Tag Archives: anger

Honor her sacrifice

28 Thursday Sep 2017

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Men,

Do you have a woman in your life who loves and protects you? Has she taken on the responsibility of mothering a child that isn’t biologically hers. Does she stay awake at night worrying about how that child will grow up, who they will become. Does she pray for you? Does she exhaust herself taking care of your house? Does she lose what little sleep she use to get putting together fun projects, special lunches, unique ways to show your child how much she loves them? Is she literally the most amazing outcome you could have had to shitty start as a parent?

Do you honor your wife? Do you know what that means?

Your wife is invisible to the rest of the world. She doesn’t count. She’s not a mother, and yet she is responsible for all the mother things. She’s not allowed to have any title attributed to her that the world can nod and say, “oh I know who you are”. She’s not allowed to have a say. She’s not allowed most decisions. She can’t even have something special just between her child and herself.  She gets zero credit from the world. From her child. Are you going out of your way to give her credit? Are you honoring her daily sacrifice? Are you showing her your sacrifice too?

Or do you just take. Do you just accept her hard work as common place and expected? Your child learns from you. They watch you. They see you interrupt her speaking and know she is not of value. Her words are not important. They see you ignore her. They see you lie to her. They see you take her for granted.

The step mom of your child committed to sacrifice so many things; her ego, her everyday decision making freedom, her time, her tears, her strength, her sanity, her damn freedom! What have you sacrificed for her? What end of your bargain are you holding up? When you look around, did you get all the benefits of having a child, but none of the responsibility?

Have you left your partner alone to suffer and struggle while you kick your feet up and occasionally say thank you?

You must try harder than most men. You must be more than most men. You do not get to sluff off the responsibility of being an engaged, thoughtful, aware parent because you found a woman willing to do it with you. She said she would do it with you. What did you hear in that promise? Did she say SHE would do it for you?

Your wife is not your child’s mother. Your wife is not YOUR mother.

Are you honoring her sacrifice, or are you just like the rest of the world allowing her to go on invisible?

 

In here, at least, I am not invisible.

Burying pain with kindness

06 Wednesday May 2015

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Let me start by wishing all of you Mommy’s out there a happy Mother’s day! I hope those of you who struggle regularly with the general lack of acceptance of you as a “real” mother, have someone out there this weekend who will call, or write, or text you “Happy Mother’s Day!” In case you do not, let me be the first to honor you, all that you do, all of your heartache, all of your sacrifice, all of your tears of joy and pain; let me be the first to honor you, and wish you a beautiful, blessed Mother’s Day.

I have been crushed through my core in the past. I have been hurt in ways that even my anger couldn’t conjure a cursing riddled with my experiences against another person. I’ve fought and clawed my way back from pain that I shouldn’t have known. Because of my fight for me, I struggle with believing in others. I often struggle with believing in humanity as a good and kind body, capable of honesty and value and positive impact. My career dampens my faith in others ever more, showing me daily the cruel, selfish, and self-serving side of our futures. Trust is a priceless commodity for me, and it takes years to acquire it.

Quite expectedly, it takes moments to shatter what trust you may have stored in your cache of me. I have been building, and working, and fighting for trust to surround me. I have limited my circle to very few, count maybe two hands (including my family). I recently welcomed a few into my circle, believing, having faith that I could trust in them. Believing that they supported me, supported us, what we are trying so desperately to do. I am heart-broken at the loss. I searched frantically for a text-book response to my hurt. Searching for a way to put my heart back together. Angry at how easily I’ve allowed yet another human being to get close enough to crush me. Shocked at my naivety that maybe they wouldn’t. I can’t go back into that black hole. I can’t come back from that darkness again. I never want to be surrounded by that kind of sad emptiness. I can respond differently. I can be stronger. I can bury my pain with kindness, even though you would say they don’t deserve my kindness.

I went out for a bottle of wine. And came back with supplies to make homemade Mother’s Day presents. One for each Mommy in her life. The grandma’s included. She is so excited to be making gifts. So ecstatic to pick out paper to wrap them in. So joyful to have something to give to those she loves on this blessed day to honor Mothers.  So beautiful as her eyes light up in understanding as she points to herself whispering “My Mommy” when I say, “And who is the best Mommy in the world that we should make the most special gift for?” Such accepting, beautiful, wonder and fascination in “our” little secret. No, these are not my Mothers, these women have managed to level a pain against me that I don’t fully understand, can’t fully process beyond my very rare tears. No, these Mothers are wonder and beauty and loving and kind to her. So in my pain, the only thing I can do to continue forward, is to repay in kindness and honor who they are in her life with love.mother-429158_640

We just communicated effectively

23 Friday Jan 2015

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I really don’t want to be passive aggressive, but I feel sometimes that my opinion might literally kill someone with words. Instead of, “Ya know, I absolutely loathe that you don’t care to pick up dog poop in the yard and assume that I will because I just tend to take care of everything so why should you care you son of a…”

woah.

