Six Word Saturday (10/12/13)

Helping Rachel's Vineyard and My Antonia

On Monday I went to the house of the coordinator of the Rachel's Vineyard retreats to help put together information packets for the retreat this weekend.  She had made nachos (in the oven) and chicken a la king over rice as a small meal first.  There was one other lady and her two young adult children helping there as well.  I folded a couple dozen mass programs.  It felt really good to help out, and it always feels so comfortable being around people associated with the retreats, so I had a good time.

Since I haven't ordered Elizabeth Smart's book yet, I was looking around for something else to read.  My daughter had to read Willa Cather's novel "My Antonia" over the summer for school, so I picked it up since she's done with it.  She doesn't really like to read and thought it was a boring book, but it kind of reminds me of the Little House on the Prairie style books I used to read when I was her age (so I like it so far).

Actually, there's one more event I want to note.  My father has another pacemaker surgery coming up on Wednesday.  Last week in counseling I admitted that I feel about as concerned about his surgery as I would feel about Clint Eastwood having surgery; I'm that far removed from my family, especially him.  I know I've disappointed him and embarrassed him and he won't forgive me and acts very uncomfortable around me.  I told my therapist that the only thing that I'm worried about is if my father dies then he will get to see Claudia in heaven before I do.  I know it sounds petty.  For the past 29 years he has not said ONE WORD about my abortion, like it never even happened, and he'll get to see the baby from that event (who doesn't exist, as far as he's concerned) before I do.  It just doesn't seem right to me.

Six Word Saturday (10/5/13)

My Job and Son Are Gone

Sunday night my husband, younger two kids and I went out to a fancy steak place with my inlaws, my oldest son and his wife.  My inlaws picked them up from my daughter-in-law's parents' house and supposedly got to meet them.  I've never met them so I'm a little jealous.  We had a decent dinner and then went out for ice cream afterwards.  Then my inlaws made plans with me to go to breakfast with them and my son and his wife in the morning.  When the morning came, my younger two kids told me they felt like they didn't get to talk to my oldest son very much the night before, so I let them skip their morning classes so they could go with me.  So the next day off he went to Italy, and his wife is staying with her parents here right now till she receives her visa and then she'll be flying over with their dogs soon after that.  Me and my daughter want to take her out for breakfast sometime before she has to go, but I don't think she really likes me.  I don't know what my son has told his wife and inlaws that made them shun us so badly but I know he didn't have a very good life with us (see May 1, 2012 entry).  I feel guilty.  Again, I just want to say that my parents were glad to get rid of Claudia and now I believe my husband's glad to get rid of my oldest son.

As for my job (the one I just got three weeks ago).  It was hard and I couldn't get the names of the medicines right.  The editor told me to just put INAUDIBLE if I wasn't 100% sure what the name was, and then two assignments later she lectured me about the medicine names.  I had two questions about my invoice that I turned in last week and I skyped the guy in charge of that, and he never answered me back, so I should have known something was up.  Then the following morning he wrote me that maybe I would do better with their non-medical transcription.  I asked for the link to apply for it and he gave it to me, but I still haven't done it because I'm hurt.  Plus I'm scared the audio is going to be crappy quality like these other medical ones ALL were.  Sometimes I could barely hear them.

Oddly, I'm not that upset about going back to only having the one job with sporadic assignments now.  Having my neat freak therapist come over last week really put a shot in my arm about getting my house shipshape.  Amazingly it's not bugging me that it will be a long process, and I have been working on it all week.  I'm proud of the microscopic improvements I've made.  I'm pleased and feel like I've been accomplishing something, which I give God the credit for (credit for giving me stamina, credit for giving me approving eyes instead of critical of what I haven't done, and credit for giving me a new small feeling of NOT being worthless).

