Six Word Saturday (11/9/13)

I Don't Know Why I Bother

My sister had let me watch "The General's Daughter" on her streaming account a couple months ago (I think I might have blogged about it) and a scene in it really upset me, where the daughter got raped and was in the hospital and her father leaned over her and whispered, "It never happened," because he didn't want the controversy to ruin his career.  Anyway, it triggered me so badly because my parents and sister act like nothing ever happened to me either, so I emailed my sister and went off on her about it, like how unfair it was that my sister (who hated me at the time) was asked her opinion on what I should do about the baby and how she said I should get rid of it because "she can't take care of herself let alone a baby."  (I am so sick of remembering that line!!)  She wrote me back but I printed it off without reading it because I wanted to read it with my therapist, and two months have gone by and we always think of other things to talk about so I hadn't read it all this time.  Finally, last week we read it.  She claims she never knew I was pregnant and that she only found out about it five years later.  And I think by way of an excuse, she went on to tell me that she and her friends drank a lot in high school.  Like maybe she did say those things to me back then when she was drunk but had forgotten completely about it till someone told her about it again.  Well, so much for getting any closure from her.  I just thought she has ignored my pain about it all these years like everyone in my family does, i.e., if you don't talk about it, it didn't happen.  So I wish I never wrote her.

I watched that movie "Meant To Be" again and it has really impacted me.  I've decided that if Claudia knew me and what I was like, she would like me.  She would think I am sweet and helpful and do a lot of wrong things trying to be loved.  I think she'd be happy that I think about her so much.  She would be touched that I name some of my Sims game characters after her so I could "see" what her life would be like through them.  Anyway, I wanted my therapist to watch it, and he threw a damper on everything by asking me why.  It's really making me mad why he does that.  I loan him a book; he asks what inspired me in the book.  I make him a CD; he asks what it means to me that I'm giving it to him.  I gave him my copy of the movie "Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School" to watch; he takes it and after a year still hasn't watched it.  So this morning I've been thinking about my motivation.  In a way, I suppose I need someone else to agree with me that the book/movie/music is good because I believe my opinion doesn't count!  I feel like a big zero, stupid, worthless, incapable, a loser.  If someone who isn't a loser says such-and-such movie truly is good, then everyone wants to watch the movie.  But I feel like my therapist acts like there's some ulterior improper motive when I want him to read/watch/listen to something.  So I wish I could just enjoy these things on my own and not need his (or other people's) agreement that it's good.

More movies I watched from Netflix this past week:

Life is Beautiful.  This movie is in Italian with subtitles and at first it was difficult to read AND watch at the same time but I got the hang of it.  I wanted to watch it because I remember when Roberto Benigni won the Oscar and how incredibly happy he was!  (Watch his acceptance speech on YouTube; you will cry!)  The movie takes place in WWII when the Nazis put Jewish people in concentration camps, and he plays this positively happy man who twists the truth to his little boy about what's going on so that he won't be scared.  Some party-poopers comment that the movie was unrealistic because the children in the camps were actually separated from their parents but this little boy got to be hidden the whole time in the bunker his father stayed in.  Anyway, I liked this movie even though the ending is sad.

Digging to China.  This movie stars Evan Rachel Wood when she was about 10.  She plays a curious, talkative, imaginative girl whose alcoholic mother eventually dies so she's cared for by her older sister.  She befriends a mentally retarded man played by Kevin Bacon.  I very vaguely remember watching this movie 15 years ago (because I love Kevin Bacon) but most of it still surprised me.  I liked the movie and wish I had a friend like that little girl, who just wants to talk to you and be with you even if you don't say the right things (or anything!) back.

And then like I said, I watched "Meant To Be" again, with my baby Claudia in mind, and watching it has helped me immensely.

Six Word Saturday (11/2/13)

Corn Maze, New Phone and Netflix

Last week was uninteresting and I didn't write a 6WS page for it.  Saturday the 26th we went to the Mesilla Valley Corn Maze.  This was the first time I went although my husband takes the kids every year.  There were about two dozen vendors competing in their BBQ ribs contest so we sampled a few and voted.  My husband pushed me around in a wheelchair because I thought it was going to be too much walking, and I'm really impressed because he even hauled me through the maze.  It was mowed into the shape of a Campbell's vegetable soup can.

We got rid of our land line and my husband bought me a new cell phone (which uses the land line number) and has a slide out keyboard, internet, and a camera on it.  My old flip phone was a pain to text on (number pad).  I joked with my husband if the new phone came with friends to text to.  So far I guess I like it.

We also got rid of cable TV and subscribed to Netflix instead.  I have watched eight movies on it so far:

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  This stars Jim Carrey and it's not a comedy.  His character hires someone to erase his memory of his ex because he found out she erased her memory of him.  It was kind of disturbing and messed with my head a little.
  