Instead I do this. “Ya know, we’ll get a fine with all that dog poo in the yard. That’s really not a great impression of the Yellers to our neighbors. I picked it all up last time.” Hint Hint. Wink. Wink. Pick up the damn POO you son of a……

woah.

So one might say, I’m not the best at expressing my disappointment in things not being taken care of, especially when I have very vaguely and repeatedly directly but not directly asked you to do it. I like to let it fester and build. I like to see it every morning on my way to work and chew on it for the hour and a half drive. Then I like to work my tail off and expend all of my patience and energy at work. Then I like to drive home the hour and a half contemplating whether it will be there to greet me. Then I sit in my car. And stare at it. And think about it. And know in my heart that if one more day goes by….

And that’s how I escalate the poop in my mind.

So the other morning, I was trying to get my stuff together for a race. And of course this was just a typical race, but since the Packers were playing, it instantly became a themed race with lots of flair because I just can’t do anything at a normal pace/state/attire. So I’m searching for my green and gold leg warmers, because it was cold as blazes out and I want to be safe in my running attire. And I knew they were in my bin in the garage. My LABELLED bin in the garage. My LABELLED Packer bin in the garage. My LABELLED Packer bin of flair….in the garage. It’s early. I’m not the nicest in the morning because I don’t get sleep anymore between work and Peanut, and now the damn dog. So I really try not to speak before leaving the house, in general. I asked Bacon to help me get the bin down, because it’s early and I knew struggling with that was probably going to set me off. We go out to the garage to look for my LABELLED bin. And to my horror, we can’t find it. Not just because there are massive piles of BS thrown everywhere in this garage. Piles of xmas lights, boxes, bins, tools, who knows what thrown everywhere in this “shared” space we have. Bags of recycling piled up by the door to the house. Mid-progress projects abandoned in the middle of the floor. Summer clothes piled on top of the bins they should be piled INSIDE of. So I am pretty sure my huffs and puffs were audible at this point, as I am struggling to contain my frustration and not lash out….rationally or not. (Yes I’m aware I have organization/control/panic/lets-just-stop-the-list-now issues) And I finally give up in a boiling angry state of silence. And then I spot it, in the corner of the garage, I’m pretty sure there was a beam of light shining on it, or the light was merely a reflection of the lasers shooting from my eyeballs, but either way, problem solved. He helps me get it down, all nice, all quiet, don’t poke the bear just give it its leg warmers nice. I frantically shove my stuff in a bag, hugs and kisses goodbye, mutter some passive aggressive comment about dog poop and I’m on my way.

My run was, well just awful. Terrible performance on my end, but it was an amazing opportunity for ma and my sister (Whiskey Shots as I like to call her 😉) to really just lift my spirits after a tremendously dark and difficult week. I was happy as headed to work after the race. I was nice to my staff at work after the race. And then Bacon called.

And he asked if I was ok, because I seemed (pause for audible tension in his voice) “edgy” this morning. When I say I had no intention of getting into any sort of serious heartfelt conversation on the phone at work, I mean it. But he asked, and when he asks something, even though he may not totally absorb the answer, he really wants to at least hear it. So I started with some lame calm response that was passive about the garage. But, as we talked more, just talking got me to the root of why the garage bothered me so much. And what it ultimately came down to was an agreement that had been broken. The garage started off as a sacred space for both of us to share, me with my painting and he with his projects. But through lack of care or priority and excuse after excuse, I had been violently shoved out of my space (my own passive aggressive statement of defiance) and was now resentful, bitter, and down right ticked off. (That’s putting it nicely)

So in the end, a timid question, I’m certain he was terrified to hear the answer to, helped me express my honest feelings, that I didn’t even understand until that moment, and helped him understand how to more effectively ease my stress.