Six Word Saturday (9/28/13)

Unglued, Surprise Visit, and Eating Out

Unglued

I finished Lysa TerKeurst's book a couple days ago.  I'm familiar with her from her contributing posts on incourage.me, and her writing style sometimes takes away from my interest in what she's saying.  Even in her book, she used a lot of sentence fragments.  Like this.  And it drives me nuts.  She also uses words like "Google," "blog," "You know what I'm saying?," etc., that aren't going to hold over for eternity.  It's a shame because I loved her book otherwise!  This actually is one of those books that you're looking for when you feel frustrated, crying, and hopeless and are thinking to yourself, "I wish I knew what to do!"  This book was so helpful to me in that regard.  The only thing that disappointed me (besides her writing style) is I'm familiar with her back story and she didn't mention a single word about her abortion, so all the self-righteous Baptists who read her book are thinking she's one of them (you know, sinless).  It's one thing to give helpful instruction for not coming unglued when you're coming from a place of "for the most part I'm a pretty good person" but another thing to give instruction when you come from a constant place of "Of COURSE I'm a bad person!"  As I said though, despite her writing style and not mentioning her abortion, this was a wonderfully helpful book.

Surprise Visit

My daughter has been bossy and borderline abusive to my youngest son virtually since the day he was born, and once he got older he started fighting back.  It scares me to death.  My oldest son used to help me get things back in control but he hasn't been around for three years, so they're fighting bad again.  My youngest son has a habit of disengaging from a fight but then sitting in his room screaming and crying like he's being murdered.  He won't tell me how I can help, and my daughter pretty much just stokes the fire and yells at him some more.  I have been bringing up in counseling about every other month how they treat each other.  Well, typing that, I just realized that it wouldn't sound like an emergency if it was that infrequent.  At any rate, Tuesday they fought again, my youngest son screamed and cried and refused to go to school.  (Their school is cracking down on absenteeism and I don't want to get in trouble because he's already missed three days of school and they started only a month ago, so I was very frustrated.)  So I typed up an email to my therapist demanding to know why he wasn't helping me with their fighting.  He said he'd get back to me (which upset me).  Then two hours later he wrote me again saying that he was coming over so be ready, and he showed up at my house.  By then, my son had calmed down and was talking to my therapist like a normal person.  From that surprise session, we determined that I could tell my daughter to give us 10 minutes and then I could go into my son's room and shut/lock the door and listen to what's bothering him when he's upset like that.  Then I could go into my daughter's room, shut/lock the door and listen to her (since it's her big thing to complain that I'm "always" on my son's side, and it probably does look that way since she doesn't get equal time with me, her yelling doesn't count).

Although I was EXTREMELY grateful that my therapist finally believed me for once that things are bad around here and was proactive in helping me out, when he left I realized what my house must have looked like to him.  It's a f***king mess and it smells, and I've been to his house before and they are neat freaks.  I had a session with him at his office by myself the next day and I mentioned being ashamed about the condition of my house, and he said something about it being an underlying problem but that as soon as I get the bigger issues dealt with that it wouldn't be such a problem.  It hit me the wrong way that he kept saying "problem" and when I got home I started cleaning things up.  I told  him I want to be as shallow and fake as he and his friends are.  Everyone in this stupid town has a neater house than me.  I'm no hoarder and the Health Department wouldn't say anything about how we live, but I sure feel worthless now.  I don't have an excuse for living like this because when I was married to my second husband he demanded everything be perfect, and it was, so I can do it because I did it back then.  I guess I just need to make being fake, shallow and neat a priority.  Little by little, I'll get there.

Eating Out

Me and the younger two kids met up with my oldest son and his wife at Texas Roadhouse on Thursday night and had dinner with them.  My kids didn't really say much.  I don't have the words to describe the anguish I feel deep inside myself about them moving so far away.  Anyway, my husband's parents are coming down on Sunday, and possibly we'll be having dinner with everyone so they can say goodbye to my oldest son and his wife too.  My husband is vicious and hates my oldest son and won't talk to him but probably will be compliant if his dad wants us to go.