• The River Why.  The tagline for this movie was that a man gives up his life in the city and moves to the wilderness to fly-fish and think about life.  It was filmed in Oregon and the scenery is breathtaking!  I also liked the musical score.  The story was "slow" if you're used to watching a lot of action but I found it very relaxing.  The message I got was that everyone dies, whether they're a good person or a bad person, and you should take in your world through all your senses to truly live.
  
• Meant to Be.  This is a pro-life Christian movie about a young man taking a trip to find his birth mother.  His birth mother is a social worker wrapped up in helping a pregnant teen.  The guy discovers something shocking about his life.  I can't say anything else or it would give away half the movie, but I will say I want to watch it again with Claudia in mind and maybe that would be healing for me.
  
• Biloxi Blues.  Matthew Broderick stars in this 1988 movie based on a Neil Simon play.  I saw it when it was originally released, and I have always remembered Broderick's character at basic training in Alabama marching in line and commenting to himself, "It's really hot.  This is like 'Africa' hot."  Lots of other funny lines I'd forgotten too!  And Christopher Walken played his creepy platoon leader.
  
• Born on the Fourth of July.  Tom Cruise stars in this movie of Ron Kovic's Vietnam experience, injury, and later anti-war activism.  The language was pretty awful and the violence was very graphic.  I had seen this too when it was originally released in 1989.  Granted, the director Oliver Stone is as left-leaning as they come so I'm sure he exaggerated a lot, but the conditions of the hospital when Kovic was first being treated were deplorable (nonworking equipment, filthy, rats).
  
• Noel.  I watched this movie to prepare for being bombarded by Christmas stuff after Halloween and also because Susan Sarandon is in it (yes, she's an outspoken leftwinger too, but she is beautiful and has a cool sounding voice and reminds me of my late friend Nancy).  There are several small story lines intertwined in this movie (adult daughter visiting her mother with late term Alzheimer's, a couple who break up before their wedding because of the boyfriend's abusiveness, a homeless man who mistakes the aforementioned boyfriend for his dead wife reincarnated, etc.) and I loved the ending.  Robin Williams has an uncredited serious role too.  I wish I could watch this movie again but it was only available till the 1st.
  
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  I watched this only because it was taking place in WWII (a time period I like).  A Jewish boy in a concentration camp is befriended by the young son of a high-ranking Nazi guard.  The little boy was lonely even though his family was wealthy, and I really empathized with him.  He ends up digging a hole under the concentration camp fence so he could play with his Jewish friend and also help find the Jewish boy's father lost in the camp.  I wasn't expecting the ending at all and it was very dramatic and I'm a little haunted by it still.
  
• Radio.  This stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as "Radio" (given that nickname because he carries around a transistor radio) a young retarded man who the high school football coach gives a small job with the team, even though at first everyone in town hates him because they're afraid of him (and the quarterback's father spends most of the movie trying to keep him from being in contact with the "normal" people).  Slowly during the course of the movie, people start warming up to him and realize he's very nice and supportive of everyone, so by the end everyone loves him.  This is based on a true story.

Six Word Saturday (10/19/13)

"What Am I Going To Do?"

Nothing exciting happened this week.  I haven't been walking lately.  Every month I weigh myself on the 15th and I've gained two pounds, so I should probably start walking again now that it's colder.

On Facebook I've been using Spotify to queue up and listen to all the songs from Billboard's top 100 from this week in 1984.  Well, at least the 77 songs that I liked or could find.  Listening sends me back to that time, especially "All Through the Night" from Cyndi Lauper.

I was telling my therapist about it and about how I used to have headphones plugged into my jambox back then and I'd listen to music all night, falling asleep to it.  I mentioned that hearing "All Through the Night" in particular reminded me of being pregnant back then.  Before everyone even knew I was pregnant, and once I figured out I was, all I could do is fret.  What am I going to do?  The sad part is back then I though once my parents found out I'd have to give the baby away, which really bothered me.  At the time, I never dreamed I would end up having an abortion, considering my parents knew how mentally unstable my paternal grandmother was for the rest of her life after hers.  I actually hated my grandmother after she died and I found out about it.

As I mentioned to my therapist, what I really needed back then was somebody to talk to.  I had no one.  Even if someone did care enough to talk to me, they probably wouldn't wholly listen to me.  Their agenda would always be in the back of their mind.  I wish I could've talked it all the way through with someone.  So my therapist was telling me that I could listen to the pre-abortion 17-year-old me now and acknowledge her story, even though she can't change any of the events.  So that is what I would've said, that my grandmother was a horrible person for killing her baby so that wasn't an option and that I was scared my parents wouldn't let me keep mine even though I would've liked to.  I know for a fact that my doctor saying "she wouldn't survive a pregnancy" is baloney, but back then I wonder why my parents didn't get a second or third opinion like they did for all my other health problems?  Actually, I know the answer:  their agenda, their reputation.  It was really convenient that he scared me saying I was going to die.

I told my therapist I wish I had died during the abortion then, the very thing they were "trying to prevent" if I tried carrying to term.

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.