bigger picture

well, here we are three weeks down the road and oh, the lessons we have learned.

i’ve been doing the work. sitting with the ugly thoughts. working through all the emotions- the anger, the frustration, the disappointment, the annoyance, the embarrassment, the disgust, the shame.

i forget that learning is a process and you don’t just KNOW all the things, and some lessons have to be learned more than once.

it doesn’t do any good to be so mean to myself. to blame, be frustrated, be disappointed. i’m working on it.

this week’s lessons are more tangential, which i think means healing is happening. life has stepped back in to remind me there’s PLENTY of other shitty stuff to focus on, i don’t have to just dip into the breakup well.

thanks for that, i guess?

on monday, i had a seemingly innocuous appointment with my insurance agent to discuss my life insurance and see if any adjustments needed to be made. i don’t know what those words mean. is my life insurance is supposed to DO something? not just be an oh shit back up plan? i had no idea what to expect. life insurance. it’s just a thing you have; part of the state farm package deal: home, life, auto. get those stacked discounts. good driver: check. no more good student, that’s long since gone, so the only other thing is multi plan. whatever. i don’t care. sure. i’ll do an appointment.

i hadn’t met this insurance agent yet. the one i signed up with 20 years ago has since retired and this new gal took over his practice. spoiler alert: father/daughter. she took over her dad’s practice. cool beans. i dig it.generational. in the family. nifty.

so. appointment. i get there. we sit down at her desk. she has my policies up on the screen; life insurance. 20 year term policy, started 2010 at age 30.

yup. that looks like what i pay for every month. ok. and?

and she starts asking questions.

a term policy?

yup.

do you know what that is?

ummm…life insurance?

so she explains the difference between term and whatever the other one is: term means you’re basically renting life insurance for a set chunk of time. if it pays out, it pays out. if it expires, well, you should have died faster i guess. i had a 20 year term. 5 years left on it.

 

ok. and?

her: well, what made you get a 20 year term policy at age 30?

me: ummmm…fuck if i know. the discount? home, life, auto?

her: it’s an unusual age to get a term policy.

me: huh. i don’t know.

her: *leaves the room for a minute*

me: why WOULD i have picked then for life insurance? i moved to spokane a few years before, so it wasn’t that. i don’t know..when did i turn 30? ummm….2010. oh, OH. OH YEAH.

oh yeah. between 2009 and 2010 was ALL. THE. DEATH.

all the death.

oh. yeah. yup. that tracks. that would be why i got life insurance then.

fuck.

FUCK. cool. well. that was a punch in the face i wasn’t expecting.

her: *comes back in the room*

me: oh, i figured it out. that was the year everyone died, so i made sure to get insurance to protect my kids. guess i didn’t really think about making it this long.

her: oh, yeah, that would be a reason why.

we finish all the paper work, renew for another 20 years. i now have a term policy that covers me til i’m 65.

me: 65 huh? well. i didn’t plan on making it this far, i guess i’ll have to figure out 65 now.

her: why didn’t you think you’d make it this far?

me: i was a single mom of 2 boys for 20 years. the number one killer of women is their domestic partner. i escaped one of those once, think i just avoided another one of those. and being a single female, and a single parent isn’t great odds. and also, just…when you lose 10+ people in a year…it just…

her: well, you made it!

me: well, i guess i did. huh. 

one more parting shot before i left, she was like: “it looks like you still have a lot of grief to work through…”

REALLY BITCH? you’re in here ripping off scabs and poking around old wounds, completely unexpectedly, catching me completely off guard, zero warning, and then you have the gall to say it looks like i have grief work to do? 

WELL. THEN.

what an uncalled for and unexpected punch in the face on a monday afternoon.

HEY, REMEMBER WHEN EVERYONE DIED AND SO YOU GOT INSURANCE IN CASE YOU DID TOO?

also, remember all the years you really didn’t think you were going to make it? when it really didn’t matter if you made it to another day? when it didn’t concern you to think about getting hit by a bus? well, we had a good run.

but we did it.

side note: i really do need to start carrying around a mouse in my pocket as much as i reference myself as “we.”

