truth I seek.  
     
    Is that what Karma is waiting for?  For me to be ready?  I seriously  doubt that Karma is in tune with my suppressed memories, but either way, it’s taking too damn long for this pathetic excuse of a person to succumb to his shitty health.  
     
    I apologize to you all if this has shined a different, unfavorable light onto me as a person.  I’ll be honest with you all, I don’t like what I hear, either, when it comes to my thoughts.  Like I said before, I never thought myself capable of taking pleasure in another’s suffering, regardless of how rotten a person they may be.  But I also promised myself that I’d never sugar-coat anything in my blogs, ever again.  
     
    And so, I won’t.  I am sorry if I’ve offended anybody, because as much as I hate my uncle, I also hate the people who have hurt you, too.  I want Karma to take care of ALL of them!  I’ll not lie to anyone and say I have any sympathy for their abusers’ ‘misfortunes,’ shall we say…because I don’t.  I hate my uncle and I hate that people like him are still allowed to roam this Earth, I despise that these are the people who sully our beautiful existence and make us suffer.
     
    On the other hand, I know so many others feel and hear these thoughts, too.  I think, though, that we all have our thirst for justice, whether it is served by way of a painful death or incarceration, it ultimately means we are free of the mental prisons these predators have sentenced us to life in.    
     
    I think I’m going to be extra thankful this coming Thursday when I sit down to my turkey dinner, for the fact that I can safely say that I am a good enough person to feel even the smallest amount of guilt.  It may be misunderstood, it may be unwarranted because such despicable people do not deserve any of my guilt for feeling the way I do.  I know and have accepted that there are reasons I feel this way…even if these reasons aren’t known to me, they’re there, they exist.  And I can furthermore conclude that the guilt I feel for smiling at the thought of my uncle laying in a hospital bed, alone, stems from my having learned kindness, despite a tarnished childhood. 
     
    I’ll be damned if I’m guilted into showing him any kindness, now.
     
    With that, I want to take a moment to wish you all a blessed Thanksgiving.  Whether you’re spending it with family, friends or by yourselves, I hope you’ll take a moment or two to make the day special for yourselves because you, my friends, deserve that.  I know that so many of our lives are in disarray right now, and even though we struggle with our thoughts, there is always, ALWAYS something to smile about.  
     
    Love,
    Capulet
  18. Capulet
    Hello, all!
    A Happy Belated Mother's Day to all of you who are either mothers, stepmothers, grandmothers, aunts, godmothers, fathers pulling double-duty, babysitters, to anyone at all who loves and nurtures a child...be it for a lifetime or simply for a few hours at a time, it matters none...yesterday was all about you guys - and I hope someone took the time to let you know how appreciated you are!  The Son and Daughter got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers as well as a lovely card - the card is on my mantle and the flowers are in my bathroom with the door closed, for that's the only place they are safe from the extremely disobedient cat that likes to feast upon the flower buds.
    Moving on...
    Today was...interesting.  
    Interesting in the sense I stepped foot on a college campus with a backpack slung over my shoulder, but not because I'm the one taking classes.  No, that ship has long since sailed.  I was NEVER a good student.  The whole school setting was ALWAYS a challenge for me.  I did complete three years of college before I dropped out when I discovered I was pregnant with my son...and never looked back.  Lately though, I've been thinking about finishing up my Associates'.  Why not?  I can do it.  I'm only a semester or two shy of the degree.  
    But this isn't really about me.  It is, but it isn't.  I'll explain. 
    My son, the soon-to-be high school graduate, had his college orientation today.  We were, of course, accompanied by the wasband, since this, being a monumental moment in our boy's life, warranted the presence of both of the Son's parents.  Especially since, for the majority of the duration of the orientation, the Son would be traveling seperately with student cluster groups while the parents would be required to sit through six (yes, count them - SIX) separate topic lectures on financial aid, student safety on campus, student financial institutions within the college, managing course loads, a small lecture on what we, as parents, would now expect out of an 'adjusting' college student and finally, a briefing on commuting.  Yes, you may now YAWN, I know I did plenty of that.  
    This is where it gets stupid - because upon arrival at the orientation event at 7:30 in the morning, we were presented with a folder outlining the topics of each lecture, and MOST of what was discussed in each 'meeting' was simply read to us by whatever unfortunate professor had been assigned the task.  I mean, did they think we forgot how to read?  
    One of the main reasons the wasband was convinced to take the day off is because me + lecture halls = disaster.  In large crowds, theater/auditorium surroundings, I generally miss about fifty percent of what's being said, especially during the end portion of each briefing when hands would shoot up and we'd have a Q & A.  The wasband agreed to join me and be an extra set of ears and during each lecture, he would mumble, "they're just reading from the outline on page whatever-it-was," and he'd be answering work-related emails on his phone.  And so, I silently sat in my seat, and I allowed myself to 'get fuzzy' during those parts.  I think I even closed my eyes a couple of times - to say the whole thing was boring is certainly the understatement of the year.  It's relieving though, I was not the only one - many of the other parents were also sleeping.  When I get blurry, as I sometimes put it...you know what I mean?  You stare at something for long enough, your vision begins to blur as it turns into a non-blinking daydream.  It happens A LOT with me.  I talked about when it happens while I DRIVE, sometimes - I know, it's not safe at all, but it can't be helped.
    However....during these fuzz-outs...
    I did find myself forced to remember...especially during the moments when the Son and his peers would join the group of parents for certain parts of the orientation event.  I watched him walk into the auditorium in the beginning of the day for the introduction.  I watched him smile (he's so handsome!) when he saw some people he knew from his current school.   I watched him talk to other incoming freshmen, saw him shake a few hands.  I watched with pride as he requested information on campus employment during the information fair walk-through.  
    I also saw things in him that reminded me of myself, when I was seventeen years old.  I noticed the clueless face; it appeared at moments when he THOUGHT no one was looking.  But, you know...Mom sees everything.  
    It looked so much like my face, guys.  
    I saw him shift nervously when he accepted his folder,  when he was given his sticky name tag that he'd be wearing for the day.  I saw the tiny little cringe when they talked about joining one of the dozens of clubs the University had to offer.  
    You see, my son is by no means a social butterfly (do they refer to males as butterflies?) and while our reasons are certainly different, it's something I can relate to.  My being 'different' was always something that prevented me from initiating conversation, it caused me to shy away, to simply observe from afar.  If someone approached me, I was always friendly.  I still am.  For the most part, though, it's VERY difficult for me to take the initiative to approach someone else and introduce myself.  The Son, although he's very well liked, also prefers to keep to himself - he likes being friendly with people from a distance.  He spends hours talking to 'invisible' friends by way of his XBOX headset and he prides himself in his ability to have over twenty thousand Instagram followers - but I rarely see him conversing with 'real life' friends.  His idea of a normal day is to wake up, go to school, eat, play XBOX and sleep - rinse and repeat. I, too, felt more comfortable being by myself.  I still do.
    The Son's hearing, if you go by the medical assessment, is diagnosed as being normal.  However, he's got a condition that plagues MOST teenagers these days - it is called 'selective hearing.'  The Daughter has it, too - she was blessed with this condition at birth while his, I feel has been gradual.
    For the most part, I ignored the wasband and his phone and focused mainly on the boy I raised.  I watched his expressions, his movements.  He's terrified...no more or less than any of his peers, though.  Eventually, my ex's presence faded - I ALMOST forgot that he was even there.
    Today, while watching my son, I was brought back to MY freshman year.  This was not a good year for me, as many of you know by now what happened to me in 1996 - and it is safe to say that this experience I had when I was encouraged to 'be social' ended up forever tarnishing my remaining college days as well as the rest of my life.  I'd been told, "Hey, listen...you're in college, now.  It's time to get to know people, have fun, join clubs, socialize."  And it might have been Oompa's voice saying these things since I didn't begin to find Will Ferrell annoying until much later.  And eventually, my mother's voice morphed into my own - I believed all of it and started echoing these things to myself.  I tried to be what others who were less socially inept recommended for me to be, and I ended up putting myself in danger.  Yes, I do know that what happened wasn't my fault - there is no misplacement of blame here, it falls upon the miserable excuse of a man who assaulted me.  I just feel that my way of thinking had been effectively manipulated when I truly wasn't unhappy with the way things were in the first place.  So WHAT if I was quiet and shy?  Who cares?  I had my innocence.  I was simply doing things at my own pace.  Until things happened and my pace went out the window along with any self-caring I had left.
    And now, 21 years later, here is this know-it-all professor saying that the way my boy likes to live, the way he's comfortable and content, (eat, sleep, play video games, with the addition of his new college class attendance in between eating and sleeping) is described as the 'highway' way, and he'll find himself bored if he doesn't integrate some University club and social activities into his (already) busy schedule.
    What do you DO with that?  My mind at this point was racing.
    I wanted to scream at this idiot...let him be who he wants to be, damn it.  If he wants to get up, go to class, and come right back home, then that's his God-given right - no one has any reason to tell him any differently.  If he joins a club, it's going to be because he has a genuine interest in it, not because he's going to be coerced into it for the sake of building up his social resume.  If he prefers quality over quantity when it comes to making friends, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  If he wants to be socially awkward, then that's what he'll be.  
    He's my boy and I love him, dearly just the way he is.  And I'm going to make sure he knows that.  I'll encourage him to be the best person he can be - the choices that lead him onto the path of adulthood will be his own and his own alone.  If he's happy, I'm happy.  
    That should TRULY be enough, shouldn't it?
    OMG.  What time is it?!  My eyes are closing on me.  I'll be back later this week.
    Hope y'all are doing well.
    All my best,
    - Capulet
     
  19. Capulet

    Better late than never!

