Tag: money

Humanity

sick days-time limit

Lovelovemotherexpletive

i’m haunted by food that is in the fridge. that chicken, could you cook it for me so it doesn’t go bad? i just cannot move. My nose is Gerard Depardieu.

I watched Last Holiday last night. Bob is a good egg to do it with me. (secretly he appreciated it tons. LL COOL J AND QUEEN LATIFAH? joy and extravagance? COME ON.)

there’s a timeline. this all has to go away in the next twelve hours because i haven’t been there long enough to have a sick day.

my middle child is the one of them who is not a good patient. tending him last night was one of those bitter moments when you realize your humanity is overriding the mother-bit. Being sick myself made it a hard one. but his fever broke sometime in the night and he was sweetly sweaty this morning and he will be 18 tomorrow and well. He was my easiest birth, and it was 18 years ago. dang.

Its been a doozy so far this year. I thought I’d gotten so much better with the divorce/shared parenting thing but this year has definitely shown me my flaws. Bitter bleeding pain moments at the kids being absent from me are occurring. I mean… ouch stuff. the right word is PIERCING.

the holidays and birthdays are always a ‘too much’ time for me, but this year I have wept, and I don’t recover as quickly as I’d like. My monkey mind is full of competitions and loss, and ‘well, fine, I’m wrapping the socks, we’re just going to have popcorn and I’ll leave all the presents to the rich dad and stepmom. Because I cannot win.’

And I still spend too much, and wrestle with my savings account. And it uncovers the part of me that really does watch the competition and try to participate. And believe it or not, as un-American as it is, I am aware that competition is out of place, and a full-on negative for me. but there it is. it appears anyhow.

I’ve done christmas by myself for my whole life with my kids. (like most moms) Do they know that? No. It is not just the two houses that makes it tough. Its a much bigger issue of feeling unseen and unappreciated. I was asked to move ‘things’ because of the stress the stepmom was feeling. So now there is a second woman overwhelmed and stressed by the season. (and yes, i wept, because goddamnit, this is my role, not anyone else’s and how dare their dad allow it to happen to someone else. isn’t one enough? ((and what the fuck does he DO?)) )

and then we go back to the chicken in the fridge and the need to cook for all the people. and the one home from college who fell asleep at 7 am.

Its a cheap, falling-apart wicker basket of emotions over here. And it better be all done in the next 12 hours. Thats it.

time limit.

person holding white tissue paper
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com
Humanity

so.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

my man is going in for coronary artery bypass tomorrow. that’s no joke, right?

Same hospital, same floor that I was on ten years ago with my father. the emotions are too many and so strange and i’ve said things out loud like, ‘when did i get married? am i fucking married again? when/how did this happen? what do i actually fucking do? what if he dies? i will fucking kill him. Can i just lie in the bed with him? ‘

no, i’m not married but boy, the love, attention and life pivot is the same, and i have been shocked to realize i’m here. Everything has been put down. Hands free.

i’ve not written a single word in two weeks. and thats not even because of hearts. sent a postcard to my ailing father-in-law but that doesn’t count.

got my mother her christmas present. it’s still in the car. hope its allright. its a giant beaded giraffe. don’t tell her.

my work people are good, if not great. and i’m lucky. but i’m an hourly worker so every time i have to go to the hospital, i’m hurting my own finances and boy, that’s a bitch and a half. don’t worry, my sister threatens to send me money all the time. which is also a bitch. (yes, i love you dearly and appreciate the kindness, anne. truly.)

Its one of those times when you look around and wonder how people are going about their daily lives. and because i’m in a serious branch of the hospital, i know there is a lot worse going on, and still, I’m in the serious branch of the hospital. very sober.

he’s okay. his spirits are good. but man, this is a fucking big deal. and I’m tired. he’s way more tired.

working 7-5 three days a week and other hours all the other days except sunday, and nights at the hospital this week plus emotional tomfoolery. i don’t feel like i’ve seen my kids this week. and its true, i haven’t. just minutes per day.

i watched my college kid play rugby yesterday. i had no idea what was going on but he got a touchdown. if its called that. my man made me go and i’m very glad i did.

I’m not complaining as much as I am sharing. just getting it out on paper so that I’ll remember it later.

Coloring page picture of a robot, scribbled over with colorful markers

Yes, this is about right.

Humanity

A doozy. And a birthday. And heat.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

1. I was outside watering my garden and a young buck came strolling through. I called out to him as he came close, asking if he saw me, checking in to see if he was alright, thinking, I think, that I’d go get him a carrot. He was close enough that i could see the fuzz on his antlers and count the elk spots on his flank. When I called to him, he just looked at me for a minute and then moved along. No beef.w

He came through near to the chickens, and then my dog noticed him and lunged towards him and he ran off through the bushes. There was no real emergency, my dog is a member of the cowardly lion crew.

2. I turned fifty. My lovely man got me the gift of my best friend for the week, and i took all those days off. It was a real joy bomb and I’ll take it, again and again.

3. I’m wearing booty shorts, at my daughter’s painfully awful softball game because it is in the 90s and humid and if I could lie down until the fall, I would. Welcome to my booty.

