Seriously, Hormones, LEAVE ME ALONE!!

I woke up this morning ready to cry and kick someone's ass at the same time. Don't talk to me, don't touch me, LEAVE ME ALONE! I have failed as a mother and I have no friends. My kids hate me, my life is over, I'm old and wrinkly and fat. Any minute now I will turn into a lonely, sad, old lady sitting in a room. With cats. I'm mad that my kids are grown, I'm mad that I've missed the time I could be a triathlete or the head of a corporation. I'm just mad. And sad. Terribly, terribly sad. I even had a dream last night that my cousins called to tell me their mother died. She's been dead for almost twenty years. But I woke up feeling such grief and sadness. I'm a terrible daughter; I don't visit my dad as much as I should. I bully my mom into taking care of herself. I am a terrible wife; I complain and whine, and don't try hard enough. My kids can't stand to be around me for very long because they can't stand the sound of my nagging voice. 

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN??!! 

I woke up yesterday and sat happily on my patio, in the sun, drinking my coffee and literally counting my blessings. I live in my dream house. I drive my dream car. I have a husband who makes me laugh and children who are not addicted to or selling drugs (or if they are, they are also able to be fully functioning citizens), and who are seeking or have achieved college degrees. Both of my parents are still living. I have an amazing relationship with my sister, and wonderful friends around the world. I am truly blessed. 

So how does it happen that the next day I can wake up in such a foul mood, feeling so low? Is it something I ate? Is this my true disposition rearing it's head, pushing aside my usual "glass half full" philosophy? Nope, I know, it's that bastard that comes whenever it wants now and smacks me upside the head; it is the bane of middle aged women, turning us into shrieking, crazy people who can't remember shit (I, the excellent speller, had to ask my English-language-learner husband how to spell 'shriek'. He thanked me and said he was honored but had no idea) and who sink into the abyss then soar to the heights of hormone-induced depression and ecstasy. Menopause, will you please LEAVE ME ALONE!

More Milestones

They just keep coming, and I can't stop them. Time passes, I get older, my kids keep moving on...  Every flippin' year I hear these words come out of my mouth - "Wow, so much has happened this year!"  And so it goes...those milestones roll right over me every time. I'm going to start calling them mileboulders,

Claire's college softball team, in 5th place in their league at the end of the season, came from behind to WIN their league tournament, meaning they move on to Regionals this weekend. It's like being in the finals or going to Hollywood on Idol. Only 64 teams out of ALL Division 1 college softball teams in the nation get to be in regionals. Even more amazing, at least six of her travel ball teammates from high school days are also in regional tournaments, each at a different one around the nation. I am so excited for her and her team I want to burst! Long ago I said we'd go watch the games if they made it, but the reality is that this is her senior year, so I've flown back to Chicago for Senior Day games, and then the Banquet two weeks later. Oh, and both her dad and I spent a week there in April during my spring break from teaching for a home stand of six games. I LOVE Chicago. The reality is that we didn't count on the underdogs actually winning (for the first time in 7 years!) and we are tapped out - of money and of energy. I tried, we waited to see if the games would be in or near Chicago (or on the off chance the stars truly were aligned, in California), but no, Cal is actually traveling to Louisville along with my Flames girls and another team. Okay, maybe there would be a last minute really cheap flight....Nope, unless you consider $500-1,000 cheap. Maybe I'd have enough points on my card to buy a ticket or two....Nope, used them on the last three flights I've taken. Then maybe my friend can get us standby on a flight....Nope, flights are really full, and there's never a guarantee of getting a seat on one anyway.

I'm a big believer in what is meant to be is meant to be, and things happen for a reason, so I've decided to stop trying, to stop spending hours in front of the computer screen putting in various routes (now if I just try one way to Louisville, no, maybe Indianapolis, then back via Chicago...) on various websites, waiting for that really good deal to flash on the screen. I'll stop thinking about renting a car or bumming a ride. I'll stop thinking this is about my daughter and her disappointment at her parents not being at her big games. Besides, I have another daughter, and she's got a few milestones of her own rolling swiftly upon us that I don't want to miss. Next week is graduation from high school, in a few weeks I will go with her for her college orientation. Then there is moving her into the dorms. Wow, boulders for sure.

This is about them, their lives, not mine. I actually don't have any recollection of my parents even entering my personal space much during my high school/college years. Except the day I got married, yah, pretty sure they were there for that. When I was that age it was all about me, my friends, and my boyfriend(s). Everything was a big deal, and it meant everything to me that my best friend was there. My parents? Not so much.