    By Capulet,

    Hi, everyone!!
    Hoping you're all doing well.  I know my updates are getting more rare, and for that, I do apologize.   I'm really trying to get back into my writing habits, but it seems I've been experiencing some cloudiness.  More on that as we continue.
    I'm hanging in there, though, as best as I can.  
    School is in full swing, now.  We're now in our third week.  I've just received this morning the date of my first midterm...yep, you read correctly - we're ALREADY getting ready for midterms!  Of course, there's no shortage of actual schoolwork to do before then - four papers to do, (one for American Government, three for Social Work, one of them being an interview of another social work professional in the field of my choosing) and there will also be a midterm for at least two or three out of the five classes - the rest of my grades depend on class participation/work/online quizzes, all of which I'm working on - whether I'm volunteering answers in class or throwing out a thought here and there.  
    Summer is beginning to pack her bags and to dish out those final warmer days before she disappears until next June.  The mornings are becoming chilly - and midday highs are lingering around 70.  It's still warm, but there is still that all-too-familiar feeling that is TRYING to remind me that the Fall is right around the corner.  We're not yet seeing the emerging fall colors, but this will be soon.  I used to be able to avoid it all, for the most part, but I can't anymore.  For the first time in 20 years, I do not have the choice to stay home and just keep the blinds closed.  I can't 'tune out' the season changes like I used to be able to, now that I'm out and about every day.  Last year, I made it a point to drive to the store while it was still daylight - and just take in the natural beauty of the mountains.  All while telling myself, this wasn't where I was hurt - this was a whole different scene - a much, MUCH nicer one.  I was able to gain somewhat of a new appreciation of the prettiness of it all.  I remember writing/saying something to the extent of, "I got this, Fall isn't going to own me, anymore."  While I'm not ready to completely disregard that statement, it just feels a little bit different this year, and I'd be willing to bet all of my chips on it being because of the restarting of school.
    23 years ago - I FAILED almost all of my midterms.  I'd been raped a couple of weeks before they were given.  I was completely unprepared, and any attempts to cram were unsuccessful because there just wasn't any room in my brain for lecture recollections or memorized textbook definitions.  What WAS there, was prevalent and I'd thrown in the academic towel before the semester actually was halfway over with.  The one midterm I might have passed, I passed by the skin of my teeth.  
    Something interesting I've noticed about myself, though...
    First, though, let it be known that I'm NOT a school person.  I'm not a scholarly type.  I VERY HONESTLY believe I have some sort of a learning disability, or at the very least, undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder.  This has ALWAYS been the case, even pre-rape, even in high school in the early to mid-90's.  The Oompa, a schoolteacher, used to confine me to my room when I had a test coming up (where she thought I'd be the least distracted) to study.  I'd sit on my bed, and TRY to read whatever was in the textbook in front of me.  Key word here - TRY.  It never would happen, though, for I'd get LOST in the text, and find my eyes drifting to the poster of Luke Perry on my wall (RIP, Luke) or to stuffed animals, or to ANYTHING other than the study material that I just couldn't deal with.  Hours would go by, she'd come in and try to 'quiz' me - and then she'd toss the book back at me when I came up empty and told that I had another hour to miraculously learn weeks worth of material.  She'd also say that if I scored any less than an 80% on the test, I'd be grounded...in reality, though, she really had nothing to 'take' from me other than TV.  "You're not watching insert-TV-show-here tonight!" 
    But anyway - school was ALWAYS a nightmare, and I've always had it in my head that I was going to fail because I couldn't focus...what the hell WAS focus, anyway??  I just had zero ability to do it.  My mind would wander, my brain would throw up the fences and information wasn't being retained...it was being rejected and bouncing back out almost as quickly as it'd be pushed in.
    Now, I'm STILL not a school person.  I've not really opened my books, yet, because I know how it was in the past, how I'll start reading and VERY quickly forget what it was I've just read.  I've browsed with my highlighter on some of my textbook pages, but I've not yet done the deeper, in-depth reading.  I've only gone to the textbooks when I needed a definition of something - or a quick explanation of what something was and it wasn't available on the internet (another something I couldn't do in 1996 - the internet DID exist but access wasn't as easy as it is, now!) or the professor was wanting specific definitions as put by the required course textbooks.  One textbook had exercises, so there was need to actually open that one - but for the most part, I've been focusing on what I can do without subjecting myself to reading that won't stick in.  
    For example - those four papers that I have to do - I've found that starting word documents for each paper has helped, even if I'm for now just writing the paper topic at the top and throwing notes and a potential outline in there for when the time comes to put it all together.  They are due October 7th, 24th, November 7th and December 5th.  Obviously, I'll focus on the October papers, first, but I'm finding myself being more obsessed with getting things started, WAY before they'll come due....just to make myself feel that I can breathe a little when the due dates grow closer.
    This is a huge difference in me from when I was in high school.  I don't know if being older has anything at all to do with it.  I know ADD though, is not curable.  I STILL can't sit and read through a book - especially not a textbook with big, fancy words.  I know myself, though.  When the time comes to prepare for midterms, I'm going to be obsessing on whether the papers are at least being worked on.  I'm ALSO going to worry about whether I've screwed myself because I've not put in the reading beforehand, and spent too much time trying to get ahead on other things.  So...it's a catch-22 anyway, isn't it? 
    Let it be known that the Son doesn't have this problem.  He can avoid opening books (I don't even know why he buys them) and he still pulls a 3.8 GPA.  (Yes, because of this, he's been called a jerk...but he's MY jerk, and I love him and am SO proud of him.)
    Anyway.  Moving along.
    I'm definitely in the school and homework groove I SHOULD have been in, all those years ago.  'Better late than never,' right?  I've had such an outpouring of support from those of you who know how hard it's been to restart this old engine that sputtered all these years ago...and as always, it's appreciated, it's loved and it's needed.  A continuance of that encouragement is needed, also, as there's nine weeks remaining in the semester.
    In other news... 
    The wifey and I went to Philly last weekend and took in a baseball game at Citizens Bank Park.  It was nice to just be able to relax, enjoy one another's company, and reconnect.  Even better, her Red Sox beat the Phillies, and knocked them down a couple of notches.  My Mets are still in the wild card race.  Which is, of course, the only scenario where I'd root for the Red Sox.  
    Last week, the daughter, while horsing around with her brother, broke her pinkie finger on her right hand.  I suppose trying to swat him was a bad idea.  Although the daughter agrees, she's not entirely upset with the orthopedic's instructions that she skip gym for two weeks.  
    Bowling two times a week has started up, again.  Back to my Monday and Friday night leagues, and thoroughly enjoying being back in that groove.  I have missed doing that over the summer.  Between my uncle/first abuser dying, and a couple of other personal issues (having nothing to do with the uncle dying) coming up, I spent a good portion of this summer doing some self-reflection, ultimately leading me back into T.
    T is...well...T.  
    On that note, I had an appointment this afternoon after class.  Went in and sat down, with no idea what to talk about.  I've heard of people growing attached, reliant on their therapists, and I'm just not feeling this with her.  She's nice and all - always starts out with, 'how are you doing?' Today, we talked about school, and how I'm adjusting.  How's my anxiety, things like that.  I told her everything's fine.  I mentioned NONE of what I mentioned above.  Silly, no? I think the word I'm looking for is, 'predictable.'  I've just never had a T challenge me or my thinking.  
    But...she asked how things were going on the home front.  Better, I had to admit.  Now that I have more to fill my days with, more to occupy myself with, I don't really sit and stew when she goes out with her friends.  We've determined that I'm just not a social butterfly (which anyone who knows me at this point, ALREADY knows) and that's okay.  It's just how I am.  Then, she took out her pen and notepad and said that next time, we were going to start working on some of my deeper issues, including the ones from whence the social awkwardness potentially emerged.  I tried to contain my excitement when I mumbled, "sounds good."
    Other than that, there really isn't much happening in my world.  I am SURE the next few weeks will bring forth a slew of additional thoughts.  Although I've been keeping busy, there's still that familiar little voice, that says, 'you better not forget that I'm still here!'  Right now, it's a whisper, a little reminder that no matter how much I would like to, how much I try, I cannot deny its existence.  I am hoping that I can keep the volume down by taking the time to somehow acknowledge this year's traumaversary, even if I exercise self-care and self-indulgence (extra caramel iced coffee) on the actual date.  I know it'll never be fully muted, though, and that the only way to keep it from becoming 'loud' again is to let these thoughts be and deal with them as they pop up.  On one hand, being back at school is helpful because it keeps my mind busy.  On the other, it's a reminder of where I was and what I was doing 23 years ago when my trauma happened.  