15 years into a life insurance policy. renewed for another 20. where the hell did 15 years go?

no, but really, WHERE DID THE LAST 15 YEARS GO?

the message of: “look at the bigger picture” has come up a few times in the last few days.

what do you mean bigger picture? what does bigger picture even mean? this is a dumb message. i don’t get it. bigger picture. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

bigger picture thinking: also thought of as long term goals, a guiding light or principal.

oh. well, when you put it like that…i mean…but like…what does that even DO??

big picture thinking helps regulate negative self talk, lessen fight or flight response, and lessens hostility and aggression when provoked. thinking about the bigger picture/long term goal helps relieve the stress and negativity of the moment to focus on the overall affect.

WELL WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT.

where did the last 15 years go? a lot of survival mode. a lot of just getting by. a lot of just duck and cover.

what do the next 15 years look like? what is the bigger picture?

look at the last 3 weeks: how does that frustration and disappointment look 15 years from now? i can take the lesson of knowing that it taught me to be more rigid about my boundaries. expect more from how i let people treat me. call myself on shitty decisions and listen to my intuition sooner. be more careful with my resources to reduce feelings of disappointment and feelings of being taken advantage of.

look at a bigger picture from a different perspective: my dad was 55 when he passed and he had been happily married to his third wife for 10 years. that means he was 45 when he got married again. at 45 he still believed in love and possibility after 2 divorces. at 45 he found the GOOD match and was happy. they were building a great life together in a nice home with good friends.

45 is still plenty of time to start over. to find the good chapters. to still have hope and plan for the future.

i may not have planned on making it to 45. i may not have planned on outliving a term life insurance policy. i may not have planned on a shitty break up reminding me who i am and what my worth is, but here we are. 

sort it out

it's the second night in a row i haven't been able to sleep. i even let the damn dog back upstairs after spending the weekend cleaning carpets because i wondered if maybe i just missed listening to him snore at the foot of my bed.

no luck.

i know what the problem is. i know there's healthier and better ways to deal with it. i have it all downstairs in a notebook from the 6 week course i just finished.

FOR NOW: i'm handling it the old way that causes insomnia and indigestion stress.

old habits die hard.

i've had my comfort food, i've dyed my hair, i've spend the last few days stressing and trying to come up with ideas and plans and at the end of the day, i'm sitting in bed, crying over an uncertain future, fear, hurt, anger, all of it.

the big spawn thinks he wants to go to live with his dad for high school. it's come up a few times. and i'm sure it will go back and forth for a while more. one day all he can talk about is high school here and his friends and all that. the next day he needs to move over and live with his dad and go to school there and give his dad a chance to be a parent.

i get it. i really do. there's an age when a young man needs his dad around. the shaving, the girls, the sports, all of it. mom just doesn't cut it. i've known it was coming.

i'm trying really hard not to go to some really bad places with this. just when you think you've learned to deal with rejection and all the baggage that can bring...it just pops right up again. and i KNOW my son isn't rejecting me, he just wants his dad, he wants what's different and unknown and intriguing. knowing and feeling are two VERY different things though.

i've reminded him it would be a HUGE change- whole new school, no friends, high school, his dad is in school too, it's away from everything he's ever known, it's LIVING with his dad, not just staying with him for 2 weeks. it's SO MUCH at once. it scares me for him. i know my kid. i know he's smart. i've been raising him to be tough and take on change and take on big things. college is only 4 years away. i know i will have to let him go at some point. i just thought i had 4 more years. and i'm just worried this is too much at once. as smart as he is, i know he's also not the greatest at talking out his issues. and with all those changes there would be ISSUES. i also know he gets very angry and picks fights and acts out when he has issues he doesn't know how to deal with. and i don't know if he and his dad would know how to deal with that. i'm sure they would figure it out. i'm a mom. i worry.

and how could i ever tell my son no to wanting his dad?

i don't want him to be like me. i don't want him to have to wait until it's too late to try to build a relationship. and if some day, god forbid, anything ever happened, i don't want my son to be able to pick up and go about his life like nothing happened.

