DEFINING MOMENTS

I am going to get a tad bit personal and tell a little more about my life than I normally would. You can think of me what you want and I really honestly don’t care. If I cared about what people thought about me then I wouldn’t be who I am today and the last blog I wrote would have killed me but I didn’t let it and I’m here and I am me. You either like me for who I am, or, you don’t and you think I am a total bitch and that is fine! It’s me….take it or leave it.

Recently, a very, very intelligent person (my brother, Nate—wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give him the credit here) pointed out something to me that I had never really thought about it and it has to do with the ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” of our lives and how they make us who we are. But I thought just a little bit deeper than what he was saying as far as ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” go…like when my first baby, Taylor (who is now 14), was born. WOW!! Now that was a “DEFINING MOMENT”!! Think about your first born (if you have kids) and how you felt at that moment when the miracle of new life was placed into your arms! My “DEFINING MOMENT” was a bit different because I had one of the hardest deliveries ever. But what I remember the most was my step-dad, Vern (who was still alive then) there and giving me that calm wonderful support that he was so good at doing. He hardly ever left my side for very long during those 17 hours plus of labor that I had with Taylor. Finally, after more hours than I care to remember, they finally took me for an emergency C-Section. It is hard for Taylor because he doesn’t remember Grandpa Vern. He watched the video of his birth for the first time and just kept saying mom “Who is that guy???” I said that’s Grandpa Vern and his first birthday video was the same. While we watched him dive into his cake, Vern was there in the background.

It wasn’t until I thought he was old enough to understand that I told him Grandpa Vern killed himself. For years, I just told my kids that he had died. When Taylor was old enough he asked me “how did he die mom?” and I told him. This has to be hard for anyone to digest, especially an adolescent. Shortly after his suicide I had a miscarriage. It was awful. Planned or not planned a miscarriage is one of the worst things a woman can go through…..another “DEFINING MOMENT” who made me who I am today. Later, my “baby girl” Abrianna was born, also after a rough C-Section but nonetheless, she came out happy and healthy with 10 fingers and 10 toes and she looked just like her Daddy!!! Still to this day, 9 years later, she looks nothing like me…I think he conceived her all by himself it if is humanly possible.
It was a rough time for us though……..the picture that will always remain in my mind and hurts me more than anything is standing in the driveway with my brother, Stuart, watching Nathan and Aaron get off the buses from school. I couldn’t talk so I couldn’t tell them, but Stuart did (their Dad was gone…he had killed himself) and I think they already knew as soon as they saw us standing in the driveway. This was one of the very most “DEFINING MOMENTS” of my life. And one that made me see life so much differently than I ever had before. At the time of that incident I was in shock for a long time and then I fell off the deep end, because not only did I lose one parent figure in my life but I lost two for a long time, as my mom fell further and further into her own world of major depression and never getting out of bed, just as she briefly explained in the comment to my last blog that I copied in (with her permission). You know, when my dad killed himself, my husband at the time was not there for me either, which is okay, I have totally forgiven him for that, but that was also one of those ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” of my life and it killed our marriage/relationship.

The reason I now have a twinkle in my eye and try so hard to be the best parent ever is because I fell off the deep end at that point and if it wasn’t for the impact of the drugs I did, the crazy binges and those awful encounters/collisions with other people, people that were bad or people that were like me and looking to be with other people like me (misery loves company) I would not be who I am today.
I know there are still many ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” to come for you, me and everybody and I’m ready for them. I have met a lot of “phony” people who have no idea what it is like to live the way I did growing up, and plunging myself into the world of drugs and alcohol and that’s okay. If your life wasn’t like this then all I can say is you are one lucky human being, but please don’t Judge the rest of us for who we are and what has happened to us. I’m not phony and I don’t tell people when they first meet me that my life was the “Beaver Cleaver” life, because it was far from that. The important thing is that I want my kids to have it better than I did and my mom just reminded me of that yesterday while I was arguing with my husband and she was on the phone with me at the time. Thank you Mom! I love having you back! You went through all those horrible ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” with us and the majority of us fell off the deep end, but we seem to have all recovered slowly and you are one of the main reasons why we have-----I’m so grateful to you, Mom, and I thank God everyday that I have you back!! I can’t believe how many times I said “I just want my mom back”. I can’t wait for our trip in August, so we can spend that quality time together!

The whole point of my blog is that I hope you all reflect on those “DEFINING MOMENTS” and don’t forget the lessons you taught yourself, or the ones that life taught you.