    Guess we'll see how that all goes!
    Hoping all is well with everyone.  I've stayed up WAY past my bedtime tonight - but seemingly my body doesn't want to ALLOW for me to sleep for a longer period of time than the 4-5 hours I'm normally accustomed to.  I'm sure I'll be paying for it tomorrow (today) but, I'll deal with that tomorrow (today).  Maybe a cap-nap will be in order (typo was added on purpose) tomorrow.  
     Talk soon,
        - Capulet
  20. Capulet
    Let's all raise our hands if we're done with Christmas!
    If it were within my capacity to turn back-flips, I'd be doing that right now.  I'd likely end up in traction but it'd be worth it, compared to how I was made to feel this past Christmas season.
    I'm more happy that it's over.  It was over before it started, if that makes any sense...
    I'll further explain.  
    Most of you know that this was our first Christmas in our new home.  
    The house was beautifully decorated.  The tree was put up right after Thanksgiving weekend and the light show has ALWAYS been my favorite.  I love the multi-color lights, I love the tree being the only source of light in the evenings.  Such a calming, merry feeling while watching TV and all the other house lights are off.  At least for me, this was a nice and peaceful feeling and a feeling I look forward to whenever we're eating turkey leftovers.  Additionally, I'm happy to say that our tree ultimately survived the wrath of my youngest cat, who has successfully learned that he is no longer a kitten and is too big and fat to shimmy up the center of the tree and perch himself across the branches in the middle.  I did have to "repair" the branches at the bottom, that just fall to the floor because of his failed attempts to get into the tree.  A few ornaments ended up on the floor every morning, but there haven't been any fatalities this year; the glass/expensive ones were put high up because of aforementioned cat.  The other four don't give a rat's ass about the tree, it's always the youngest one that's the problem...
    Anyway...moving on.  We decorated the outside of the house with lights...something we'd never done before.  It looked lovely.  J and I were proud of ourselves.  I must say ours was the nicest looking house on the block!  We had lights in all the windows, a couple of those projector things with snowmen and snowflakes on one side, we strung up the wall at the end of the driveway, covered a tree with net lights....VERY nice!
    We hung a nice big wreath on the entrance door, another in the living room on the wall above the mantle.  I put the red shiny bows on the doorknobs and drawer handles, made things look nice and festive with the addition of little Christmas-themed knick-knacks and candles and anything that smelled like candy-canes or gingerbread or sugar cookies...out they went with little candies and M&Ms, whatever we could put in these little glass (Holiday-themed) bowls...I put out Christmas coasters...my halls were DECKED.  
    I put garland up along the edge of the fireplace, complete with battery-operated lights that went on every day at 6pm and shut off at midnight.  6 on, 18 off, easy-peasy with these battery-operated delights, didn't have to worry about replacing the batteries at all but will imagine they need new ones at the start of next season.  That is, given I'm in the mood to decorate.
    Oompa also "contributed" when she downsized drastically over the last year...and by "contributing," I mean, she threw whatever she had no room for into a plastic grocery store bag and brought them over to us to use.  I often joke among the sisters that she's simply giving them to me to throw away for her.  There WAS some salvageable junk, but most of it was unnecessary junk that I didn't want to use here, either.  We all get a daily text from Oompa, I'll have you know..."Do any of my girls want this beautiful hanger, passed down from great-great-great Nonna from Italy?"  And then the chorus of "no's" begins...
    Then the stupid hanger ends up in a bag and on my kitchen table because she has a sentimental attachment to it and will store it in the bedroom closet she uses when she's here.  I swear to God, you can't make this up - that bedroom smells like Old Lady, the efforts of Yankee Candle and Glade Plug-Ins combined cannot fully combat the stench...it's simply because she has too many "collectibles" that no one wants and she insists on putting into her room, and the door being closed at all times to ensure a cat-free zone further preserves and promotes the Old Lady sanctuary.
    These little, minor things, I can deal with.
    What I CANNOT deal with though, is manipulation.  Where Oompa is involved, though, let's call it mom-nipulation because that's fitting.   
    She has been bitching and moaning since the SUMMER (it was the beginning of July when we moved here, she wasted NO time) that I moved two hours away from her.  J has made comments to her that SHE lives 4 hours away from all of her family members but that has little to no effect on my mother.  I might as well have moved across the country, the way she has been carrying on.  My mother's biggest problem, if you ask me, is that she does not feel needed by me/us.  She weeps because she doesn't see us once a week like she used to, she clings whenever she comes, she complains when I decline an invite to her house for Sunday dinner, she then throws us moving back into our faces and lays blame on US for moving away and not making the effort in keeping the family together.  In return, I remind her that Sister #1 moved BEFORE we did, she chose the retirement community 20 minutes away from Sister #1 BEFORE we moved two hours away.  SHE was the one who got the moving ball rolling.  Sister #2 and her husband also moved 20 minutes away from her little retirement community (although in the other direction) BEFORE we moved.  Why should we move close to her/them when we had no intention of ever living in New Jersey!?  We told her YEARS before either one of us moved; we were bypassing New Jersey entirely and moving to Pennsylvania.  She knew this.  Yet, she still complains that it's not a location in Pennsylvania that is close enough to where she hangs her hat....
    All in all, I just do not have the heart to tell her that she misses me/us MORE than I/we miss her.  In a way, both of my sisters having babies within a six-month span of time helps - because now she needs to help THEM with their "new-parent" statuses, takes some of the pressure off of us, and in the meantime keeps her too busy to complain to us.  I'm fine with seeing her once a month!  Or less.  Really, because all she does when she's here is cry and complain and bit*h and moan and piss everyone off in the process.  
    You'd think that having a three-year old grandson and a newborn granddaughter with another granddaughter on the way in a couple of months would help...right?  But no, she finds reasons to complain, anyway!
    Christmas, particularly Christmas Eve, has always been my mother's thing.  She would have all of her daughters, their spouses (and in my case, ex-spouses), grandchildren, my father and his wife would come, along with the occasional extra in-law guest with nowhere else to go, etc, at her house (this was back in New York, before we BOTH moved this past summer...me to here, and her to a retirement community in New Jersey....hence her downsizing crusade) for a fish feast and present-opening extravaganza.  We did it every year regardless of her constant over-cooking of the fish, the drama that would ensue and the annual argument between any two or three random family members.  Not that the drama was wanted or needed, it was pretty much a given...because wherever Oompa is, the drama is.  
    With the exception of me and maybe Sister #2, Oompa breeds drama.  
    She starts it with her husband, my poor stepfather and both my sisters' father.  This man has endured her bullshit for thirty-five years.  She yells at him mercilessly, calls him stupid and orders him around.  In his old age, he's gotten to the point where he tolerates it less and less, resulting in full-blown arguments over the dinner/dessert table if not during all the preparation.  Sister #1 has inherited my mother's flair for drama and in turn, has absolutely no filter on her mouth, almost everything that comes out is an insult.  She truly met her soul-mate in her husband, who also has no filter nor a pot to catch HIS verbal diarrhea.  As a result, that is an aunt and uncle my kids don't care for.  They will say hello and goodbye at family gatherings but DREAD their presence at any one of them.  Lately, that secret dread has been made not-so-secret.  
    Anyway, last year was our "last" Christmas Eve at Oompa's old house, the house we grew up in.  That house was sold prior to our move.  We all said it last year...next year, we start new traditions.  I wanted the Christmas Eve torch and made it known to both Oompa and my father and stepmother and sisters as well as to the wasband and his wife and all of the kids.  
    Now, fast forward to this year.  Oompa's excuses began back in October with the birth of my niece.  
    "Ohh, you know, she's (Sister #2 and her husband) not going to drive two hours to your house with a newborn in tow...the baby's too small..." (why she thinks a baby won't sleep in the car for a 2 hour ride is beside me....my kids would sleep for six hours as long as the damn car was RUNNING)...but fine, I accepted that.  Baby's first Christmas, after all.  It was later told to me that they would be going to my brother in law's parents' house for Christmas Eve.  So, this sister was squared away.  I took no offense to this.  I understand it.
    Then...
    "Your sister's (#1) husband is deathly allergic to cats so she won't come for Christmas Eve at your house, either...let's do it at my house in Jersey?" She tried this too.  I told her that I'd buy a supply of Benadryl for the asshole but I'm not putting 10 people on the highways on Christmas Eve to accommodate one person (my brother-in-law with the nonstop verbal diarrhea) because he's allergic to cats.  I'm simply not re-arranging my holiday plans because he won't come.  My sister would come because according to Oompa, they had nowhere to go either.  So I told her to bring my sister and nephew and come for dinner, if my brother in law chose to stay home, then that was on him.  But then more excuses...she's (my sister) seven months' pregnant and shouldn't be in the car for that long.
