More Than Momma

Memories are a funny thing. At least for me. I know people who can remember every detail of their history like picture perfect stills in time, date stamped, and captioned in fine detail.  Others can easily replay the videos of their lives; both completely perplexed by people like me.  My memories are muted and muddy. Tattered photographs diluted by faulty perceptions, or hyperpigmented by overly romanticized renditions of what my mind has decided was true. And yet others are blank, undeveloped negatives tickling the back of my brain. They are stored away amidst those things that I do not discuss. I do not share. Buried. Stolen amidst those memories deleted for self-preservation. But.  There are moments. Beautiful glimmers. When a memory pushes through.  One of the good ones that warms your very soul and reminds you of the goodness and love amidst the people and times that you were certain and convinced could never hold light.  You can smell the air.  You ca...

 Life is finally settling back to "normal"for whatever that is for us. But MAN! It feels like the clock is ticking faster and faster with each breath, each day, each week that passes me by. It's a race to nowhere really. I can barely keep pace yet somehow I do.  But do I? Wake. Coffee. Work. Walk dog. Work more. Walk dog. Adult- bills, grocery, chores. Then the brain goes dormant, on overload from a day of decisions, creativity, conversations, and what I call "sparkle"..and then there is no sparkle left that day.   Did I eat? Damn it.  Make food, or the semblance of a meal for us. Eat. Doom scroll, read, "watch" something. Fall into bed. Toss and turn until who knows when just to awake at 3. Then at 6. And finally get annoyed and get up at some point to begin again. Personal hygiene and medication is handled as evident by wet towels, rumpled clothes in the hamper, and the pill cases that always seem to need filling. Food is eaten because the fridge emp...

 An apology without change is quite simply bullshit! I have absolutely no problems accepting an apology and moving on.  I appreciate genuine apologies. I have issue with the apologies that continue to come without behavioral changes. The parent who continually apologizes for the way they treat their child, how they scream or diminish them, or how they are absent mentally, emotionally, or physically.  That apology means nothing if that parent continues their ways. It actually trains the child to never trust. It even models for them what is acceptable behavior in their life. The partner or friend who continually apologizes for biting your head off, being mean, or making you the butt off jokes that just aren't funny. When the apology is sincere, it means the world. How can it be sincere when the behavior repeats itself? The person you trusted who uses you, lies to and about you, who really doesn't give a rat's ass about you unless it's part of their narrative. When you cal...

 I am far from perfect. FAR from it. There is this niggling that tugs at my brain and my heart though. A little voice that quietly reminds me of all of my faults, my mistakes, my misdeeds. And she is there.  Always.  And sometimes she roars in my ears until I melt into this abyss.  Is that the real purgatory? To live mired in the imperfections of your past. Your present. The things that haunt you into your future. Maybe. or just maybe all of those things that I have studied from Freud and Bloom and the countless psychologists of yore ring true. Either way, I hate it. I hate the internal crumbling. The feelings that who I am today are still a disguise for the stupidity of my youth. Well, let's be real here. My first 35 years or more. I search and I work to quiet this roar within me, but she just keeps clawing her way back into my life.  She stalks me with a stealth so quiet yet aggressive that I barley know when I am under her spell. "They" call it being triggere...

 Caregiving Across the Ages Childhood  As a young girl of the 1970's, it was clear that my role in life should encompass the typical female stereotypes seen in the world around me.  And that was fine by me.  While I was a tomboy for sure, the idea of caring for a family was a given.  I had my dolls. I played school and house.  I even dressed up my poor dog and drove him around in a doll carriage.  So it makes sense that my first real role in caregiving was that of the neighborhood babysitter.  WHAT A CAKEWALK!  Show up.  Eat their food. Have some friends over while the kids slept. Get paid. Go home! Cha Ching!  As long as nobody got hurt too badly or found out you had the secret guests, you were golden! BUT...Unbeknownst to me, I was caregiving every day. Just not in the typical way one might expect. Yes, I fed the fish, walked the dog, and learned the deeds of a good little girl that fit the roles of caring for the home and family....

Last year, just weeks before Christmas, our home caught fire. Giant fire. Nothing we did or anyone else caused this.  No act of God. No arson or silly mistake. It just was. The loss was nothing like any other loss I have ever experienced. Death, even the most tragic of incidents I have experienced, are a part of life.  Everyone dies, even when you are not ready for it or it makes no sense. You can't always prepare, but deep down you know it is coming for us all. Hurricanes?  I am a master of prepping for these. Grab what you can. Protect the rest the best you can. Get out and wait. I have never lost more than pieces and parts of my home to these so maybe the full weight of their power and devastation are lost on me. You can prepare away, but deep down you know that the chances of a catastrophic direct hit are not that great when you weigh out the odds over all hurricanes we might see. I am not trying to make light of these and other catastrophes at all. I am guessing what...

 It has been a minute...or actually over a year...since I have taken the time to sit down and write. It has been lost on me the freedom that I felt, releasing my heart on the "pages" of this venue, but I have needed it so. But life took over. It has been a minute since I prioritized the things that have helped me to find peace, my daily practices that saved only for me. But life took over. It has been a minute since I utilized the tools that I have in my toolkit to manage the stress and calm the anxieties that spin through my soul. I LET life take over. It has been a minute since I took control over my day to day rather than letting the days dictate me. Now, I am working to take my life back over. It is a minute at a time. A day at a time. But my life is mine not the culmination of things that occur around me. Hoping for a minute each day to create a series of moments until I am back where I want to be.