I know she'll survive and thrive without me there in person on the sidelines cheering her on. I hope that by now she knows, they all know, that I am always their biggest fan, from anywhere in the world. Not sure that I will survive, however, without some bumps and bruises. Maybe just one last look at Priceline....

Compartments and Super Mom

I can't believe it's been over two months since I've blogged!! I read over my past entries and the memory of how much I enjoy it came flooding back. It's about time for an update, as this spring brings many milestones for our family.

I am a procrastinator and easily, very easily, distracted ("Squirrel!!" - if you haven't seen Up, rent it now). I tend to start a project then jump to another, then back to the first, and while looking for a piece of paper for that one, I am waylayed by a pile of photos or of bills I forgot to pay yesterday... etc. etc. This has got to be hard to live with. My stressed husband watches and frets that things won't get done. And sometimes, occasionally, he is right. I pay a late fee, or run out of milk. Nothing world-ending, but I get that a person who likes things nice and neat, well planned in advance, could be stressed by me and my last minute tactics. Now, I've been this way since he met me, and yet he still chose to marry me. I hope that my children, none of whom has a significant other at this point in their lives, realizes that relationships are full of compromise, and it flows both ways. I may think I'm easy going and fun to live with, but if I take a good, hard look at myself, I realize I may have a few traits that would be annoying... my husband certainly has one or two. Yet the good has outweighed the bad for almost 28 years. Wow, that's the lifetime of a young adult! Oh, yah, I have children who are young adults, down to the youngest who turned 18 this year!

Back to the title of this post ("Squirrel!") - the Supermom in me wants to be great at my job (which I love) and great at meeting my kids' needs, plus fabulous at being a life partner/wife, oh, and also a helpful and loving daughter to my elderly parents. The balancing and compartmentalizing of these roles is where I have trouble. If I put a lot of effort into my job as Teacher, my other compartments are neglected. I try to prioritize, but it seems someone or something is always neglected. My house is last on my list, people taking priority over a clean and neat home (and sometimes bills), and I have no guilt over that choice. It's always been that way for me. However, I tend to have such focus when I am wearing the hat of Teacher that I forget everything else in my life; it takes all my energy, mental and physical, to do a really good job of meeting the needs of my students and fulfilling my other duties for the school and the district. When I enter the compartment of Mom, inevitably my duties as Teacher and Daughter, and even Wife, suffer from neglect. I focus on and am sensitive to the emotions and needs of my kids. I feel guilty leaving my students with a sub to take time off to go on college tours with my daughter, but more guilty if I put work before family. I know I have made the right choice, but still... And while I'm out of town attending my college daughter's Senior Game (last home softball game ever), my dad takes a fall and someone else has to handle it. I'm not there for him when he needs me. (cue the guilt music; hmmm, what tune would guilt music be? Not ominous, like the Jaws theme. Maybe bluesy, not too sad, just soulful. Or soul, ya, soul music... "Squirrel!")

What has made our breed feel so beholden to perfection in all areas of our lives? Well, the females in our breed, anyway. Isn't good enough just that - good enough? I try to say "It is what it is" or think that my good effort beats many people's 'best' any day. Still, I carry the constant burden of  feeling I could do more - more for my parents, more for my students, more for my family.

Super Mom I may never be, but looking at my children I am proud and happy. They are turning into wonderful, self-sufficient adults. They are choosing to spend time with each other - something I always hoped for as they fought like cats and dogs when they were young, and are as different in personalities as three siblings can be. Now if they'd just find partners who help them continue to grow, bring out the best in them, and adore and respect me...

Fear

Every time I start to blog, do you know the first thing I do? I look at my past blogs to make sure that the thoughts running around in my head that are about to spill upon this virtual page have not already been shared in a previous blog. I really shouldn't stress about it - it's not like my 'followers' check to see if I've written about something in particular before. My fear is that you may have been touched, or you may have a better memory than I (a very likely scenario), and remember some other instance of my lamenting about my kids or my parents or the state of being a mom and working... Today I decided to write about that fear. To prod it and poke it and explore it. I believe at the root of the fear of repeating myself is the fear that I will develop, am developing, am beginning to suffer from the early stages of, will probably get, Alzheimer's. I don't mean the funny, haha we are old kind. I mean the real thing. Odds are it will happen to me, either Alzheimer's or dementia, or some odd combination of both that seem to afflict my father. Odds are that it's hereditary, that my brain will harden as I age like my father's has. That the connections, weak to begin with (not joking - I have an awful memory -  my childhood is like a dream I had, and if I remember your name or how we know each other when we meet again it will be amazing) are crumbling. I can almost feel it happening.