    Are you fucking kidding me?!
    So I finally put my foot down and told her that I was doing Christmas Eve...(which was also J's birthday)...here.  That's it.  We weren't hauling everyone in our family (to include wasband's because his family consists of the four other grandchildren she knew before the ones that take up all of her time NOW) over to her tiny little house in New Jersey because she wasn't willing to work with us as far as my sister and her husband were concerned.  
    Now, this was only three-quarters of the family.  My father (whom I inherited the drama-free attitude from) is retiring this year.  He lives THREE hours away from us.  He's not complained once.  In fact, he vacations frequently in the area we live in, so he was actually HAPPY to hear we moved where we moved.  He's come a couple times since then and stayed over, enjoyed his visits with us.  There have been ZERO complaints from him.  So, this year, he had but one request.  He couldn't come on the actual Christmas Eve because on Christmas Day, he had plans with his wife's family.  He has these plans every year, but the drive back from my house to where he (and his wife's family) would be too traffic-filled if he were to leave Christmas morning.  So he asked to come December 23rd, have an "early" Christmas Eve celebration here, spend the night, and head home on Christmas Eve (afternoon) so that his visit on Christmas Day would warrant less travel hassle. Makes sense, right?  
    So I agreed.  Oompa was invited for the 23rd as well, and she came on the 23rd.  My father's wife is not a cat-lover either.  When they arrived, I told them that my son's room (which has a full-size bed) was available for one set of grandparents while the other set would stay in the guest room that my mother has "old-ladied" to the max.  They'd hash out those details amongst themselves when they arrived but both sets of parents would have a bedroom with a door, clean sheets, etc.  My only suggestion was for my Dad and his wife to bring their own pillows, as the ones in my son's room are quite beat up.
    Okay, so Dad arrives on the 23rd.  Oompa was already there.  My stepfather busied himself tinkering with things around the house - he's got the need to be doing something at all times.  Anyway, Stepmother asked Oompa if she could have the guest/Old Lady room because it was the only room in the house completely closed off to cats and she was hoping for no stray cat hairs on her bedding.  Oompa, without consulting with my stepfather, said yes, that she and her husband would take my son's room (which really isn't a cat hangout - when he's not home, the door is closed...when he IS home, the door is closed...so it really wasn't too big of a deal) and my father and his wife would take the guest room/Oompa's room.
    So they put all their stuff in that bedroom, we had dinner...not exactly a drama-free dinner, because it was also my stepson's (wasband's eldest son's) birthday on the 23rd.  My kids wanted to go there for dinner, thus cutting our "fake" Christmas Eve short.  Not to mention Oompa screamed at both of them because they expressed a want/need to celebrate their brother's birthday and to have dinner with the wasband, despite my having planned a nice family meal over here.  I had to smooth the waters between my son and my mother, stating we would eat a little bit earlier, then they could go join the wasband for a SECOND dinner before we all went there for cake later on.  For the record, we usually DO celebrate his birthday on the 23rd but because this year, we had no other time to have my father over and my mother wasn't going to stay for Christmas Eve because that would, in turn, leave Sister #1 with no one to see or nowhere to go, we planned to eat our dinner and go to the wasband's for cake.  It was my attempt to make everyone happy, to see everyone for Christmas Eve, a day early.  Wasband refused to bring everyone over here on a day that was his son's birthday (and my stepson would NOT have cared, I know this about him...it was the wasband who was being difficult) and to combine birthday and holiday together.  So...we made the most of it and tried to squish everything into the 23rd so that everyone else could carry out alternative plans.  
    But no.  No one was happy, including me, because whenever I try and accommodate ANYONE, I end up inconveniencing others.  
    After cake, there was more drama.  My stepfather's boiling point was reached and he hollered at my stepmother, telling her that he wasn't giving up his room.  My mother hadn't consulted with him and he was angry about it.  He deserved to be able to sleep in the room that he always slept in when he was at my house.  He carried on.  My stepmother finally threw her hands up and agreed to move everything into my son's room.  My mother was embarrassed to no end, and the next morning, she left before my father and stepmother even came upstairs, weeping and saying it was the worst Christmas ever.  I did tell her she could stay that night for dinner, stay over until early in the morning, then go spend Christmas with Sister #1, since really, that would make sense...Sis #2 had her in-laws for Christmas Eve, Sis #1 kind of screwed herself because she did have every opportunity to come and chose not to...not my fault nor my mother's, so they could always find something to do or someplace to go...there WAS someone that liked them enough to have them over, I'm sure of it...there was ALWAYS a standing invitation for them to come to my house, too.
    That's when she tells me that Sis #2's plans changed.   Instead of Sis #2 going to her in-laws' as originally planned, her in-laws decided to bring Christmas Eve to her.  The arrival of my niece had rendered her useless in the kitchen, so they were bringing all the food and having the get-together over at her house.  Originally, my mother wasn't seeing her on Christmas Eve at all and would be seeing both sisters on Christmas Day.  Now, my mother would be attending THEIR celebration, mostly because it was closer to home.
    THAT's what offended me.
    I was even more pissed off when I heard that Sis #1, the one with nowhere else to go on Christmas Eve, decided to join Sis #2 and her family on Christmas Eve, too, at her house.
    Then on Christmas Day, they all went to #1's house.  
    Meaning, my mother chose to spend BOTH Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with those two, leaving us all here, wondering why we didn't get either day out of her, or any of them.  
    NOW, I'm pissed off.  I had my little meltdown that consisted of ugly crying into the fur of whatever cat I could reach.  I put on a smile for the rest of the holidays, and I got through them regardless of how pissed off I am at how everything unfolded.  
    I haven't had the talk with Oompa, but this year kind of set the stage for next year and all of the Christmases to follow.  My youngest sister wants to take the torch and wants to do it at her house from now on.  Right now, I'm too pissed, too BAH HUMBUG to bring it up, but when the time comes, I'm announcing that Christmas Eve will be held ON Christmas Eve, at my house, EVERY year.  They can come or they can stay the fuck home.  I'm not having a repeat of this Christmas.  There will be NO fucking rescheduling drama.  Not from Oompa, not from anyone else.  Yes, I moved, but I've also been to my sisters' houses, their neck of the woods more than any of them have come to ours.  It's the same drive, whether they come to me or I go to them, I'm just not bending anymore.  I'm not accommodating any of them anymore because they're too lazy or too allergic or too pregnant, or too inadequate in the kitchen, or for whatever other fucking reason they can throw at me.  The torch was supposed to come to ME, the eldest daughter, and I'm reclaiming it.  
    Now, I'm bitterly de-Christmasizing the house in between blogging and binging on Christmas cookies, simply to get rid of the fucking things.  I'm probably going to greet 2018 fifteen pounds heavier, but regardless, I'm ripping those fucking shiny red bows off of the doorknobs and handles.  I am pulling candy canes off of whatever little areas I've chosen to hang them in.  I'm throwing away the gingerbread house that Oompa and my daughter made together on the afternoon of the 23rd, after the yelling had died down.  I carried up the Rubbermaid storage bins and am throwing anything Christmas into those bins, to later be stored up in the attic.  I don't want to see or hear about any more Christmas bullshit anymore, which sucks because I always LOVED Christmas, the lights, the decorations, the tinsel and garlands, the excitement, the anticipation, the cookies, etc.  Now?  I'm Ebenezer Capulet and I'm dreading subsequent Christmases.  Maybe the hurt/aggravation is too fresh right now; I don't know...but this is new to me.  Something's got to give.  Changes need to be made.  And they are not all on my part.  I'm realizing this now - I've made all the changes I can make.  I need for them to be adapted to and for others to be willing to meet me halfway.
    Anyway.  I know in general, Christmas is never simple.  Everyone's got something.  
    I sincerely hope YOUR holidays were better than mine.  If they weren't, at least we can take consolation in knowing we have 11 months before the insanity begins again.  11 months to recuperate, before the holiday bullshit ensues again.  *sigh*  Either way, I TRULY hope that even though there may have been unnecessary stress this season, that we all had at least one thing to be grateful for, one thing that made us smile, one thing that was done or said that we can remember fondly.  That, I can say I did have.  There was at least one thing, if not a few, that I found myself blessed to have this year, even if it was that I was able to decorate a brand-new house for a holiday I hope I can learn to love and look forward to again.  My kids loved everything that Santa brought them, so there's also that.  The little things do add up.  
    Happy New Year, folks.  2018 for the win?
    - Capulet
     
