~Holiday’s~
Here we go… Haven’t you heard….. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!? OH HELL NO!!! Most definitely NOT! Not in my world, it has, always was and forever will be the WORST time of the year…… Yup, that’s me, the Grinch, Bah Humbug! I’m a Christmas hater, but don’t hate me (the player…), hate the game – I’m stuck in it! My Dad died on December 23rd. His passing and all the ABSOLUTE craziness that ensued after his death has just completely ruined me and my relationship with the “Holiday’s” forever. FOREVER! So, this is why, unlike everyone else, I dread the Holiday season. The minute I see the first sign of any sort of Christmas decor (actually, if I’m being honest, it begins the minute Halloween ends….), hear a song, etc., my heart and soul go into full blown mourning mode. I just glaze over…. And I thought as I got older it would gradually get easier, hurt less, the tears would subside, and eventually having a family of my own would make me miraculously change!? (this thought is somehow – bat shit crazy – to me now..) You know, I’d be able to become one of those crazy ass people who just live for Christmas… THEY LOVE CHRISTMAS…. the decorating, the baking, the gathering of family from near and far…. The singing of carols, mindlessly humming happiness without even being aware. I find this all just HILARIOUS! because, sadly, for me, my past (unlike the rest of the world!) and my childhood memories of Holiday’s long gone aren’t all warm and fuzzy, and dipped in extreme joy and peace and love, they’re tainted with extreme sadness, sorrow, tears, and loss, not only the loss of my Dad, but most of my family too (why didn’t anyone fight for me, love me enough to fix broken me, worry about what this would do to future me!?). All of these things combined have just murdered the Christmas spirit deep down in my soul, pushed it to an unreachable place, where the hole is so black, deep, dark, empty and endless, that it leaves me with a constant ache, an overwhelming emptiness, that I’ve discovered, recently (as I’m getting older now, it’s been like over 30 years) can never be fixed. I’m pretty sure I am the way I am (so badly broken), because of the way the whole situation (situation being code for my Dad’s death and life afterward) was handled…. instead of dealing with it, talking about it, putting it to bed and moving on, I am thrown, every. single. year., right back to 1977. I’m 9 years old again and all those things I’ve been so expertly suppressing (not so expertly I’ve discovered!), are suddenly so REAL – feeling lost, abandoned, insecure, unloved, scared and so extremely alone in my own world of grief – it’s a real world to me – a solid steel wall of haze, that not one person/place/thing in my adult life has ever been able to erase or penetrate….. No matter where life has brought me, or what has changed, all those horrific unbelievable feelings come rushing back and I just can’t seem to shake them. Like EVER! Not marriage, the birth of my son, the commencement of Mom life, wife life, in law life, has even put a dent in my sad, depressed, solid steel haze of miserable existence, that becomes my world, the minute Thanksgiving and Christmas come into the picture. It’s very pathetic, sad and extremely unfair, this merry go round that I really do want to get off of… But I just can’t. CAN’T! Anytime I think progress is being made in that area, there’s always, and I mean ALWAYS, something (or someone!) that knocks me right over, sucking what little life I have managed to accumulate – carefully, out of me and no matter how hard I try I just can never recover, never get back to that tiniest of happy places….. It’s like quicksand, the more you struggle to get out, the deeper and deeper it sucks you in…… And when you get to be my age, being knocked down and kicked in the stomach so many times, finally takes it’s toll….. I mean, seriously, how many times can you bounce back after having all those horrible feelings (and people) sucking the complete life out of you, year after year!? Sadly, there’s no where to run and hide until the season is over (is that even possible!?)….. And I couldn’t just essentially stick my head in the sand, till it was all over, that’s unhealthy isn’t it!? I’d never “check out” temporarily, like EVER, on my son, my husband (they need me, how could I ever even entertain the idea that I am more important, isn’t that being selfish…) and my family. Sorry, but, that would, essentially mean in some shape or manner, that I did the same thing to my kid, that my dad did to me!? My mom did to me… um, but, intentionally!? Ah, Hell NO! Seriously!? NO Flippin’ WAY! I’m trying to be that adult… You know, the one to break the unhealthy family relationship pattern! Not sure if I’m getting that done successfully, but I sure as hell am trying, HARD! Every. Single. Day. Which is why, I suck it up! I suppress those tears, swallow every single ounce of sadness, depression, frustration and just blindly navigate through my Holiday haze. I plaster that fake smile on, swallow back the roller coaster of emotions that a broken lifetime of unhappiness builds, and I hike up my big girl pants, and go through the motions, ALL OF THEM!! I don’t skimp on the details, because making my boy happy is my number one priority, and so, essentially, I’m just navigating my haze, all numbed up, and fake until that ball drops on January 1st and I can breathe again.
