So, where have I been?

It’s been quite a while and I can’t believe I remembered the password to this little blog....



I’ll jump right into the grit about why I am blowing the dust off.... I’m older now and feel like I need an outlet to share what’s going on in the noggin. When I started this blog I only had one kid and that was 12 years ago. It doesn’t t seem like that long, but I guess it has been. I’ve been living the mom life, full of dates on the calendar, carpools, to-do lists, moving into great neighborhoods in two different states, kissing boo boos, planning birthdays, family trips, taking pictures, studying spelling, math facts, etc....


And here I am, wrestling with all sorts of thoughts, stress, and anxiety, here’s the grit:

1) my mother’s overwhelming family
2) my mother’s overwhelming self
3) my grandma is fighting cancer
4) my mother-in-law could be developing Dementia
5) our “forever home” won’t be a self-decision
6) I hate that my kids miss their friends in Virginia
7) I hate that I have to spend so much time in the car
8) I miss my kids old school
9) I miss the trees of the East Coast
10) I’m growing tired of my husband’s traveling and schedule
11) and I am tired of feeling like the other shoe is going to drop....



(1)Let’s start with number one, the overwhelming family.... I have lived in a few states in my life, but my life started in Texas, and who would’ve ever thought that I’d end up back here, 30 years later. I thought about how awesome it would be to move to a place that had family “built in”, so holidays would be less lonely and we wouldn’t have to travel. Boy, was I a fool. I forgot that moving here was not going to be just Holidays, but EVERYDAY. Highs and lows. I guess it started in September, I had a dear uncle attempt suicide, it didn’t instantly take effect, it took almost two weeks for him to pass and this is when the family had its core shattered! It was awful. This uncle was everyone’s buddy. And the mystery of his suicide, like any suicide will haunt a lot of people, especially the elders who don’t think much of mental illness or believe that “one of them” would ever feel the need to end their life. Also, in this family it is expected to visit everyone in their time of need, even if they blow a hole in their head. I didn’t visit my uncle in this condition and could barely muster up the courage to attend his open casket funeral. Maybe it’s me, but I was a wreck heading into this. Only to hear my cousin say in the receiving line, “finally, you chicken”. Who says that. Who has time to think of that. Fuck you! Then in November, just after Thanksgiving, another family member passed away suddenly in her home, she was a dear aunt. Her death was sad and sudden, but not like the suicide. A week after my aunt’s death, we were shocked to hear that another uncle passed away, this time a heart attack while driving. Luckily, no one else was hurt, but this one was very sad all the same. A little sadder because this uncle had no money or even insurance to give him a funeral, so everyone was asked to chip in. This family was offered money to cover the cost of a very modest funeral, but his family refused and chose to take out a loan and to cover the 10K service. See what I mean by overwhelming. So, just after my first year of living in Texas, can you see why I am starting to hate it here? It’s depressing. Family around will be fun? Not this family, they all act the same, reactive and sad.



(2)Now that we have a bit of the background of my overwhelming family, let’s talk about who my main connection is: my mother. She is the youngest of the family of eight children and hasn’t lived in Texas in 30 years, but when she comes into town, I’m surprised that the Weather Channel doesn’t send out alerts. In the past few months, she has come for funerals, and uses my house as her own personal hotel. She barely spends time here, but disrupts just enough with her family baggage to make me hate the smell of her perfume. Her personality is kind and likable to strangers and people who don’t know her, but to me, and I only speak for me, she is very difficult. She actually makes me have gastrointestinal issues and menstrual issues when she comes into my orbit. She puts me down, points out cobwebs, dust, and dirt in my house and tells me when I look fat in clothes. I have always known she was difficult, but I didn’t figure it out until I moved away from her and saw that I was was feeling better about myself. I think she needs mental help and can see a lot of narcissistic traits in her. I have noticed them more with all the loss she is experiencing in her own family, and how she is dealing with it, or not dealing with it. I can really see it by the way she talks about my grandma’s cancer treatment and the poor old lady's behavior. She complains that my grandma doesn’t do this or that, goodness mom, Grandma is 90 and going through “cancer treatment hell”, give her a break and pray for her, she may be being stubborn, but she is so full of medicine and pain, I think she deserves a little love! But, I see the narcissism and it makes me sick!



(3)About my grandma and her cancer, God please have mercy on her! She is a good lady, never smoked, but somehow ended up with a curable Stage 2B cancer. She had 5 chemo sessions, and completed them, and now has 3 radiation treatments left to go and her spirit is gone, I pray constantly for her to have the strength to keep fighting and to drink the damn water to wash that chemo out of her body and drink two Ensures a day, but my prayers are falling on deaf ears. She is hurting and refuses to drink the water or Ensures. I have secretly been remotely praying the prayers of “anointing of the sick”, when I am at church on Wednesdays and lay my hands out like I am touching her and I am starting to think that maybe I want healing for her more than she wants it for herself. I love her, can you tell?