     
  21. Capulet
    As promised, the update on yesterday's family gathering - dual birthday party for my nephew (5) and my niece (1).  I meant to update earlier but a status update seemed more appropriate - admittedly, I was a ball of nerves, and my mother wasn't helping matters any.  There was much to say, much swirling around in my already-busy brain, but I figured, lemme get through the day, first - let me recuperate (with or without Lucy's 5-cent therapy) and THEN I'd write on this.
    To backtrack, my sister decided to invite my mother's brother to a birthday celebration for her kids - he is a person who, just hearing his name, sets me off into a fit.  We all know that she tried to get my father to chauffeur him home from the birthday party - as he would have to pass through the town the Uncle lived in on his way home.  I was put in a very uncomfortable position when this originally came up and had no choice but to drop it at the time of discussion.  It was either that, or open up a can of worms that I wasn't ready to open.  
    I agonized over this upcoming party for two months.  Over seeing him, over what would happen after seeing him, over the what-if-I-lose-my-shit-publicly question.  In that two months, I've had enough 'other things' happen that this just seemed - STUPID - to think about.  It wasn't an easy couple months - we lost a pet, we've hit some financial hard times, and we've had to refocus on the positive things in order to make the time go by faster.  The only problem with that - this party crept up quicker than I thought it would.
    After my sister texted me to ask me to show up an hour early to help 'set up' for the party, I texted Oompa to ask if I'd be walking into any surprises.  She'd mentioned briefly (or she might have mentioned more but whenever she says ANYTHING about her brother, I develop amnesia and out comes the usual response: 'oh, okay...') that he was back in the hospital sometime last month.  I will gladly admit to you all that I HOPED this meant he wouldn't still be coming, being unhealthy and all that.  Regardless, she responded to my text with, "what do you mean?"
    I asked her flat-out then, "is L going to be there?"
    She confirmed yes, he was still going to be in attendance.  And then followed up with, "do me a favor and please just say hello to him.  Then you can ignore him for the rest of the afternoon.  And have the kids say hello, too."
    I didn't like this AT ALL, but said I'd wave.  I didn't say though, that he'd see me wave.  And I told her I was NOT going to ask my kids to say hello to him.  He was nobody to them - (and not for nothing, the daughter barely says hello to people she DOES know!) - and it didn't matter to me whether or not they chose to say hello - it was up to them.
    She probably didn't like that at all, but said nothing more.  We arrived at the party early enough to help my sister set things up.  When he showed up, J made sure I was clear across the room. And my J had been asking me for weeks already - why am I even going to this thing?  That kitchen confrontation between me and my parents should have resulted in a firm 'if he's going to be there, I will not be going.'  And, to a point, she's right.  If this was anything BUT a birthday party for my autistic nephew who would likely have been disappointed if I didn't go - I probably would have made that statement.  So I said I'd go for him, for my nephew, whom I have no intention of ever disappointing - and that I'd do everything in my power to avoid my uncle and focus on the kids instead.
    Which I did manage to do yesterday.  I didn't say hello, I didn't make eye contact, I didn't wave, and when I saw him being 'led' around (he can't walk without assistance), I simply walked into the opposite direction.  (HUGE shout-out to my cousin who unknowingly rescued me from his path by asking me if I wanted to get a cup of coffee from the dessert table!  Well-timed, and well-played, cousin!)  
    There were times when I'd glance at him - at how pathetic he was.  He looks disheveled, dirty, unshaven.  Don't get me wrong, he was ALWAYS disgusting looking - more so to me than to anyone else, perhaps, but even more so now that I am grappling with whether he is responsible for the things I understand on a very deep level but cannot remember.  Everything I find disgusting about him is amplified, a hundred-fold.  Even the daughter wrinkled her nose at the sight of him - and the son was heard (even if only by J) calling him 'the molester' and questioning why he'd been invited.  I responded to them both to simply ignore him if they wished - that was what I was doing.  My guess is - they'd been told by the wasband that he was an unsavory sort and simply didn't care to ask their father to elaborate.  They kept their distance, though - which was relieving.
    I waited until he'd left the building before using the bathroom, which was inconveniently located behind where he was sitting.  Holding my bladder for a couple of hours, to me, was WELL worth it!
    After the party, we went to get some food at Applebee's.  Oompa texted me when we were waiting to get our check.
    "Did you say hello to your uncle?"
    I stared at my phone for about five minutes.  No, I hadn't.  I had made sure to avoid contact, simply because I didn't want to see him.  I knew that a 'hello' would have turned into a conversation.  Rather than risk saying something I didn't feel was best said at a kiddy party, I had decided against even the wave.  I didn't want him even LOOKING at me, which I'm sure couldn't be avoided.  For a few minutes, I considered telling my mother that I had waved but didn't think he saw me...but why lie?  She'd only ask if he saw me wave.  And we'd end right back up at square one.
    "No, I didn't," I decided that the truth was better, and texted back.
    She came back with, "Yet, you said you would say hello for my sake."
    The idea of telling her I waved but he didn't see me, once again paraded through my mind. Instead, I said, "I didn't want to end up having a conversation with him.  I have nothing to say to him."
    "I didn't ask you to have a conversation with him," she said, "I just asked that you say hello.  You know that when I ask you for something, there's usually a reason."
    "Oh, yeah?" I shot back, "What was the reason, then?"
    She said she couldn't discuss it then.  She likely had my sister's nose peering over her shoulder - or she was on the phone with him, and he was probably bitching about that niece (and her kids) who didn't even acknowledge he existed.  
    Either way, I very honestly don't give a shit.  There is absolutely NO reason whatsoever that would make my saying hello to a pedophile, a good one.  I AM sure I'll hear about it when she comes to visit in a couple weeks - J and I have already discussed what possible reasons there could be - maybe his recent hospital visit has revealed that he's finally going to be dead soon?   
    * Side note - I just had a nice mental image of him bending over, looking into the hole that will become his final resting place - and me walking by, kick-shoving him into that hole and continuing on my merry way....yeah, just thought I'd leave that there.   It is one thing that made me smile yesterday amidst all the mixed-in bouts of anxiety.  But it certainly conveys how much I've been looking forward to hearing that he's another step closer to the eternal fires of Hell.
    Anyway - when that 'reason' (Oompa's reason, that is, whether or not it matches the one I'm fantasizing about) is revealed - I'll be sure to let you all know as I'm sure you're all as curious as I am.  For now, though, I can only assume that he's not doing well, health-wise, and my mother is trying to eliminate any 'guilt' on my part for not having been cordial toward him when I saw him last.  This just further confirms that Oompa is completely clueless.  And ANY thoughts of someday telling her MY reasons for hating this man are now further away from ever being made a reality.  There is just NO way that I can trust her with it - all I'll be left with is even MORE invalidation....and really, who wants that?  Show of hands?
    Yeah, I didn't think so.
    In the meantime, I'd like to thank each and every one of you who rode in my pocket yesterday.  I felt you all there, and love you all.  
    This'll be a short-ish entry tonight; I'll be back later this week with an update on the 'other' stuff.  There's lots to share, but for now, I wanted to just clear this off of my mind.  As always, comments and thoughts (and guesses on the 'reasons') welcome - we could probably get our bets in before Oompa's visit during the first week in April and it might be fun to see who's right!?  
    Either way - I am sending you all love and hugs and plenty of well wishes.  Hoping your weekend went well!
    Until next time.
    - Capulet
  22. Capulet
    Oh, let me tell you…if my mind were ever called upon as a witness, a mistrial would be declared. 
     