~Role Models~
I have to admit I really haven’t had the best role models in my life. Well, at least not positive ones, anyway (not until I met my future husband and was blessed with the most AMAZING mother in law…. see how God works in mysterious ways, he has a plan, it might not ever make sense to you, but there is a master plan and it’s much bigger than you or I, you just have to trust in it). I mean there were people whom I looked up to, friends mom’s, my grandparents (both sets), but I certainly didn’t live with one! As I’m sure you all know by now, my dad died when I was 9 years old (a freak construction accident on a job at work, of course it was totally unexpected, as he wasn’t sick or anything, which makes it even harder for a little girl to swallow, understand) and my mother kinda went off the deep end. Not kinda, she DEFINITELY lost her shit. And to make a really bad situation even worse, her winning personality (Sarcasm..) had already alienated every single possible good role model/relative (on both sides of our family!) that we could have had. So, essentially, I didn’t just loose my Dad – you know, as if that wasn’t horrific enough, I lost his whole family! Her family! My family! (my mom was REAL GOOD at pissing people, who loved her, off, and then holding a grudge, and not speaking to them for years, yes I said YEARS! Ahhhh to be Italian…) So, instead of embracing my brother and I, keeping us close and holding tight (you know, finding peace, love and comfort in us, the living, barely breathing, frightened kids – two of the most amazing gifts, if you ask me, to come from love, anyone’s love!), since we just had the rug pulled out from under us, I learned, the hard way, that she most definitely was not the “norm” lovey dovey, huggie kissy, widowed parent, or adult MOM. You know what I mean – normal, basic EASY things like making us feel safe and loved. It was as if when he died – she died too. Now don’t get me wrong, she was never any Mary Poppin’s or anything to begin with (sadly I knew this deep, deep down in the pit of my stomach, but never wanted to believe she was different than my friends moms, but she was, for sure!). As my early memories of her, when he was still alive, consisted of evil….. For example, them arguing and fighting A LOT, about everything! She wanted what she wanted, right then and there no matter what…..spoiled bitch! And I must add that they were always struggling, i just knew…. Dinner at my Nan’s (an hour away, a few times a week!? Boy o boy did she have a temper (one of my earliest and clearest memories is of my brother and I hunkered down in his bedroom closet as they were having a knock down, throwing things at each other, drag out fight, yes this is true, the memory so vivid!), so I’m thinking he was (and, no, I’m not romanticizing this just because he is gone!) definitely the more loving parent of the two. The softer one. I was never ever afraid of my Dad as a kid. I can remember countless evenings spent on our front stoop anxiously awaiting his arrival home from work, the smile on his face, my face the moment we locked eyes as he pulled in the driveway…. I’d run to him and he’d pick me up, smother me with kisses and twirl me round and round till we were both dizzy with laughter…. So excited to hear about my day, the questions, the conversations, the details, he would always ask me to paint a picture for him so he could feel it as if he was right there and experiencing whatever it was, too. Plus, there’s also all the stories I’ve been told, over the years, growing up about how funny and sweet and big hearted my Dad was….(Oh how I loved to hear my Aunt Gina tell me story after story about how amazing he was, how silly, and loving and what a great cook he was too, did you know that my dad could create greatness from nothing!) Aunt Gina, my mom’s best friend, my surrogate mom, without her I don’t think I would have ever survived. I can’t even count how many times she and her daughter, my cousin, my “big sissy” 3 years my senior saved my ASS! Literally! (without them I wouldn’t have survived my high school years) See, after jumping from house to house during the aftermath of my father’s death, my mother finally settled us into a 2 bedroom apartment, where lucky me got to share a room with my younger brother – during a time in which a young adolescent girl should most definitely have had her own room, and being the selfish bitch my mother was, she didn’t even think to give my brother and I our own rooms and take the pull out couch, or at the very least the larger room, since we 2 were sharing, NOOOO, she took the master bedroom and squeezed 2 twin beds and us into a tiny second bedroom where we proceeded to constantly argue, fight, and nearly kill each other, for 5 years, the remainder of elementary school and all of junior high!) I like to think I was the one who had inherited my Dad’s personality…. Because he was the kind of man who was destined for greatness….. And he was certainly on his way until he, well, you know…. I don’t know, about my mother, maybe something in her snapped, and she became the most selfish woman on earth (maybe that was the only way she could cope!?, or maybe she had always been this way and it was he, my dad, who kept her in check my whole life, well the 9 years of it he was around