i don't want him to be 32, realizing he has very few memories, and hasn't really been affected the last two years aside from the occasional momentary break down. i don't want him sitting up one night realizing life went on way too easy and way to quickly for something that should have stopped the world in it's tracks. i don't want him to realize that it can come up in a conversation and be discussed as easily as the weather after only two years. i don't want him to have to live with never even getting to know what he lost.

speaking of the occasional momentary break down.

one paragraph that tooks a full hour to write.

and. dialing it back in.

so.

he's been talking the last few days about moving over with his dad. i honestly don't know if i can let him go. i know it's his choice and all, but that's MY KID. i've spent the last 15 years raising him. i've spent the time working through the temper tantrums and school and homework and all of it. i don't want to miss seeing the good parts- driving, dances, girlfriends, high school...

i know college is coming eventually, but, that's...you know...four years away and totally different.

as different as oranges and mandarins.

and so then i go into over-response mode: i'll just sell the house, get a job over there, pack up, jump on over the mountains with him. TOTALLY LOGICAL.

except...yanno...it itsn't.

i mean- yeah, there's not a whole lot going for me here. i have two part time jobs, no family, a good group of friends i would miss terribly, but i would miss my kid a helluva lot more.

on that side of the mountains there's better jobs, better schools for BOTH spawns, my niece and nephew would be closer, and my old spawn would have his dad.

sell the house, have a cushion for a bit to get settled and locked into a job.

EASY, RIGHT?

oh wait...there's approx a BILLION people on that side of the state. all looking for jobs. and the cost of living is 3 times as much. and there's endless schools to try to pick through. and trying to find a school close to a house close to a job. and there's a million little cities all up and down the coast- do i look way up north by his dad? do i settle in the middle near friends? do i go south near the small piece of family that's left?

there would be great schools for the small spawn, but we'd be looking at another new school, new teachers to battle with, new friends for him to try to make, another BIG change for him. But the school here hasn't been exactly stellar, the kids have been rough at best...maybe a change would be best for him too.

what if the house doesn't sell since there's still more work that needs done to it? does someone really want to buy a house with the most fucked up horrible looking french doors known to man? (ok, a little over dramatic, the contractor did the best he could, but they still look pretty terrible).

and what about me? my support group here is small, but it's damn powerful. could i leave that? i have friends over there too, and would have the spawns dad, but would that be enough for me?

and i honestly don't even know where to start to consider any of it. would i list my house here first so at least it's on the market?

so i look for a high school first? then a middle school? then an apartment that's close to both and then try to find a job in that area?

do i try to find a job first? then pick a high school close to that? and hope there's affordable housing within commute/bus distance for the boys and i both?

how the hell would i pack up this whole place and move it across the state? across town is a giant pain in the ass...what the hell would across the state be like?

is the teenager serious about this? would i really change my whole life to accommodate him (answer is yes). 

it's just...a LOT. then you throw in an unexpected break down and guilt about a kid needing a dad. and i've been itching for change (again) for a while, but this seems a little extreme. and there's just SO MUCH to it.

and i'm supposed to somehow sleep with all this rattling around. thank heavens for pandora, laptop computers and the internet.  

the battle rages

ok. so i realize it’s been a while and a few blog promise fails. it’s been a hell of a few weeks. i know that’s probably the time i should write the MOST, but it’s also the time i usually find myself the mos tongue tied when it comes to writing.

i’ve been having a hard time.

there. that’s on the table. there’s been depression, hard parenting, family emergencies, and a torrent of memories and grief hitting lately. i’m not sure what’s going on- maybe the moon is in a strange orbit. it was a little close to the earth for comfort recently.

a few weeks ago i went out for an evening and had just enough to drink that it seemed like a good idea to watch the dvd from my dad’s memorial service. alcohol is the devil. let me just say that. (it is however being my friend tonight and relaxing me enough to get this started.)