    There are more holes in there than in a block of Swiss cheese!
     
    Furthermore, if my mind took the form of a live being, I’d describe it as most resembling a hyperactive dog or cat that spends ninety-five percent of its time running in rapid circles, not necessarily in the same pattern.  Just nonstop, frantic running.   This way?  No, that way!  Nah, wait….THAT way!  Up!  Down?  Maybe to the left? No, I was right the first time…it’s that way!  And the cycle repeats.  Twenty four hours a day, more if it were even a possibility.  
     
    It’s gotten to the point where if I don’t dose myself with NyQuil thirty minutes before I intend to shut down for the day, I end up tossing and turning.  All.  Night.  Long.
     
    Last night was a such night.  I don’t think I’ve slept at all.
     
    I tried thinking about kittens - anyone who knows me knows that I’m a sucker for kittens.  The purring is so soothing, so tranquil.  It relaxes me to have a cat nestled on my chest while watching television.  I’ve spent the last nearly twenty years owning a single cat or multiples.  I currently have five of these feline wonders.  J has already told me that if I bring home another cat, I’m going to find myself single.  
     
    So, I shifted thoughts to the kids.  Their goings-on.  How time has gone by so quickly and how my son is currently putting in college applications and (gasp!) has started driving.  I’m terrified of that, for the safety of my son, the safety of the townspeople and the safety of any wrong place, wrong time wildlife critters that he’s likely to mow down at least once in his lifetime as a driver.  I worry about his choices that I know are going to impact him as he embarks upon his upcoming college days.  I am hopeful, although I still worry, that he’ll make smart decisions.
     
    I think about my daughter, my beautiful baby, who is no longer a baby. I am terrified of her transition into a teenager, then into adulthood.   She’s quite the social butterfly, always on the phone or face-timing with her friends from school.  She’s always surrounded by people, whereas I am the complete opposite.  I have a feeling she didn’t get this trait from M, either.  Either way, it scares me to know that she, too, is going to experience, be it firsthand or secondhand, the same things that I know all too much about.  Her innocence will dissipate, she will no longer see things through the rose-colored glasses that childhood enables us to.
     
    You see, I’ve experienced a whole lot of ugly in today’s world.  Each time I see or experience something that doesn’t sit right, it pokes a brand new hole in the already tattered mass that resides inside my head.  I have too many questions.  I want to tackle that running cat or dog, sit them down at the table and shine a huge spotlight onto them.  Then, I want to play ‘bad cop’ and interrogate them in a manner that produces results.
     
    I want answers.  I think that’s what it boils down to.  I want gaps filled.  I have too many questions for my own sanity, some that I already know the answers to, but need validated.  Each question is a separate running animal and at this rate, I’m going to have an overcrowded zoo in the recesses of my mind that should otherwise be reserved for peaceful, tranquil, sleep-welcoming thoughts.
     
    Let’s be clear on one thing, though.  I am NOT in crisis right now.  Over the years, I have methodically trained myself to function on three or four hours of sleep per night.  Usually, this leads to a ‘screw it all, I’m crashing tonight’ and I can sleep for upwards of eight hours (without the help of NyQuil) as I recharge.  This is not constantly my current frame of mind, although there ARE sporadic moments where I need to sit and regroup, think about why I’ve got these questions and what to do with them.  This post is not a cry for help, but rather an admission that I struggle with these questions on a nightly basis and it is seriously affecting my ability to turn it all off at night, and ultimately, to fall asleep.  I wonder if any of you are the same?  Do you lie there at night, wide awake, and because you’re awake, you can’t help but succumb to your thoughts and underlying questions?  One leads to another.  Then it leads to a full on debate.  I envision myself with the megaphone in these cases.  Screaming as loud as I can, “SHUT UP!”  Sometimes it helps and I sleep.  Sometimes it doesn’t and I write.
     
    Hence today's entry being so close to last night's.
     
    I think eventually, I’m going to have to track down the Ambien lady that I made fun of in my first blog entry.  I’m pretty sure that unmedicated, I wake up with what looks like a mop on my head coupled with a pair of big-ass black contractor bags underneath my eyes.  But hey, if the Ambien she so eloquently represents is a preview of how I COULD be waking up, then I’m all for it!  Oh, gosh, would I love that.  I’m sure J would appreciate that, too, as no one wants to be scared in the morning.  
     
    Thinking tonight is going to be the night that I recharge.  Fingers crossed.
     
    - Capulet
  23. Capulet

    What's the point?