(4)Moving on to my fourth concern, my dear mother in-law, the lady is a kind old fashioned Southern woman. Since 2016, she has been slowly losing her mind supposedly to dementia, however it concerns me that she has never been diagnosed by a specialist. I have seen her spirit plummet and I often wonder if she suffers from debilitating clinical depression. I feel like when she is around happiness, her “symptoms “ disappear and her light shines, but when she is alone with my father in-law, it is very dark. I worry about her and what it’s doing to her family dynamic, but at the same time, I feel like I can't say much because she is not my mother and her boys don't want anyone else's opinion.

(5)What the heck do I mean when I say I am worried about not being able to choose our “forever home”? I mean that exactly, my husband’s job isn't exactly the most traditional job, so what I mean is this, while most people already have settled into there “forever homes” the minute they decided to have kids, me and my family choose to pick different cities to live in and move a few times in his career. It’s not like they are terrible cities, but I have trouble with the uncertainty and lack of control of the list we get to choose from. I have no desire to move to California, NY, Ohio, Miami, or remote places like Amarillo, Spokane.... I thought when we moved to Virginia, life was over, but I ended up loving it more than I thought I would. And now we are in Texas and I just don’t think it’s a good fit for forever. Georgia is nice, but will it be good one more time? See, the uncertainty is awful! Uncertainty and no control of our destiny is not fun!



(6)Virginia, where do I begin? Ya know, I ended up in a therapist’s office over our move to Virginia. And then fell in love with this place, only to prompt a breakup with our sweet Virginia life and head to Texas to be near family. And now as I sit here in Texas, I am pretty sure I am ready to get the hell out again. I hated moving when I was young, we moved twice, once to Illinois, I was 11 and again to Georgia at 18, both were very hard on me. I look back and think, the move to Illinois was hard because it was clearly hard on my mom, first time away from Texas, but the move to Georgia was awful, mainly because I was aware of what was going on, and of my age and social life, it's also because my parents forced me to move, like ugly threats and hurtful words. I hated them for a while about the move and clearly haven’t gotten over it. Haha! But, back to why I miss Virginia, it’s because my boys miss their friends. They were the cutest bunch of kids. They played well together and I feel these are lifelong friends and it kills me that they can’t see them more often. I miss them, even though they annoyed me sometimes. I don’t like to wish for money, but I wish I could fly the kids to Virginia whenever they wanted...



(7)Speaking of flying, I hate that I have to drive so much! We chose a great community that is a little quieter than what we were used to and I miss living near the retail and lacrosse hustle. The roads here in Texas are flat and boring. I just hate spending so much time in the car, but it’s lonely at home and I don’t enjoy sitting here looking at the walls, so I feel the need to get out and see people so I don’t turn myself into a hermit, which means I get in the car and drive. the scenery is less than peaceful, it's dull.



Number eight, I miss my kids’ old school. I loved that place! I subbed there, volunteered, and really enjoyed my time there. I felt like my kids were really part of something special there. I like the middle school here and know that my oldest was finished at the old elementary school, but I feel like my little guy really thrived there and I feel guilty for making him go to our current school. Last year, though he was blessed with the best 2nd grade teacher, so the transition was a little less painful! I just miss the old place...



(9)I am not a nature person, but I miss the trees and the landscape of the East. The Georgia mountains, the Shenandoah Valley, hell the Potomac. I miss it! Texas is so flat and boring. It is so dry and dirty in the summer and in the winter everything is dead! Why the hell do people think Texas is so special.... even my middle school student says that Texas History is so boring! There’s no character in this state, just ego that it was once it's own country.... more like it's own planet. who gives a shit?


I am to number 10 in my head analysis and it’s a tough one. I am a stay at home mom, by choice, nobody forces me to do this thankless job, but I also know that my boys need some stability in their lives. And by stability, I mean they need a living and loving person at home consistently. My husband’s job is stable in income, but availability is not one of its perks. He travels a lot! And his shift schedule is almost worse than the travel. I hate it! I don't think we have ever been a 9 to 5 couple, ever, but I am growing tired of the solo parenting. 12 years is tough. And with two kids it's tougher. I am blessed with a wonderful hardworking husband who provides us with love and support, but I often crave a reliable partner who can sneak out of work early to catch a practice or a game or help with bus pickup or dinner, but I am grateful for what we have! I love my husband and know that he is not his work, I just get frustrated with things sometimes. That’s all I can say about that.



(11)Finally, with all the death and illness and sleepless nights and gloom and doom texts I get about crappy things happening in the lives of people who are close to me, and the phone calls about all the people who died and who are sick and who is "letting themselves go", I am sick of feeling like the walls are caving in on me and yearn for the old carefree me! I can pinpoint the moment I started worrying and losing sleep. It was the day I found out my uncle shot himself. That day I was getting in the shower and got a text from my dad to "call him and that grandma was fine". We had found out about her cancer at that time, too. Anyway, I called him and he was so upset telling me, sadder than when they told us about the cancer. I actually hate reading my texts now, I’m afraid that they will all be bad news. I need to stop being like this and on Tuesday I plan on seeing a therapist to start my journey to mental healing.



Please forgive me for the ramble, it feels good to get this off my chest. I plan on blogging more during my journey and hope I can help at least one person! xoxoxo