I find my brain searching for the connections, the path back to a particular memory, fact, word or task that I know I know. Sometimes it comes back to me and other times it doesn't. I know that our prime is truly our early 20's and it's all downhill, so to say, from there. But this is different. It's like whole pieces of my life are gone sometimes. I'm blessed to have a husband with a very good memory but cursed with lack of language to guide me back to shared memories smoothly. I'm lucky to live in a time when digital memories abound, and I am able to keep up with many people from all phases of my life, keeping memories alive through them.

My doctor says my fears are baseless; that the disease isn't necessarily inherited. She says that women have so very much on and in their minds that the files get full, their cups run over, and memories are lost due to the sheer volume of what we try to do and remember. I know that I have seven people to help, three to four households who count on me for bill paying and doctor visits, and social coordination. Two of the people in my circle of family are becoming more independent every second, but they are still on my mind, I still worry, advise, keep track of, and assist. I love being needed, but perhaps my doctor is right. My job (the one they pay me to do) entails being concerned about 26 small human beings and their emotional and educational needs (and includes their 52 or so parents in this circle of concern). Add them to my own family, and you know, the more I think about it the more I believe my doctor is a wise woman.

Recently I have been trying (I have some control issues, I admit) to do what some might call "Let go and let God". For me I am opening myself up to the possibilities of things not that I can see, but those that I feel and believe. I am letting go of worry and concern and planning and anticipation. I have read a wonderful book recently that has opened a new world for me, one that includes guardian angels and the growth of my soul in the big picture of my life and the lives of those around me. It came into my life through a good friend, actually two who recommended it to me the same week, but it has been around for a long time - Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss. Pick it up and make it all the way through. It's not what it appears to be, or at least it was different than I thought it would be.

Thank you; I feel better. I know that it helps to talk out a worry, a fear, a story, an experience. To "hear" it aloud, to feel it in your mouth and your brain, to see it on the page and to take another look at it helps to digest that fear, perhaps even to let it go. At least for now.

Trash Can Philosophy

As I carried the white draw-string kitchen trash bag out to recycling, it was bursting with green bottles, blue aluminum cans, and red cups. This got me thinking about the holiday season that had just ended with a New Year's Eve party hosted at our house by my son and a few of my daughters' friends. The colors of the season were well represented in my recycling bin.

Trash Day the week after holidays past have been filled with the cardboard boxes that contained Little Tykes furniture, train sets, various wheeled vehicles, and complex Lego structures. Before that it was boxes from porta-cribs and baby swings. Times have certainly changed. No more Candyland or Monopoly. The games the kids play now involve money and more often than not some sort of alcoholic beverage. No more assembling bicycles into the early hours of Christmas morning, being woken up precious few hours later by little bodies slamming onto the bed just as the sky is turning a paler shade of gray. This is the first Christmas morning that we actually had to wake our kids up. We were sitting at the kitchen table until after 10:00 a.m., so we called upstairs, texted, phoned, and finally got a groggy response from one or another, then a shocked "I can't believe we slept so late!" from my oldest daughter. We barely had time to open gifts before I had to put the turkey in the oven and start chopping and browning and mixing for Christmas dinner.

A week later my trash cans were overflowing with the afore-mentioned bottles large and small, tall and wide, of every color they come in. We all know that a person's trash can reveal many secrets (thank you CSI), but for us it tells the story of time marching on.

Surprises

I am continually surprised by my kids. Today my son, who I know loves food and enjoys cooking, was sitting at his computer (where he is 80% of the time) and asked me what "minced" means. I had to think because my frame of reference was he was on the computer so what could he possible be talking about? Did he mean as in "mincing your words"? No, he had actually looked up some recipes on line and made a list for the grocery store (on his Droid phone) and said he'd be cooking these tonight. This is my grown son who will soon be leaving to start his career and live alone in an apartment 4 1/2 hours away. I'm starting to think that the Cuisinart electric chopper I picked up for him on a whim for Christmas was a good choice!

I discovered something new about my youngest lately. She has always been sensitive, and our relationship tends to be a reactive one so I don't often see beyond the angry teenager. Quite by accident, I discovered that my girl is a blogger. She is a creative thinker, has amazing insight, and an eye for beauty and simple messages that touch the heart of an issue. Her blog is full of visual poetry and wise words, some her own, some she has taken for her own. The world view she chooses and the issues she champions are close to my heart. I think she's gonna be okay.