    By Capulet,

    Hello, friends!
    Sending my usual apologies for not having updated in a while.  For the first time in several days, I can sincerely say we’re thawed out.  The new boiler is working nicely - we now have heat and hot water in addition to the restoring of our electricity and internet.  The kids went back to school this week; a lot of families in the area didn’t have power for the entire week last week following the winter storm, so the school district had some mercy on us all and closed the schools for the entire week while electric, oil, propane, cable companies all worked hard to get us all back up and running.
    Of course, my bank account is going to be quite sad for a while, now that we have to come up with a way of funding the new boiler, which is now on Oompa’s credit card.  I may have to consider selling my eggs.  I make cute kids.
    Anyway, amidst all this there was the usual wasband drama.  We never seem to go without.  We’ve gotten to the point where his name is mentioned and all eyes begin rolling.  Mine, J’s and depending on how they feel about him, the kids’.
    I cannot express to you all enough how much misery this man puts me through.  Even now, when I’m not married to him anymore and he now has a wife (his third) that he can annoy on a daily basis.  He has a new wife that he can order around, a woman who once was tough but now has succumbed to his endless manipulation.  No, I don’t feel bad for her, but at the same time, I do understand it all because the emotional abuse didn’t stop once the divorce papers were signed.  Because we share two children in common (and that’s about all we share that matters) he still seizes any and all opportunities to remind me that he is right, he knows best, he’s never wrong, and I am one hundred percent wrong, every single time.  Of course, that’s what he says initially, but after the volcano that is the wasband erupts, he cools down and somehow remembers how to talk rationally.  Even then, he wastes no effort in proving why he was right in the first place.  All I end up doing is nodding my head, because really, what the fuck is the point?  Nothing I say is going to be right and I don’t have the energy to argue.  I’m sick of seeing his pissed off face, the look of disgust when I talk to him or even try to tell him how I feel about something, the 'whatevers’ when I know I’m right and he does, too, and he just doesn’t want to give me an iota of credit.  
    I’m so tired, guys.  I’m REALLY tired.
    Know though, that the wasband came from a broken, abusive home and he’s been on his own since he was a teenager.  Add to that he’s ex-military.  By now, he’s alienated his entire family, and I do have to say that most of it was for justified reasons, but at the same time, it has destroyed him as a person.  He has only the concept of his own family, everyone else’s family is irrelevant to him.  I know he’s capable of being a good person when he wants to, but his need to control everything and everybody around him overshadows his finer qualities, as few of them as there are.  And now, he’s managed to brainwash our children into agreeing with everything he says because they’re afraid of what he’ll say to them if they don’t.  There’s so much I want to say to him, so much I want to scream at him, but I don’t because, what’s the point?  He’ll come back at me with the usual belittling bullshit he’s mastered in the nearly 20 years I know him.  He is truly an ugly, UGLY man, and right now I want to punch him in the face.  All I can do at the moment is hope for another stent collapse in the near future because REALLY, there is nothing at all short of his passing that will free us from this man’s influence.  And then there’s the subsequent feeling of guilt for having admitted that much because that’s just plain horrible of me to say.  
    Let’s get this straight, I’ll never hate him.  As much as his behavior is tedious, tiresome and unreasonable, he IS still the father of my children and he provides.  And so, I often have to force myself to soothe their ruffled feathers every now and then but I’m running out of ways to do that.  He doesn’t defend me to them, I’m sure.  Whenever they have an issue with me, for whatever reason, they bring it to him and of course, I get lectured about it and reminded of why I’m wrong.  He actually had the balls to tell me that they were losing respect for me, when ironically, their complaints about HIM have escalated in recent months.  However, when they come to me with problems they have with him, we listen and shake our heads, but we certainly don’t go running back to him.  We don’t get that luxury.  He’d just tell us we’re wrong, so again, what’s the point?
    God, I absolutely hate how he is.  I hate how he intimidates everyone around him, including our children.  Right now my daughter is grounded from all of her electronics, TV and social media because he feels she intentionally harmed her little sister when they were roughhousing.  My daughter claims and insists she didn’t mean for the little one to get hurt, but he flat-out accused her.  And so, I tried not to laugh when my daughter gave my phone the finger when she saw her father’s number pop up.  I spoke with the wasband over FaceTime and told him that I truly didn’t believe it was our daughter’s intent to hurt her sister, and he immediately started yelling at me and saying that by saying that, I was enabling her behavior.  
    And so I nodded.  Said, “okay.”  Said nothing more for the duration of the conversation.  I don’t think I heard much more of what he had to say after accusing me of enabling her bad behavior.  I saw just his face get all ugly, his sneering, his lip curls.  And so, like a robot, whenever he said ‘am I right?’ I would just nod.  Because I’m not in the mood to carry on this conversation forever because that’s about as long as it would take for him to see anything in the same perspective as me.
    You see, my own brain was going a mile a minute.  I know she has been acting out more than usual recently.  She HAS had an attitude lately, she HAS been defiant, she HAS been different since we moved here.  She’s also 11 years old, 12 in a few months.  She’s expressed how much she hates it here, she’s said she misses her friends, she’s unhappy with the way she’s being treated in school.  Not to mention, if she’s anything like me, her first period is likely on the horizon somewhere and she’s hormonal.  I brought up all of these points to him, not only to defend her but because I truly believe that’s why she’s behaving in the manner she is.  But basically, I was told to shut up and that I was allowing her to behave negatively and making excuses for her.  
    Thank GOD I have this place to vent, because I’m beginning to reach my boiling point with him and his bullshit.  He’s not only causing problems within his own relationship with our kids, but he’s also the cause of a lot of family drama and almost every issue I have with my family has to do with him in SOME way. 
    I’m reminded of the letters my T in the past had told me to write to my abusers but never to send.  He certainly qualifies as one.
    Last week’s events have made me think so much of what I’d want to say to him but because I’m still, to a point, afraid of what he’ll do or say in retaliation (For example, would he further brainwash my kids? Turn them against me? Fight me for custody? Make my life difficult in any and every way imaginable because he has acquired enough control over me and groomed me whilst married to him?) and so I don’t say these things.  I’m quiet.  I agree with him even when I truly don’t.  Then when we get home, I’m pacing the floor hollering about what a jerk he is and trying to convince myself not to give a shit because I know it’s not worth pressing whatever issue it is - because I will never win.  
    So, I’ll just say it here.
    I’d love to say to him - 
    Knock it off, asshole!  I’m sick and tired of being a puppet, I’m not your wife anymore, I’m nothing to you other than the mother of your children.  You don’t treat ANY of your children’s mothers with the respect they deserve, not only for bearing your children but also for putting up with you and your fucking mind games for however long they did.  If anything, we should be nominated for sainthood because YOU are not an easy man to be with, yet we tried our best to love you, to please you.  Apparently we all failed at that, because pleasing you often means we have to sacrifice our own personal happiness because all you truly think about is your own damn self.  
    Contrary to what you believe, you’re NOT the stand-up guy you THINK others see you as, no one will admit it to you because you’ve made everyone so afraid of you and rather than allow you to belittle them and make them feel an inch tall, the safer route is just to go along with whatever you say.  But here’s the truth.  No one can stand you.  Everyone I’ve met has expressed a complaint about you that I’ve kept to myself out of respect for YOU.  I’ve defended you for the sake of keeping the peace and in return, you continue to treat me like shit.  You treat your kids like shit.  You treat your current wife like shit, and like I was, she’s stuck because you’ve also alienated her family.
    You, sir, are going to die a miserable fucking old man with no one (except your children maybe, and that’s only because they have unconditional love for their father) to miss your militant, domineering ass.  And when your kids finally give up on you and decide they’re sick of your shit, too, do NOT look to me for help because you’re on your fucking own, buddy.  Just like whenever I need help with one of them, I’m on my own and then you proceed to ADD to the fucking problem rather than offer up a solution as a co-parent should.  Yes, you provide, and yes, our children have clothes, food, anything they could ever want, but we need more than that.  We need compassion that you’re not capable of showing, we need warmth that you’re void of as well, and we need compromise, whereas with you there is absolutely fucking NONE.  I’m SICK of pretending to like you for the sake of our kids’ sanity, when in all honesty, I hate more things about you than I ever loved.  
    In fact, I don’t understand myself for having ever married your ass.  I’ll say it was temporary insanity when others ask me what the fuck I ever saw in you, but you know, when I ask myself the same question, I’m not even sure anymore.  I truly believe you came along at a vulnerable point in my life and it was a time I was VERY easily manipulated and you saw an opportunity and charmed me into leaving home, moving in with you, raising your children.  I THOUGHT I loved you because you, being the master of deception you are, convinced me that you would protect me, you would support me, you actually said you loved me quite a bit back then, and I responded in kind.  But, truthfully, I think I was only in love with the idea of the stability you promised we’d have but we never really reached that point.  We had money problems, we fought constantly, and of course, you won every single fucking argument because you would verbally batter me down to a pulp, as you continued to do even after our divorce.  Thank you for that, by the way.  Best fucking thing you could have ever given me aside from our perfect son and daughter.  We always had chaos, I did most of the caring for the kids with little to no thanks from you verbal or otherwise.  There was ONLY criticism because nothing I did ever measured up.  Or it wasn’t done the way you wanted it done.  Or if I were to argue with anything you said, I’d be in for a fight that lasted all week and it’d be a quarrel that I emotionally couldn’t and wouldn’t sustain, so rather than argue, I went along with every damn thing you said, even if I didn’t agree.  And like a fucking asshole, I still do it, because you’ve trained me well.  But I was truly MISERABLE, you asshole, and even if you did notice it, you did and said nothing about it.  You’re a horrible husband…you tormented your first wife, you were horrible to me, you are currently an ogre to your wife.  You're quick to call other people 'pieces of shit,' but lemme ask you, what the hell do you see when you look in the mirror???  It BAFFLES me that you don’t see what just about EVERYONE else does.  
    But, you know, you’ll find that out when you close your eyes for the last time, most likely alone.  I believe that in that moment before death, your life flashes before your eyes and I hope you finally understand the wrath you impose on the people closest to you.  And I hope to hell you regret it.  I hope you truly understand what people who have crossed paths with in life see when they see you.  And guess what, you piece of shit?  It’s going to be way too late to go back and make amends, to right all of your wrongs.  You’re already nearing the point of no return with your own KIDS, how much more of your crap do you think they’re going to take??  Your way is not always the best way, and you NEED to learn to let things be, everyone would be so much happier.  And hell, maybe you’ll fucking LIVE longer, too.  All of the stress you claim you have (and probably blame everyone else for) is mostly brought on by your own damn self.  So…wake the fuck up!
    Aaaaaah.
    To you guys, I say thanks again for hearing me rant.  I’m sure there’s more that I’d love to say, no…SCREAM in his face, but this will have to do for now, as my own little inner volcano is now empty.  I feel cleansed a little, maybe my former T was onto SOMETHING.  And believe me, she wasn't right about everything.  
    Going to try to turn in for now.  Tomorrow (or rather, today) is a new day.  Going to envision his face on my pillow and beat it up a little bit for good measure.
    - Capulet
  24. Capulet

    The ideal world...