Six Word Saturday (9/21/13)

 Emotions Are All Over The Place

My new job is actually pretty hard.  There are a lot of medical terms and drug names that I keep having to look up the spellings for, and it slows me down.  Also the audio isn't the best (recordings of doctors' appointments) and some accents are really difficult to understand.  I feel kind of discouraged.  I had visions of saving up all this money and actually contributing to the family by paying off some bills or paying for a vacation, but I'm not really sure $5 a document (average) is worth the stress and aggravation and dings on my self-worth for being so slow.  And, of course, now I feel guilty because it's like I let God down if something happens to this job or I quit. My husband, for some oddball reason (I'm thinking alien abduction) actually told me I didn't need this job OR the other job and that I didn't need to work at all.  He thought I just wanted to work as something to do.

I didn't get done working till 3 a.m. on Friday and then I went to bed.  I got up leisurely around 9:00 and was in the middle of making some toast and getting ready to read a book while I ate breakfast when the doorbell rang.  I thought it was going to be the neighbor kid so I took my sweet old time answering the door, still in PJ's and messy hair, and ... it was my oldest son!  Oh my gosh, I was so happy!  I felt a little ashamed that the house was such a mess but he knows that's how we live so it wasn't too bad.  The coolest part was that my younger two kids didn't have school that day due to parent-teacher conferences so they got to see him too!  He goes to Italy on the 1st.  He and his wife are supposed to have dinner with me and the kids some night before he takes off.  And he didn't sign on for two years; they're going to be there for four.  I don't want it to sink in because this huge cloud of depression is just going to kill me.

My father's having another minor heart procedure (pacemaker) on the 8th.  I know this is awful to say but I worry about him dying during it for the sole reason he'll get to see Claudia in heaven before I get to.  I've repeatedly told my parents I don't want to outlive them but I don't think they know the actual reason why.

Due to my new job being so time consuming and tiring, I haven't finished reading "Unglued."  I'm about two thirds done and think it's surprisingly good.  Maybe next weekend I can give a report.

Six Word Saturday (9/14/13)

Guess What?  I Got Another Job!

God answered my prayers that I've basically been saying since my birthday back in July.  I applied at two places online in the last couple months, and the first place contacted me on 9/11 and offered me a job.  So far I've only done one five-minute audio for them (and have two more small ones to do this weekend).  But I'm thrilled and ever-thankful!  Now I can make a little more money and feel a little more needed.

The only other thing going on this week is that my mother told me that my oldest son and his wife were driving to my brother's house in Kansas, and my parents were meeting up with them there.  And, surprise-surprise, my sister was bragging on Facebook that she was in Kansas for the weekend too!  My mother claimed that my son told her that they were probably coming here (since his wife's family lives here too).  But technically I haven't talked to him since Mother's Day.  It doesn't help that my husband doesn't like him so I don't blame them if they skip us when they're in town.  But he has a younger brother and sister here, and then my oldest son and wife get sent to Italy for two years.  I always feel like I'm not going to live long enough to see them when they get back.

In other news, I bought Lysa TerKerst's book "Unglued" and it's pretty good so far and I'll probably talk about it next Saturday.

Six Word Saturday (9/7/13)

Five Wishes and The General's Daughter

It feels like my therapist is reading my blog because Wednesday he gave me an assignment to remove my "filter" (he thinks I don't pay attention to people's compliments of me) and observe how many times people do say I'm a good mom.  Weird, huh?  So hi Mark if you read this today.

Five Wishes by Gay Hendricks

My sister had been recommending this book to me for quite some time and I finally ordered it and finished reading it.  Basically, this man tells a story of going to a party and having some guy ask him to imagine the end of his life on his deathbed and answer the question "Did you have a successful life?"  Then the author goes through his own personal five answers ("My life was successful because/my life wasn't successful because ...") and shows how he turned the answers into positive workable goals, so that when he really does lay on his deathbed, he can answer yes to that question.  There was a worksheet where you can plot your own deathbed answers.  Here are mine:

My life was not a success because ...

1.  I didn't make my own decisions.

2.  I didn't have a job all the time that I loved.

3.  I didn't live somewhere comfortable and healthy for me.

4.  I didn't invest much time in my family (husband and kids).

5.  I didn't act friendly to everyone even if they weren't my friend.

(My action plan)  My life is now a success because ...

