When the cell phone rings....

I’ve been NC with momster for over a year now. Of course that has meant going NC with the rest of my enmeshed family, including enDad, who is 84 and not well. Thank God for caller ID. I’ve learned to just not answer when I see her name pop up on my cell phone. (It’s taking me a little longer to learn to not to feel guilty about it either.)

Just a few minutes ago, my cell rang and it said “Dad’s cell”. I didn’t answer, because momster has called me using Dad’s cell in the past, and this may just be her attempt to gain access to me. I wouldn’t mind talking to my Dad, to see how he’s doing and let him know what’s going on in my life. I haven’t spoken to him since his birthday last year, and after that, momster left me a message saying I was to “leave them all alone from now on”. I have respected that request.

This really sucks. It’s amazing how an unanswered phone call received in the middle of the day can feel like a punch in the gut. And then all the second guessing myself…Maybe I should have answered…maybe it really was Dad, and I’m abandoning him….

Well I guess he COULD leave a message if it was him. Oh crap! What was I thinking?? Of course it’s her just trying to hoover me! To answer would have been exposing myself to her abuse, and I’m not going to do that anymore!!! Vent over; Moving on!!

My brother's TG call

I have a brother who lives in the same area as me, but never calls me. He may send an obligatory birthday card, but other than that, I don’t hear from him. Although he used to be painted black when I was all-white, I think now he is white and enmeshed with momster, who lives nearby as well. I have another brother who lives up north. This one called me Thanksgiving evening to say happy turkey day. He knows I no longer am in contact with our momster. He talks to her almost every day on the phone.

I let him know how my Thanksgiving went, and that I’m enjoying my visit with my fiance’s family. He’s says ‘That’s nice’, and tells me he’s been working twelve hour days, and was just too exhausted to go visit his long-time gf’s family for dinner. He just made up some food to eat alone. However, I know from past years that he seldom goes to gf’s family. I think its because he takes medication for anxiety disorder, and feels overwhelmed by her large family. But he would never say so.

In fact, he’s the type to just keep things on a surface level, and never acknowledge anything serious or problematic. Even though he knows I've been disowned by momster, he doesn't show any support or concern, not even to say, "So did you talk to mom?" He just seems to think that by not even acknowledging there's a problem, it will go away on it's own. This makes me feel unsupported, like I'm an only child.

Before he got off the phone, though, I did press an issue with him. I asked him if it was true that he was offended (according to momster) that my fiance had asked momster why she thought neither of my bros nor me had gotten married before our 40s. He replied that he really doesn't get offended. But he did think it wasn't any of my fiance's business. And in fact, if my fiance would have asked him that, he would have told him so. Then he said, "But don't think I'm holding anything against you or anything." And that was pretty much it. We got off the phone.

I hung up feeling kind of sad and discouraged. I was looking for validation from a family member, and was disappointed. Oh well.

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at my fiance's house. S's brother J and his wife Mg came with their two boys and brand new baby girl. This was my first Thanksgiving away from momster, and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the first time! Of course, S helped me cook. We had turkey and ham, stuffing with cranberries, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, candied yams and dinner rolls. S's sister R came too, and brought scalloped corn, baked beans, pea salad and deviled eggs. So we had a feast!

Thanksgiving dinner turned out to be a lot easier than I thought! In momster's house, Thanksgiving was a one woman show. My mom did all the cooking. I may have been called upon to make a dessert of some type, but mostly my job was clean up girl and setting the table. And invariably, there was always something done wrong enough to give mom and excuse to yell at me. If not me, she'd be yelling at my dad about something. And the only time that she asked for any help fixing the meal is when the turkey was ready to come out of the oven. But then she would ask my brother to help, not me. I was always made to feel like I was incompetent.

I can't say this year's Thanksgiving dinner went off without a hitch, though. The rolls got a little burnt on the bottom. But people tore off the bottoms and ate them anyway. Also, I had a little mishap with the candied yams. They were the last thing to come out of the oven. And since the oven and countertop was full with dishes of food already, I was looking for a place to put the candied yams. The dish was burning me through the oven mits, so I hurriedly placed them on the counter beside the sink. In doing so, some of the syrup dripped onto the floor. Underneath my feet was my dog. He got some on his back and went yelping through the house. I grabbed him and poured cold water on his back. S was worried he would shake and get the surrounding food wet. So R took him to the bathroom. He was okay. J helped me clean up the floor. Such an incident would have thrown my momster into a seething rage, and I would have been made to feel like a horrible excuse for a human being.

But anyway, we had a very nice visit with J and Mg and the kids. We played a lot of video games and board games. I got to enjoy the new baby. Mg stated that this was the most relaxing Thanksgiving she's ever had. It was for me too.

time goes by

Boy, has it been hard to find time to journal! So much has been going on that I need to record. I was re-reading my post "Little irritations", and it makes me sound kind of mean. I guess I was just venting. I never have nor ever will tell M she might have menningitis. In fact, I've been feeling a lot less irritated lately.

I remember one Thursday night a while ago, I was at S's house and M needed help with her homework. S needed to go take care of something else and M was waiting for him to help her. In the meantime, I tried to help her, but she fell asleep on the couch. When S was ready to help her, I tried to wake her, but she would not wake up. So S said, "Oh well, I'll just put her in bed and get her up a little early tomorrow morning to help her with her homework."

When he came back into the living room, he could see that I was visibly irritated. After some prodding on his part, I was finally able to tell him about my feelings towards her "I know" remarks and her inability to wake up. We had a good talk. He said he knows that in some respects, she is somewhat spoiled. And he knows that needs to change. He knows that M had experienced rejection from her mom whenever a man was in her mom's life, and he wanted to make sure that she doesn't ever experience the same thing from him. But knows he may have gone a little overboard. He is trying. I let him know that I am probably judging her by how I was raised, which really wasn't normal. So I know I need to be very patient.