Now I wonder why this growth, these discoveries are so amazing to me? As parents do we expect the minimum, or in the case of a late-night phone call, the worst? Is this so we are not disappointed or shocked when the news really is bad? Why am I surprised that my son is willing to make a meal on the spur of the moment for his family, or that my daughter loves language and words and takes a stand on issues she feels strongly about? Weren't these things that I was shooting for in my parenting style? Independence, creativity, morals. I sit back, amazed that these exceptional human beings came from their father and I, that we didn't screw them up too badly with all of our stumbling about, arguments about money, grades, cars, curfews, allowances, and our own indecision and questioning of almost every decision (especially through the teen years) we made regarding the kids. I've told my them, and may have mentioned once or twice (or a million times) here, that 'they' don't require a degree or a license to have children. A baby doesn't come with a manual. Parents love them and do their best, the hopeful result being an independent and productive member of society who is a good person, too. Oh, and happy, we want them to be happy.

Apparently food and poetry are high on the list of things that make my kids happy. Hmmm, those things are pretty high on my own list of things that make me smile. Wine, too. But that's another blog for another day.

Unnecessary

That's how I feel. Unnecessary. At least in the life of my oldest child. I know it has been my (well, our, but what self-respecting mom really gives the father any credit for a job well done?) responsibility since he has been born to raise him to be an independent and successful member of society, a good person, who loves and lives well. I think I've done a pretty good job (okay, we've done a good job). By the way, no one can get out of child rearing without making mistakes and messing it up something, or a lot of things. My son doesn't trust me to follow through with everything, or anything really. That is my fault. I have always wanted to be able to give the world to him, and sometimes I 'promise' things that don't come to pass. He might say I do this frequently, but I know that each of our perspectives is biased. From my perspective I could say that this has built within him a self-reliance and determination to get what he wants, and this has helped him succeed. He would probably say I've disappointed him. Every mother/child relationship that I analyze has flaws in it, and some are complete disasters. I have tried very hard to come out of my child rearing years as close to my children as I can while still remaining their Mom. In our parenting pair, this usually makes me the 'good cop', and this has worked pretty well. And still my children think I know very little about life, my choice in fashion is abominable, and my sense of humor is non-existent. They think I am critical at every turn, and that I ask too many questions. Oh, and that my memory sucks, which it does, sad to say. And they find all of this annoying.

My own mother and I have always had a close relationship. She is a mother beyond reproach. The mom that all of my friends have always loved, a sweet little lady with an English accent. She welcomed all and loves all people. She rarely finds someone she can't get along with, although she does have her opinions of them. She has been supportive of me always. And yet I can still hear criticism in the tone of her voice or the way she asks a question (ooooh, now I get what my kids are complaining about....). I know that I used to feel like a little girl every time I entered her home (sometimes a really good feeling, sometimes not what I needed). I know that too much time with this sweet lady grates on my nerves (just stand up for something and express an opinion for once!). Her niceness becomes annoying. Now, how could I possibly feel this way about a woman who stayed home to raise me and my sister, who provided us with everything we needed and most of what we wanted, who was the 'good cop' in my parents' partnership, the best role model I could have???

I have decided that it is hard wired into the child-parent relationship that kids find their parents annoying and disappointing, critical and laughable, unbearable and stupid, so that they find the impetus TO MOVE OUT AND START THEIR OWN LIVES. Long ago, the impetus was food. Families needed their adult offspring to form their own unit in order to feed themselves. This is no longer an issue, at least within our society. Another reason to leave the nest was privacy and the religious need to make babies (which I still believe relates to back to food, but that's another blog). In some societies and traditions, these needs mean that offspring don't leave, and in some American homes adult families of many generations still live together (again, food. I'm feeling a blog entitled Food coming on...but I digress...). However, even our founding fathers left home because they didn't like the rules. And look how well that turned out!

I may only be justifying the fact that I am feeling very, well, unnecessary lately. And it makes me sad when all I should be is proud and happy that my son has travelled in such a way that he has now been offered a job in an industry he is passionate about, making enough money to support himself and his aspirations. He doesn't need me anymore. I've done my job. I'm almost done with my job with all three of my kids. I think I'll call my mom. Maybe she wants to go to the movies, or shopping. I need her to help me pick out a new pair of glasses. Oh, and I want to find out what she thinks about this beautiful tablecloth I saw at Home Goods.....