Damned if Ya Do and Damned if Ya Don’t

Have any of you ever been in some sort of conflict where you feel like you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t? So either way you handle the situation, it won’t matter because in the end you are the one who still loses, is still screwed, and/or looks like the “bad guy” anyway. Maybe this has happened to you in the workplace? Within a group of friends, or what I consider to be the worst….within your family?

I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned; I will never use the form of “texting” again for a serious, lengthy or somewhat important conversation! I don’t know about how anybody else feels about this, but absolutely nothing in my experience has ever gone truly right. There are too many small, yet extremely important parts of a conversation that get lost in text, and along with an example, I’ll show one of my recently used texts and if it isn’t as simple as this (which still isn’t entirely 100% simple with “text-lang” ) than I will not text or use this type of communication anymore. Not just that but way too much of that really “cool” text conversation we use everyday gets taken out of context----it’s ridiculous! So here’s my new deal--I refuse to text anymore unless it is short, sweet and to the point, for example, something like “honey, pls stop @ store 4 milk on yor way hm”. Now if my honey doesn’t understand or questions the meaning, he is so smart because you know what he does……he picks up the phone and he calls me! Problem solved right? Wrong! Why do people feel the need to text about serious things that should be done via an e-mail or a phone call!! What is wrong with this damn world?? Big corporations don’t text important data back and forth to each other do they? If they do….I want to know which of them do this? Please do tell!

Ok so let us get back to the issue…..don’t you hate situations that no matter how you think you can fix the conflict at hand, you have decided that you just won’t win no matter how you handle it? And after several days of thinking about this more and more it is true and I’m not going to win but I could give two shits about winning this argument. The argument comes down to whether or not I should apologize for the same text that I sent to two different people. One is direct family member (one whom I’d like to consider and be able to say I’m very close to and the other being the significant other to that family member). Now my direct family member has indicated to me that the significant other is owed an apology for my “anger” and how it was undeserving and my first thought was “yeah right….when monkeys fly out of my ass....then apologies will too!”
Now, I was not angry when I sent this text (although for whatever reason they think I was....see there is that text being taken out of "context" bullshit again……how the hell l do they know….how can you tell if someone is pissed in a text anyway? Well for me it’s usually when the words damn, shit hell, f@#* are used and everything is in capital letters right?

So I've decided that I want to share with all of you, part of the text I sent and then you tell me if you feel it is an angry tone (since I was accused of taking out my anger on someone) ….just please tell me people. I need response to this. Okay so my text read something like “you know you have hurt a lot of people’s feelings….I hope you will at least go see our grandfather before you leave" (this is while this family member is home for a 2 week visit)

So I get NO response from to this text from my family member. However, my other 2 brothers do finally get invited to dinner (whose previous dinner plans had been canceled before) and they were beginning to feel that they would not get to spend any time with this family member ....hence my “people’s feelings are getting hurt” part of my text, but whatever….see what I mean about stupid texts if you have to explain yourself months later is it even worth it to hit the send button in the first place?? As a matter of fact I was feeling bad for my two brothers and my grandfather (who just lost our grandmother in March of this year) but magically, after my “angry” message as it has been referred to was sent, all the sudden dinner plans were made. Of course, my two younger brothers were add-ons to what I am sure was a previously planned dinner with the significant other's family. And, a last visit was made to see my grandfather.

Now prior to them all going to dinner and everything I get 2 messages from the significant other which are summarized into “whose feelings have been hurt? We cannot fit a million things into a two week visit (but a trip to Mesquite with friends was fit in there! cool!) and we have been trying to get the house ready so I don't have to do it all by myself and I don’t appreciate the guilt trip”…….
Now I just have one thing to say that I did learn during my several years of therapy that in his infinite wisdom my brilliant therapist kept pounding in my head (you know for a mere $150/hr) and it was “people don’t put you on guilt trips!” “There is only one person in the entire world who can put you on a guilt trip and that person is YOU!” So if you are feeling guilty about what somebody else said then that is your problem!

I’m not going to apologize for the text message I sent, and in the end does it really matter anyway because I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t right? If I sit here and ignore this whole situation then I'm damned for that to.

A wise man (my husband) said “If you choose not to apologize to the significant other of the family member who also claims they "do not hold grudges" .....than what does it matter because remember "they claim they don't hold grudges". I think indicating that the significant other is owed an apology means "there is definitely a grudge being held" until that apology is received. Well it's not gonna happen and I’m not going to play high school text games back and forth either especially when in the past the significant other has done nothing but complain about my family member and how unappreciative they are of them, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

I’m just way too old for this shit! And guess what, I just don't give A DAMN!