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.