When I went to sleep that night, I had a dream that S and I were breaking up. S didn't appear mad at me or anything, just calmly said we need to go back to being 'just friends'. In the dream, I was crushed. I kept saying, "But we're so good together!" I woke up in tears, but after a bit, felt such a relief to know that it was only a dream.As I pondered the dream and it's meaning, I realized that I need to trust S more with my feelings. Talking to S can help me relieve my feelings of irritation. I need to trust that even though he may get a little defensive at times, S still is committed to me, and I don't have to fear him abandoning me.

When I started to pray that morning, something occurred to me. My counselor told me once that not only did God put me in M's life so that I can help her deal with her mother in the future. But also, having M in my life will help me heal as well. I really didn't understand that until now. It occurred to me that my irritation really isn't toward M. It's toward my own mother.The way I was raised, I really didn't have a voice. The adults ran the show. I don't think I was ever allowed to say "I know" about anything without it being followed up with "NO YOU DON'T KNOW!". And I have a vague memory of being yelled at for not waking up, replete with "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! SOME LITTLE PRINCESS WHO EXPECTS TO BE CARRIED AROUND ALL THE TIME??!!"

So now I know. Whenever I feel irritated with something about Mariah's behavior, that's a clue that there may be some unresolved feelings there about how I was treated as a child, when I exhibited the same behavior. When that happens, I need to release to Christ those feelings of resentment toward my mother, and pray for her. That will open up God's healing power for me.

Bad morning

Had a bad morning…. We have these maintenance guys at my apartment complex whizzing around on golf carts. Sometimes they’re hard to see, and well, I backed into one this morning. I was backing my car up, because I had forgotten something in my apartment that I needed to bring to my fiance’s house this weekend, and one of these guys was right behind me. I didn’t see him and I hit him. But I was going slow, so there was no damage to his golf cart, he was okay, and there was only a little scratch on my car. So, no problem. In fact, I have a little touch up paint in the trunk of my car. So I get out my kit, wipe off the area of the scratch, quickly apply the touch up paint, and put everything back in my car. Okay, now where are my keys? BIG PROBLEM – they’re in my trunk! This is the first time in the 9 years of owning that car that I ever locked the keys in it. The maintenance supervisor let me back into my apartment, so I could make some phone calls. Fortunately my insurance covers the cost of lockouts, and they called a locksmith for me, who was there in 45 minutes. So everything is okay now. Tonight, S and I have swing dance class at the YMCA. Hopefully tonight will go smoother that this morning.

Little irritations

I've been feeling irritated lately about little things concerning M. The other day I was at work talking to my co-worker who has 3 grown sons. One of them had just regained his drivers' license after recovering from a head injury. I was talking with my co-worker about how he was doing, and she said, "I'm actually kind of annoyed at him right now. I reminded him this morning that he needs to call his insurance company, and he says, "I know, mother", in a very irritated voice.

That made me realize that M does that a lot. And she's just an 8 yo, not a young adult! Her dad will say, "Ok when we get home, you're gonna hafta walk Rufus." "I know!", she says, not in an irritated tone, but in her "little miss know-it-all" voice. I find it dismissive and annoying, but S doesn't seem to mind.

Another thing that bothers me is how she'll fall asleep in the back seat of the car, and it's virtually impossible short of screaming at her to get her to wake up and get out of the car on her own. Of course, we don't and won't scream at her. And I understand that if it's late at night, she's probably just exhausted. Her dad carries her in and puts her in bed. But lately, my fiance and I have been going on shopping trips to get our bridal registry in order. And I do understand that little kids will get tired when they're being dragged around shopping. So she falls asleep in the backseat on the way home. But she's not asleep for that long, and when we pull in the driveway, she will not wake up. I guess I have a suspicion that she could wake up if she wanted to, but would rather pretend to be asleep so that she'll get carried. And its that attitude that irritates me.

Fiance used to always lift her out of the car, put her in a standing position, and gently coax her awake. Recently, because he's been getting tired of carrying around a 55 lb 8 yo, if it's in the afternooon, he just leaves her in the car. She'll come in later complaining that he left her out there, and he just says, "Well, I figured when you're hot enough, you'll come in." Hopefully, that'll teach her. If not, I'll tell her that if she continues to have such a hard time waking up, that could be a sign of menningitis. So, we'll have to take her to the hospital and have some tests run on her that require her to have an IV stuck in her, to make sure she doesn't have it. I'm sure that will motivate her to wake up when her name is called, as she hates needles.

Princess time

We took M trick-or-treating last night. She was dressed as a princess, of course. Just her dad, me and her at first. Then later, she caught up with some of her friends who started trick-or-treating earlier in the evening. She had fun until toward the end. She had shoes on that hurt her feet, so we told her to take them off and go barefoot. Then her feet started hurting because she was barefoot and stepped on rocks and such in the road. Then she wanted her shoes back on, but took them back off again. We offered her flip flops that she had in the car, but she didn't want those. When it was time to walk back home, she plopped down on the sidewalk and whined that her feet hurt her too much. Thankfully, her dad didn't give in to her whims and carry her, like I think she wanted. He just told her to get up and start walking.

I know that M is just being a typical 8 year old child, but it is still kind of foreign to me. I don't remember whining at her age. I knew it wouldn't be tolerated by momster, so I just didn't. I remember Halloweens up north being very cold. And I remember one of my friend's mom exclaiming to me how cold my hands were as she warmed them between her two hands. I remember wondering why she's making such a fuss.