i watched the dvd. all the way through. it wasn’t actually a recording of the service like i thought it was but instead it was a compilation of pictures from the service. pictures of the motorcade, the speeches, the presentations, the bagpipes, all of it. ALSO: pictures from the scene. the parts of the service were hard but i made it through them. the pictures of the scene were unexpected and startling. it’s one thing to see the destruction from the ground, to walk the space where the house was, to sift through the remains. it’s a while different ball game to see the aerial pictures of the scene. to see the complete and total destruction all at once. on the ground you can take it one piece at a time. you can deal with what’s right in front of you and save the rest for when you’re ready. when you see the aerial picture it’s all at once. the whole ball of wax. it was intense to see. it looked like a perfect circle of fire had hit the earth where their house once stood. i still don’t understand the forensics of the fire. i still don’t understand how it decided to destroy some things and leave things a few feet away completely untouched. apparently i’m not the only one. there is no official ruling on the fire and there never will be. the official word is “unknown causes” signed, sealed and delivered by the ATF, the local fire department, all agencies involved. the best of the best review this one and no one knows what happened.

i’m getting distracted and writing myself into a corner. when you find yourself sitting and staring at the screen for 20 minutes you need to switch directions. so. prepare for a switch:

my oldest son has decided to be a teenager. i knew it was coming, i just hoped we had prepared a little better for it. it’s not quite a train wreck yet, but the potential is there. my boys fight. that’s partly what brothers do. BUT, its different when one of them can’t stop of know where the line is for behaviour and interaction. the little spawn is working on learning how to control his body and his interactions but to a certain extent he’ll never be able to really master the skill due to his aspergers. he’s working hard, he’s already come a long way, but part of it will never happen. his brother doesn’t seem to get this. they constantly fight and pick on each other and of course, EVERY. DAMN. TIME. the little one keeps pushing it further and further and the big spawn has to be the winner and it ends up in disaster. several times a day, EVERY. DAY. there’s punching and hitting and name calling. i’ve tried everything to make them stop. they’ve lost privileges, they’ve spent a LONG time hugging it out, i’ve told them to stay away from each other. nothing works. in my mind it’s mostly the oldest spawns responsibility to walk away because #1 he’s older, and #2 he doesn’t have the problem of knowing when to stop like the little one does. he’s just too stubborn and mean to let things end. well, it’s been getting worse and worse. i warned the oldest spawn to just let things drop or he would lose his gameboy, his comics, and his art supplies in that order. the other night the oldest spawn was being horrible all night. snippy comments all through dinner, picking on his brother all night despite several warnings, it just wouldn’t end. finally we stopped to drop a friend off and in the two seconds between me getting out of the car and turning to look through the windshield the oldest spawn had punched the little spawn in the face. full on punched, right in his face. i about popped a cork. when i got back in the car i tried my best to keep my temper under control and told the oldest spawn he was grounded from his gameboy, my iphone and the laptop for a month. he started yelling at me telling me how unfair i am, standard teenager drama and i warned him twice to stop. he wouldn’t quit, so i told him one series of comic books now belonged to me. ONE SERIES. not all of them. not his whole collection, just one series. holy shit you’d think the world hand ended. the yelling turned to sobbing and freaking out- pulling his hair, thrashing all over the back seat, just going off on me. i managed to maintain my temper and let everything he was yelling at me just roll off. he pulled the standard “I HATE YOU”, “THIS IS SO UNFAIR” and even branched out into “THIS IS SOMETHING GRANDMA WOULD DO” and i just let it all roll off. it continued for a good hour after we got home. he just wouldn’t quit. he finally went to bed and things quieted down. a few days later i brought it up again that he needed to turn over one of his sets of comics and the world ended again. this time he started throwing things around his room, punching his walls, throwing himself on the floor. if i didn’t know better i would swear he was 2 instead of 12. i don’t know how to deal with those melt downs. OVER COMIC BOOKS. i get that they’re special. i get that he saved his allowance/babysitting money to pay for part of them. i also get that maybe something that’s so special to him will finally get his attention and get the point across about being better to his brother. but there’s also the risk that he’s getting so upset about things that the anger is building into something worse and he’s missing the whole point. i don’t know. i made him stick to it over spring break- he was allowed to take the portable dvd player for the road trip to his dad’s, but the gameboy stayed home with me. i have no idea about computers or anything while he’s there, but here’s hoping that he sticks to it. snowball in hell, i know. but i don’t know what to do. the way he freaked out was so unlike him. to see him in a complete melt down phase pulling his own hair, punching walls, throwing things- i had no idea what to do besides keep my own temper in check and ride it out (if you’ve ever seen my temper you know what i feat in itself that is). if he gets much bigger though then it could get dangerous. where do we go from here? he HAS to learn to be better to his brother. he HAS to learn to control his anger better. i just don’t know how to get from here to there.