And…..there’s no poop in the yard 😉IMG_7575.JPG

Hello God, its me

16 Friday Jan 2015

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Are you there? Of course you are. Have you seen my performance lately? Is it part of something. Of course it is. Will I become a better person because of what I endure now? Probably. If I can pull myself out of this hole. I’m feeling defeated. Which is absurd given the high high I had with the success of this past weekend. Nothing like a work week to kick you in the teeth and make you want to run for the hills with your tail between your legs. My stupidity and frantic brain have cost me trust this week. I’ve been labelled a liar and a thief. All because I couldn’t remember what happened 4 days ago. In the span of 4 days so many things have changed. So many good. Some not so good. Some chaotic and intense. So many things I had to defend myself against. I have electrodes taped to my person monitoring my heart! And I am supposed to remember the chaos of 4 days ago accurately? Of course, by the time I remembered what really happened, it was too late. The tape had been played back. The fat lady sang. And there is nothing I can do or say at this point to force continued faith in me. And I’m angry now. Angry I’ve been betrayed by the people I’ve fought for. Angry that assumptions were made without ever speaking to me. Not that speaking to me helped matters much anyway, clearly as exhibited by my stumbling response of “I’m certain I was here, I think….I’m pretty sure”. Stupid. The unbelievable dedication I’ve had to this project for 8 months now, washed away in a poor review, all because I’ve been sick for 30 days which has affected my performance and my concentration. The sickness broke my defenses and my life just swallowed me whole. I’m feeling judged solely on 30 days out of 180. And that is a crappy place to be.

So here’s your take-away for today. If at any moment in time you could have your entire life, or career, or friendship judged on a single moment or even a single day, no option to explain or defend: do you feel confident you’ll rate well at any given instant?

I think I’m the invisible grinch

09 Tuesday Dec 2014

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Well this is the stuff of nightmares. I have Christmas lights, we’re going to get our tree, there are stockings hung by the fire with care. And my heart is heavy with anger and sadness. It is overwhelming my favorite type of cheer. I can’t seem to get out from under it. It’s a constant uphill battle and I’m losing. I’m losing badly, not graciously or in some sort of movie star classy way, I am flat-out getting my ass handed to me by anger.
I have logic. My brain knows. My brain says, “you become entrenched in what you scheme about”. And I can’t stop it. I just, I want to knock people off their illusioned pedestals.

And you thought this was about Christmas cheer. Christmas is my number one favorite holiday, and I am struggling through it. This is our first “real” Christmas together, and I already have so much anxiety over how it’s going to get jacked up. Will we have Peanut for Christmas? Will we have enough time to finish making all of her presents for my family and his? Will I be able to get all of the cookies made? Will we have time to shop for our family Christmas party? Yes, the one we are having a week early just to ensure some of my holiday tradition remains steadily intact.  Will we this? Will we that? Will we? Will we? Will we?

Will I?

I recently got to experience my first official “non-existent” moment in this whole step parenting game. Due to circumstances beyond my control I had to leave an event for Peanut early, which resulted in her getting her picture taken with all sides of the families, all the while she was asking where I was. When she got home and I got home we took pictures together to make up for it. It was then that I was informed of the mommy/daddy photo-op that had taken place in my absence. Poof. As though I never existed. Feel free to judge me on this one. I make no excuses for the hurt I felt and that horrible left-out feeling I got from it. I don’t even deny the jealousy that tore through my heart as I realized while I was taking care of everyone else, everyone but Peanut pretended I didn’t exist. I don’t know how to explain the combination of frustration, rage, sadness, and isolation that moment gave me. I keep having these moments, in escalating order, that make me want to throw my hands in the air and call “Uncle”.

I read a well written paper on the dangers of social media which referenced the term FOMO, “feelings of missing out”. The idea is that social media, among other things, has become such an addiction of “staying informed” and “included” that people are having strong reactions to missing out. This was my FOMO moment. As seems to be typical for us, here I was once again running all over God’s creation trying to make sure everything was done, everyone’s needs were met, and I was missing out on something important. I was missing the opportunity to be recognized as an involved human. As a thing that actually exists in this messed up family dynamic we are struggling to develop. And I missed it. Poof. I didn’t exist to anyone in that moment.

Did I need to?

I existed to Peanut. Granted, I disappointed her by not being there in that moment. But I existed to her. I realize that I need to dig deep and be a stronger person, and that much of this anxiety and sadness comes from a lack of confidence in who I am and my place in my world, our world. I should not need to be recognized by everyone. I should not need to be accepted by those who I do not seek a bond with. But I do. And I don’t know another way to be right now. And that’s the simple truth. I’m a different kind of Grinch. My heart isn’t two sizes too small, it’s much too big and trying to love everyone as much as it can. As a result, my heart is over worked and poorly rested and daily conking out on me. How do we fit self-love into all the other loving we need to do? Can I do this in my sleep?