4. i will write more. I got myself a little bitty keyboard that sits on my lap so i can type onto my phone. I’m using it now. I’m a tech-genius and now I can write anywhere I want to, pen or no pen.

See my cute keyboard? And my barely theres?

5. 50. It might be time to get a job that can sustain me and the kids. I’m going to have to sell the house, and the more I say it, and share it aloud, the more okay I’m going to be with it. There is time still to get along with it. But it must and will be done.

6. I’m very stubborn. Very. Very. Very. It is very hard for me to handle number 5 and I rail against it. So small and demeaning, and it activates my stubborn nature, and none of this is helpful or practical or rational. Digging in for the sake of digging in is idiotic.

7. I’m 50 now. I should grow the fuck up. And write more. I hate feeling sheepish about coming here. That’s utterly ridiculous.

Love you though. Do.

-me.

Humanity

Not sure at all. a list of course.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’m about three skin layers away from hysteria. And they are transparently thin sometimes.

And I’m back to smoking, and there is, in the addiction, the belief that if I could just go outside and have a minute to myself, everything would re-set itself, and I’d be fine, it would ease my mind somehow. and it’s a lie, every time, it’s a lie. I’m sitting here with minutes to myself right now, inside, and at the typer, and I am not escaped, and I am not even needing escape. It’s a trick of the mind, and I resent the bastards who’ve encouraged the ‘on the road’ shit that tells me I need to wander in order to find. Without and within, you know what I’m saying? I’m not a badass because I smoke, I am a craven addict.

My boys are both teaching themselves to play guitar. There is much to say about that. pride and cringes and whatnot.

Tissue paper thin. My eleven year old daughter suddenly resents me. It is a hard change to swallow, no matter how well I can identify and depersonalize.

I just planted the last of the dahlias. Saving something over the winter to plant again and have hopes for, is possibly my pride moment of the year, aside from the guitar thing and the fact that my daughter is a flaming badass.

I’m trying to get my ducks all lined up to lower some of my expenses this year. Everything takes time, especially when you add in my fearful procrastination. I had to make two cold calls to gather appointments this morning, and it made me unable to go in to my most part time job. Too many things.

The nerves and anxieties of having to ask a stranger for help? An appointment? When that is literally their job, to field these calls? And still, I am crippled? Why am I still 11 years old and of the middle school innards?

These steps. Get the trampoline listed on the giveaway page. Wait for someone to come and get it. They cancel. List it again. Finally goes, to become a chicken run for someone else. Heavens to Betsy.

Find policy. Wait three weeks to gather the nerves to call what I actually know will be a good resource. Wtf.

I had to wait for my tax return to fix the leaking upstairs bathtub. So, had to first do taxes, then get quote, then bleed from the eyes in horror and refuse to use said bathroom until I got another quote. Got refund. Then called friend of friend, young young young and he did it for 150. All done. No ceiling teardown, no mold remediation and suddenly I am at two working bathrooms and I didn’t even have to do my damn taxes for anything afterall. Which of course, is a lie. Hello school systems! Hello working highway departments! Hello bridge repair! I love you, of course you can have my taxes! Thank you for your service!!

Call the garage that will handle the car once its towed. Mother of god, I am ridiculous. Does anyone specifically pray to mary? I always found that easier, but felt like I was sneaking around or being a cheat somehow or that maybe she wasn’t a real choice, and that, in the face of my wavering beliefs in anything other than the big dad figure in the sky. and my less wavery belief that we all get what we dream of in the end anyhow, as long as we try not to do harm. I’m extremely lucky to have had the dad I did. Even with his questionable rage practices. As a parent now, I am less confused by fits of rage.

All these multiple step processes and they’ve been with me for weeks or months and yes, I know the ‘break it into baby step’ methods but hell gods, that only works if you can take steps at all. I’ve got to go register my kid for a soccer camp in the summer. This, she will resent me for also, but at least i will cut down on her screen time for one whole week while i am incessantly working. sigh. all hail summer.

love you guys. hope to get out the writing bugs more often…

me.

*The fact that now I have to wait for a call back is breaking me. I’ll have a whole ‘nother breakdown when it arrives. This is probably unsupportable materials.

Putting the treasure back in the pizza. Yes.
Humanity

Woah Nelly

Lovelovemotherexpletive

the fury of finances is settling down. Have started being paid for the new hours, have asked the farm boss to pay me asap, and she’s happy willing and understanding. the credit card carried the day, which bites it but got me gas in the car and the kids got their juice. mofo.

in my adult life i have never had it be such a goddamned lightening strike as that was and I’d be very happy never to repeat it.

And spring has mostly exploded, so at the climax of it all are daffodils, and wild expanses of seedlings in a greenhouse and little baby grape hyacinths everywhere. So i am content.

Grape hyacinth in the front yard

I am sitting on my porch and I feel like I’m on a softly rocking boat, watching a sunset. One of those life altering appreciations, the wild privilege of a beautiful life.

So it swings, this pendulum, between sense and sensibility. today is all the senses.

and its kim smith’s birthday. holy shit. we be 50 this year.

Haapppy Birthday Gimmler!

hugs and kisses to us all. and to KIM!!

  • love love.