 My Grandmother never really shared too many details about her childhood with me. Well actually nothing about her childhood at all. I know where she worked as a young teen and into young adulthood. I have seen pictures, a few, of her in those years with family.  I never knew how impoverished she and her family were. I only knew of the love story that brought her family to America. A story that I have learned through much research into Jewish genealogy could be true or could be lore.  Regardless, I find it fascinating. The Love Story My great-grandparents were born in Austria.  The town that they actually lived in no longer exists as it was back then. It was wiped out during World War II after they had already immigrated to New York via Ellis Island. But they did not come on their journey together. And the town is not the love story, although it makes for an intriguing scavenger hunt through time and history. The two young people fell in love in their hometown in a ti...

 I have heard, from lots of different folks, that one or all of the above are bogus, fake, or something that weak people say occurred to them.  I am here to call bullshit. Nobody wants to admit that they have been party to any type of abuse- especially that which they have no physical proof. The reality is that some of those who do the abusing, in my opinion, may not realize how or why they are doing what they are being accused of and oftentimes the ones being abused have rationalized through months or years of conditioning, that this abuse is somehow their fault. They have caused this treatment or they deserve what has occurred. Furthermore, in my opinion, since this is difficult to prove- lack of physical evidence- it is very difficult for authorities to take it seriously unless they witness it themselves. Verbal abuse includes but is not limited to: Name-calling, belittling, insulting Threatening or blackmail Gaslighting Patronizing Blame Manipulation through guilt- "If you...

It is really hard for some to understand the decisions that you make, especially if the view that they have of the journey you have had is skewed by their own journey or regrets. I understand.  I have been there. I have come to the point in my life, however, where I must do what is the healthiest for myself and for those that I love: even if that includes disconnecting with some of those same folks.  It is not something that I relish, do out of malice, or am particularly proud of. It just is. Surviving certain situations in my life, and thriving because of them, in spite of them, has made me appreciate and seek a certain level of peace in my life. I know what I want in what I have left on this planet and I know what I choose not to be party to. I call them boundaries yet others may call them something else.  These boundaries I have established for very particular reasons. 1. I am human and have limits.  And that is ok. 2. I am old enough to know what types of things,...

Did you have a parent that you did not always want to be around? Was there one that you just couldn't figure out? Was that parent actually the inferior parent, or were you just needing something from them? As I shared in blog #1  - Let's face it- parenting is one heck of a job.  No instructions. Often little to no support. We are just doing what we think is best.  And sometimes that might make us the favorite parent or the not so favorite one.  I have been both so I reflect on the following with respect and no blame at all. The Not-So Favorite Parent Growing up, my mom was the not-so favorite parent.  This could be attributed to many things.  Mother - daughter relationships always came to mind first but for us it was much more.  My mom had to be the "hold down the fort" parent by the very nature of the circumstances of the times and our lives. For most of my life, my mom was a stay at home mom.  When she did work, it was around my schedule so that...

Did you have a favorite of your parents? Was there one that you wanted to be around more than the other? Was that parent actually better, or were you just needing something from them? Let's face it- parenting is one heck of a job.  No instructions. Often little to no support. We are just doing what we think is best.  And sometimes that might make us the favorite parent or the not so favorite one.  I have been both so I reflect on the following with respect and no blame at all. The Favorite Parent Growing up, my dad was the favorite parent.  This could be attributed to many things.  Daddy - daughter relationships always came to mind first but for us it was much more.  My dad got to be the fun parent by the very nature of the circumstances of the times and our lives. My father worked.  I mean he was seriously a workaholic. This was how he was raised to be and what was expected if he was to support his family and provide more than he had as a child. ...

 There are times in your life that are just really hard and don't make sense.  Times when the hurt you feel infuriates your brain.  Times when your brain is completely perplexed at why your heart hurts because you should know better.  You have experienced this before.  Some things just don't change. At least, for me, there are those times. For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with the trying to grasp the illusion of specific connections that I want that are in direct opposition to what I have. And it is not all relationships.  Only one or two that no matter how hard I try- they are toxic. My brain knows that this will never change, but the heart still wants it to be so. The hubs, the friends, the therapists- they all tell me that certain people are just going to be how they are.  They most likely will not change.  Their actions and words should not be a shock, a surprise, and definitely not something that I should allow the power to ups...

Throughout my life there have been adults that I have considered "adoptive parents" without ever having been adopted. Heck, I even adopted a sister as an only child.  We are family by choice. I think that stems from all of those who unknowingly adopted me over the years. I grew up in a home with my biological mom and dad, but during a time when other adults oftentimes had profound impacts on my day to day. You knew your friend's parents. You knew all of the adult neighbors.  You even knew many of the adults in town. Specifically, I remember.... There were the parents of the two sisters up the street who befriended me in elementary school.  While I never outright called them mom or dad, I learned so much from them and being a family. I attended church with them, a required outcome of wanting to spend Saturday nights over.  I envied how involved in their home their dad was being home daily by a reasonable hour as mine worked long hard hours were we only had Sundays, so...

I always wanted a Big Wheel.  They were the coolest ride for kids my age back in the day.  I swore that everyone had one, except for me.  I had an Inchworm.  I think part of it was because my parents were just flat out smart that I had no business with any Mean Machine on the very steep street we lived on that dumped off into another well-traveled street.  I mean it was bad enough that I lost a roller skate wheel once going down that death trap of a hill. When we moved out to the country, I was too old for one but I wanted a new bike.  I knew exactly what I wanted. BMX type bikes were all the rage post high handlebars and banana seats and I did not do very well with that last biking sensation.  You see I wanted to be like the guys who had the jumping BMX bikes so I tried to jump my non-BMX bike over the curb at my first elementary school parking lot.  Can you say "bottom teeth through top lip" and holy blood? So when I outgrew my deathtrap of a bi...