    By Capulet,

    Hi, all.
    Visiting this site on a daily basis is a constant reminder of the amount of unjustified pain and suffering that sadly exists around us in today's world.  It's even harder to realize that some of the pain we see and hardships endured are so close to our own.  And let me be clear on this - this isn't to say that it's a bad site.  No, this isn't what I'm saying.  I mean to say that AS is just real, SO very real and the things I read daily are yet another reminder of just how much I understand that neither I nor anyone else SHOULD understand.  And while each day goes by and the next begins, I come back in hopes of seeing someone post some good news, something to celebrate, something GOOD and positive that is happening in their lives. 
    Being here (as well as having slightly too much time on my hands) also makes me think in depth about the small, yet complicated things that continue to burden my heart - and then I find myself fantasizing about what things would be like in my version of an ideal world.
    - In an ideal world,  I'd smile every day and mean it.  None of those fake smiles.  You know the ones.  The ones you put on just so no one can see you're starting to cry.  
    - In an ideal world, I wouldn't look at someone and first wonder how they'll end up hurting me in the long run.  I'd be willing to take more chances at both new and old new friendships, because I'd know nothing of betrayal.  Betrayal wears many, many faces and does its job in different ways - but the end result is the same.  
    - In an ideal world, I'd have allowed more people into my inner circle.  While I fortunately have my longtime partner by my side daily, there's still a need for a larger network of people to share your life, your triumphs, your joy, your disappointments, sorrows, etc.  Because, let's face it.  One person can't possibly be your everything.  In a perfect world, I'd have realized this a lot sooner and in turn, I'd be more willing to welcome within my circle anyone who wanted to be in it.  Alas, I've seen too much ugliness and it makes it VERY difficult to be without some skepticism.  In an alternate, fantasy universe, though, this hesitance wouldn't exist and I'd have plenty of room in my heart's blueprints to fit everyone and I'd spend less time purging those whom I cannot trust.
    - In an ideal world, family wouldn't be your last choice of people you want to be around.  You wouldn't DREAD upcoming birthdays or holidays like I have started to lately, simply because the demands of others have gotten to the point where the holiday spirit no longer is felt; instead, these 'wonderful' times  have become obligatory, mandatory, and no longer fun, thus resulting in a severe case of the bah-humbugs.  
    I should add this side note to my last 'ideal world' list item - since my move (and even before) I'm currently feeling that I need to take in my mother in small doses.  I might need bail money wired over sometime soon because I've had to walk away from her a number of times lately, during some of her recent outbursts.  At Christmas, at the kids' birthdays, at the Son's graduation party.  I'm TIRED of having to referee between her and my daughter, my fiancee, my son, the wasband...in another realm, I'd not have to do this at all and everyone would figure out their own shit!  
    And as much as she wants me to care about whether my daughter spends a week at her house, I instead leave it up to the daughter.  If SHE wants to go, then fine, I'm more than happy to make it happen.  But if the daughter says doesn't want to spend four days with Grandma being paraded around her friends at the senior community pool, then that should be enough of an answer for my mother.  However it is not and I end up getting the 'woe is me' text message.  I, being the nice person I am, don't have the heart to tell her that I honest to God don't give a shit about how disappointed she is that she can't entice a 12-year-old into staying with her for more than a day, if even that long.  Because the truth is - I don't think I could, either!  Five minutes with her and I'm annoyed.  Ten minutes and I'm ready to go home.  Any more than that, I end up in autopilot mode and while I still manage to count down the minutes until she (or I) leaves, I spend the remainder of her visits enjoying her less and less.  And this causes me to hate myself for feeling this way toward the woman who birthed me, who is in MANY ways responsible for my successes.  There's more to this, but I'll not discuss this right now.
    - In an ideal world, medical appointments do NOT lead to additional medical appointments.  There isn't much I can do about this one, but I sure could dream.  I have yet another appointment on Friday - the previously mentioned biopsy will take place.  And then I will likely STILL be stressing after that because now I've found out that the mammogram results showed some calcification in my right ta-ta that the doctor now wants to get a better look at.  So a 3D scan is scheduled for Tuesday.  And ALL of this started with a simple, routine, annual pap.
    - In an ideal world, we would have no concept of time, no deadlines, no limits.  Everything we need or want to do for ourselves should be attainable easily without the fear of not having enough time to do all of these things.  It'd also be nice if we could make those wonderful, special moments last longer if not forever, and bask in the euphoria we feel during those times.  Wouldn't it be great to be without fear of good things being sullied or tarnished by negativity??  Furthermore, wouldn't it be ideal also for negativity to simply cease to rear its ugly head?
    This perfect, ideal world simply doesn't exist, though.  As much as I want it to, I know it doesn't.  
    Instead, we're left with what we perceive to be ideal as opposed to what we have in front of us.  And more often than not, what we see first are the things that we don't particularly enjoy.  
    How can we change or modify things so that they look more like we want them to, instead of the blistering mess that we're used to?  What changes do we have to make within ourselves to make life a little bit more bearable?
    Anyone want to share some of their ideals?  It's healing, I promise.  Just post 'em below!!!
    Will also post some more in my own comments, if I can.  There are just so, SO many things I'd like to change in today's world and it appears that while listing them and discussing them, I've lost track of time and my bowling team is patiently awaiting my arrival.  
    So, until later, my friends.
    - Capulet
     
  25. Capulet

    Borrowed Time

    By Capulet,

    *Please be advised that this entry deals with teenage/child death, accidents, and fear.  If any of these trigger you, please skip it or save it for a time when you are in a better frame of mind.*
     
    Today, my seventeen-year-old son confided in me that two of his friends were killed in a car accident as recently as a day or two ago, in our old hometown in New York.
     
    He wasn’t emotional or a blubbering mess about it, but he did pull up the Instagram account of the sister of one of the crash victims.  There was a photo of the now deceased 19-year-old and a photo of the 17-year-old boy who died alongside him.  Then, he showed me a news article covering the crash and apparently, the 19-year-old had been driving, and somehow lost control of the car and hit a parked car and a utility pole.  The driver had been speeding and both boys died instantly.  
     
    My son hasn’t seen these friends in months, but heard through someone he is in frequent contact with about the accident/deaths. He is sad, I can tell, but I don’t think the severity and finality of the situation has fully hit him.  I think this is typical of boys his age, though.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he shed a few tears when alone, privately and where no one would be able to see him.  For now, I offered him my condolences and asked if he would like to attend services for his friends.  He shrugged.  It’s all I can do, really, aside from giving him the space he needs in order to grieve in the way he sees fit.
     
    Now that I’m home and we’ve finished dinner, I can’t stop thinking about this and about the fact we’re all on borrowed time.  These kids had their whole entire lives in front of them.  They were on their way to college, they had plans for themselves.  They had hopes and dreams.   They had families and friends who loved them.  And now, in a single instance, a snap of the fingers, they’re gone.  Just like that.
     
    Before this, I’ve been asked many, many times what I’m afraid of.  And ya know, I really, really, REALLY had to dig deep within.  I know I’ve said this before but I have seen a WHOLE lot of ugly in my lifetime.  I have met horrible people, I’ve read about things in the news that absolutely disgust me, I’ve experienced things that others would have categorized as scary but has instead left me unfeeling.  
     
    I am not afraid of spiders or other insects or rodents.  You will not see me screaming like a girl (even though when I DO scream, I am sure I sound more feminine than I do masculine…) whenever something crawls, slithers, scurries across the floor.  I’m the one called upon to rid the house of unwelcome creepy crawlies whenever the cats haven’t done their jobs or just can’t be bothered by the pests.
     
    I am not afraid of horror films, of clowns (the creepy ones), of those things that go bump in the night.  I’m not afraid of the things that jump out of the shadows and yell, “BOO!”  I can certainly be startled, and it’s happened from time to time, mostly because of my hearing impairment preventing me from detecting another person who may or may not be trying to get my attention. 
     
    I am, however, TERRIFIED of losing one of my children.  There’s just nothing else that compares to the fear of the possibility of that happening.  
     
    So, my son wanted to drive home today.  After telling me about the death of two of his friends, in a CAR ACCIDENT.  
     
    I have let him drive before, and he’s not a bad driver.  He, for the most part, drives the speed limit.  That annoys the people behind him, but I’ve always told him not to worry about them, his safety was more important than someone else’s impatience.  
     
    My first thought when he asked to drive us home?  No.  No, absolutely not.  I don’t want him driving.  I don’t want him to be tempted to speed, I don’t want him to test his limits and put himself or anyone else in danger.  I don’t want him to hop into a car with a friend who just got his license and is anxious to show off driving skills they may or may not have.  I’m SO flipping scared of this, of losing him or his sister, of getting that phone call, of my not being able to go on if anything were to ever happen to one of my children.  Because the fear of this is so great, NOTHING else makes me bat an eye.  Everything else is small potatoes compared to this insurmountable terror.
     
    I let him drive, though.  Because as uneasy as I feel about his preparing himself for life, I cannot hold him back nor can I put him in a big, huge safety bubble.  Same with my daughter, although I think I have a few years before I have to repeat this meltdown when SHE begins driving.
     
    I’m not even sure why I’m even writing about this.  Usually I get to writing when there is something pressing to ponder and I want to see if writing about it makes it less of a mystery.  This, though?  It’s not a question, nor a blog entry that requires feedback. I guess I just want to say I’m very, very afraid.  And to feel fear reminds me that I am human and the unknown applies to me, too.
     
    The unknown also scares me.  That’s a perfect description of it and sums it all up.
     
    I suppose in closing, I will to ask all of you to say a prayer for these two families in New York City that are one hundred percent devastated right now.
     
    - Capulet
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