switching tracks again- i have a bit of a rabbit trail brain today, forgive me.

there will be a different blog on this, but here’s a quick overview just to catch you up: i found out last week that my grandmother is sick. they found out that she has cancer and doesn’t have much longer. no one is sure how long she’s had cancer, she’s pretty stubborn about doctors and letting people know when things are wrong. by the time they found the cancer it was in her bones, her blood, it has metastasized through her whole body and she has uncontrolled tumor growth. there’s a whole blog coming about her and how this has made me step back and look at things. so. be prepared for that. suffice to say it wasn’t the best news. on top of the dvd and the pre-teen melt down, i haven’t been dealing with it very well.

switch again- i feel like there’s just been this storm of everything going on and i just feel like it’s hitting hard. and here’s the part where i pull a total melt down.

my kids are gone this week for spring break. i was looking forward to a week of fun and going out and being completely responsibility free. it’s turned into a disaster. the kids left on monday and i finally left the house tuesday mid morning and that was only to drive to colville to see my grandmother. so much for a rowdy good time. yesterday would have also been my dad’s 56 birthday. that hit a thousand times harder than i expected it to. on the way back from colville i decided to go out for a steak dinner and a beer in honor of my dad. if you know me, you know that i get some of the strangest ideas. well, yesterday i had an idea that i would be good to call up the state patrol office in spokane and see if there was an off duty officer that would like to join me for a steak and a beer in memory of my dad. something about sharing that with an officer that seemed like it would be therapeutic or healing or something. talked to dispatch and then the sargent on duty and there were no officers available. also: the sargent threw in some good old sympathy which ended up with me driving down 395 in tears. so last night i took myself out to dinner and drinks in memory of my dad.

**side note: turns out my call to the wsp yesterday rang some alarm bells and i was gifted a call from the district chaplain today to check in on me. awe.some. didn’t know inviting someone out to dinner was such a reason for alarm.**

and pity party, table for one please:

i seem to be doing a LOT of things by myself lately. going out alone, being the lonely (and pathetic) girl at the bar. being the table for one in the corner. especially with everything going on lately that loneliness has been increasingly amplified. it would be nice to have someone to talk to. a sounding board. a check point in this mess. i feel like i could hold on a little better if i had some point of reference, but instead it’s just me out here floundering. tonight i went out again. went to a movie and to dinner. alone. and i know there’s a power to being able to do that. a strength to being able to get off my couch and actually do it. but there’s also a huge embarrassment to it. and i know people don’t know you need help unless you ask for it, but i’m TERRIFIED to ask for help. i tried to reach out to a friend last week. i tried telling him how scared this whole thing with my grandma makes me. how it makes me look at my family and worry about fucking my kids up. i opened up, i reached out. what i got back in return was this: “well, your kids are already fucked up.” supposedly a joke, but. yeah. kinda makes you not want to reach out any more. and i know, i just reached out to the wrong person. but when that’s the only person close by it’s hard NOT to reach out to the wrong one.

side track again:

so here i am. sitting on my couch where my ass has been glued for the week. the kids come home tomorrow and the rowdy week of freedom will be over. i don’t know if there’s a point to all this. maybe it’s just me venting it all. this is titled brain vomit after all. prime example tonight. i’m out of steam whatever it is. stayed tuned for a peek into my family history.