for anyway). At any rate, since I’m not a licensed therapist I really can’t pinpoint what the exact problem was, all I know is this….. I needed her! My brother needed her! Good God, we were just babies when my dad died, lost in a never ending fog of uncertainty, moving from place to place, living with my Aunt, cousins, grandparents, as she just couldn’t be alone (always playing the victim, woe is me, poor me, and still to this day pulls the same shit, total BULLSHIT!), do it alone, as if the sight of us was too painful!? We were always yanked out from everything we knew and loved, over and over again, cause she couldn’t get her shit together, and well, kids need stability and that one very simple thing – she just couldn’t, and as I learned, the hard way, wouldn’t EVER give us (fast forward 7 or 8 years to the moment we, well, in her eyes, she’d won the settlement case, remember my Dad’s death was an accident and yes, there was monetary compensation for all of us, BIG MONEY – how you put a dollar amount on loosing your father I’ll never understand that – but that money, that compensation, in my opinion, made things much worse for us, much worse, see my brother and I were under 18, SO who do you think had sole control over our money!? Ding, ding, ding, you guessed right, my mother!) See my mother was like that evil character in those horror movies, that needs to feed off others to keep her strength, her beauty, whatever…. the more she consumed the stronger she became, and though she did not eat people or anything, control was her drug, CONTROL. The more control she had the happier she was with herself and her life, but for us, the crazier she became (she went hog wild crazy, houses, cars, clothes, jewelry, vacation – ahem….. Girls trips, shore houses – all this made possible by conveniently shoving, against my will I might add – my bro and I off to 8 weeks of sleepover camp). Now all these years later, I’m a Mom, and I just can’t even fathom what she did, why she did what she did, how she acted towards us….. Good Lord, we were so young, still in elementary school! And we needed her more than ever! Yet, some how in her head, it was ok to completely shut your children out, check out pay your bill and leave….. she felt justified in this conscience decision, as if she’d done enough parenting, was finished and now it was her turn to live….. (those were her words, literally, she sat my brother and I down when we were 11 years old, and told us she was done, it was her turn to live now, can you fucking believe that!? seriously!?) See totally crazy! I can’t even! I’m ashamed of her, appalled at her selfish actions, as I would, if that had happened to me, NEVER do that to my son. Just abandon him when he needed me most. It was as if our souls, still so in need, now more than ever, of nurturing love and feeling safe, didn’t exist to her. She was only capable of very minimal parenting, and I mean MINIMAL! Sorry, but, that shit still don’t fly with me…… As you can see I’m still not over it! And I don’t think I will ever forgive her for that. No excuses. You bring a child into this crazy world, the job doesn’t end. Ever. You’re a parent for life! Blessed forever. Whether you child is 9 days, 9 months, 9 years, 19, 29, you get it! There’s no checking out option when your husband passes, life is not a game of Monopoly, there’s no monetary rewards for passing go, or get out of jail free cards, this is your life, these are the choices you made, and by the grace of God, if you are lucky enough to bring a beautiful child or children into this world that is your responsibility for life! FOR LIFE!!! A concept, still to this day, that I don’t think she will ever understand. Kids are not disposable, we do not just up and disappear just because something horrible happened to you, you don’t get a free pass to do whatever the fuck you want! Children are forever…. Don’t you want to do the best possible job to do right by them? Love them with every single ounce of your being? Unconditionally. Find joy in the little things every day? Nurture their hopes and dreams? Make them into strong responsible people so they can go forth into life bursting at the seams with confidence and self esteem the size of the sun and the moon!? Be the soul responsible for that voice in their heads that constantly tells them they can do anything, be anything? UMMMM YES! This is what I do know, sometime’s life’s not fair, but you deal with the hand your delt no matter what. Every. Single. Day. And here’s the cold. hard. truth. At 27 years old, after 2 long ass years of testing I was diagnosed with a horrific auto immune disease, and with all the trials and tribulations I’ve been through, still no matter how shitty I feel, I get up, and with the best possible version of myself, I add a smile and GO! Go forth and nurture the greatness you’ve created, NO MATTER WHAT THE F IS GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE! Essentially, in plain old English, that means putting all your wants and needs (even, at times, your health!) on the back burner to simmer a bit, while you, basically, cultivate GREATNESS! Because bringing that kid into this world is now and will always be your number one priority. And if you can’t handle that lifetime commitment then you most definitely should NOT be a parent!