1.  I make decisions even if people hate me for it.

2.  I'm typing things for fun while waiting for my dream job to come along.

3.  I'm careful to keep my body comfortable no matter the weather conditions.

4.  I'm slowly and consistently finding things to do with/for my kids and husband to show love.

5.  I am friendly to everyone I see.

The General's Daughter

My sister let me stream this movie Wednesday afternoon.  It's from 1999 and has John Travolta in it.  He plays an investigator of the murder of an army general's daughter (hence the title).  There are flashback scenes and interviews with different people in her life (specifically her psychiatrist).  ****spoiler**** The psychiatrist mentioned that she told him her father visited her in the hospital after the first brutal rape.  It showed a flashback of the scene.  Her father bent over her and whispered, "It [the rape] ... never ... happened."  He knew if it got out that his daughter was raped at West Point then the controversy would probably cost him any promotions.

How sick is that?

And, of course, it triggered me greatly.  My parents and sister have never talked about my abortion, and I've felt all along that they go on with their lives like nothing ever happened.

Anyway, John Travolta's character solves the murder and you surmise the general pretty much gets to go on with his life worry-free as if his daughter didn't even exist.  ****end spoiler****

To end this for this week, I'm a good mother because ...

*  I made a promise to my daughter on Tuesday to take her to the gas station to get a Slushee and Wednesday I did it.

*  Thursday one of my dogs was really sick and I took care of/cleaned up after her.  (I know that I'm not a dog's mother but I'm still counting it.)

*  Thursday I gave the kids a little surprise (a glass of Cherry Coke) for eating dinner at the table with me.

Six Word Saturday (8/31/13)

I Am a Good Mother Because ...

I was thinking a lot on my walk today (69 rounds of the military jolie, if you're curious, and I'm really proud of myself how far I'm getting).  Well, more of a continuation of the discussion I had in therapy Wednesday.  I vented a little about a problem I was having with my kids, and my therapist asked me to the effect of "Oh, we're talking about THIS again?" but I said I was just venting.  All the other times I've mentioned problems, he doesn't really help me.  He doesn't have even one bit of advice.  He thinks I'm doing fine.  He claims as long as they know I love them, it doesn't matter what bad stuff is happening to or because of them.  One of the last things he asked me while we were on the subject was what do I need.  I told him since I don't have a mother I can talk to every day (whether I ask for advice or not - just to talk to!), I think I'd like someone to check in on me kind of frequently.  What my heart aches for is to have someone, anyone, say to my face that I'm a good mom.

As I continued walking, I realized that my own mother got positive feedback constantly from people, and she didn't have to cry to a therapist to get it.  In fact, my mom already knew she was a good mom so she technically didn't even need to hear it.

It dawned on me that both of my grandmothers were probably never told they were good mothers either.  My dad's "scary" mother was in and out of mental hospitals her whole life, and my mom's "scared" mother had agoraphobia and other mental issues without treatment who everyone ridiculed her for it.  It really hurts me that they never got to hear positive feedback.  Which brings me to my point about this post today.

Sometimes "Dear Abby" will have a column where someone complains that their friend or family member didn't text them at midnight on New Year's, call them on their birthday, congratulate them on a promotion, etc., and Abby advises that if the complainer wants those things to happen, the complainer can do those things themselves so those things will happen.  If you think it would be cool to have texts at 12:01 on New Year's, text someone at 12:01 on New Year's.  So here's what I'm going to do for myself (although I do admit it really does suck that not a single soul on this earth can help out), every time I catch myself doing something right, something that a "good mom" would do, I'm going to acknowledge it, if not in writing then at least conscientiously in my head.

So for starters, I'll post the first one I thought of, and we're talking basic of all basic ones:  I am a good mother because I had my oldest son, my daughter, and my youngest son.  I am proud of myself that I didn't let doctors' opinions, family opinions, co-worker opinions, and even husband opinions coerce me into making a(nother) horrible choice.