~Life moves on~
Seasons change, as do people, (I know this from experience, sadly, a story for another day) and here in the Northeast the seasons definitely are a changing….. Fall is pretty and all with all it’s gorgeous color, but then comes winter, rearing it’s ugly head, barren trees, brown lawns, and although, winter snow is beautiful and so pristine and majestic – from inside with a nice roaring fire going lol – Due to climate change these winters we have now are MOST DEFINITELY NOT the winters of my childhood, when winter was almost always snow filled and welcomed, even when you least expected it (dam weathermen are never on point!) snow days, sleigh riding, snow ball fights, and the icing on the cake, pure joy! Now, as an adult it’s all about Noreaster’s, snow in March instead of like on Christmas, when we should be covered in a beautiful blanket of white….. and those teen temps that chill you to the bone! All those layers you need to keep warm, bulky sweaters, boots, hats and gloves, UGH just the thought of it is exhausting! Ah to be young, when that cold didn’t even phase me….. I must admit though, we’ve had a good run… It’s just recently gotten chill to the bone cold….. YET, for me, the root of my soul is cemented in Summer…. Yup, that’s me, Summer girl. The sun on my face, flowers in bloom, surrounded by green, green, green, temps hotter than hell, walks around the lake with the glistening sunshine off the water, tank tops and shorts, and of course the best, our annual August family (I should say Framily, as although this crew is all my son knows to be “family”, reality is that they’re not blood, but for me, for us, this is all we’ve ever known, as my – yes here we go AGAIN, My mother has expertly alienated me from every single one of my blood relatives, ya know, cause she’s such a nice person, NOT!) week in OBX, living in the lap of luxury, in a private beachfront 12 bedroom mansion with 20+ people I love more than life, drinks in hand and the BEST – my toes in the sand! That’s my happy place! In my heart of hearts I’m so over the cold, unfortunately for me though, I’ve still got at least 4 years left of it. Can’t just pick up and move to the sun when my boyo is still in school, and everything he’s ever known is rooted right here in our home town where he grew up, where my husband and I grew up as well….. Where all he knows and loves lives. This, my friends, is a prime example of EXACTLY what a good parent does. We put our needs and wants and loves on the back burner and suck it up, for our kids, no matter what, for their sake, sanity, stability etc. Children thrive on routine, they need something to count on, a constant, if you will, which, in turn, develops a trust, a pattern, something they can depend on. All these small but very SIGNIFICANT, actions and decisions we make when they are young follow them through the rest of their lives. And if you do it right, attending to their needs, and giving them your undivided attention, nurturing their interests and passions will, literally, become the greatest achievement of your life – a smart, self confident, respectful, no fear, kid with self esteem oozing from every pore and the brains and skills to achieve anything they put their mind to. This is a very bittersweet time in my life, watching the fruits of our labor, our baby becoming a man, time just flies so quickly – to quickly! Boy was I naive, I thought he’d be my baby forever, hugs and kisses at every turn, calling to me when he couldn’t do it on his own, I still hear the echoes of Ma, Ma, Ma as well as the pulls of my sleeves toward whatever he needed me to help him discover…… Which he did A LOT! Always curious, always learning. How can he be 14 already!? It feels like just yesterday that I was running interference as he learned to walk, protecting him from bumps and falls, and now I’m patiently waiting on his call (some nights eyes rolling in the back of my head as I wait – one with my couch) to pick him up from parties, friends, rehearsal, school – HIGH SCHOOL!!!! I’m getting more and more freedom every day (so new to me, and navigating as I go, treading lightly as if it’s a temporary thing, I just cannot believe I’m here!) as he sprouts his wings and flies the uncharted course that we all know as high school. Living, learning, doing, seeing, joining, dreaming, all new experiences, navigating, with ease, all new territory. And my baby is crushing it, hit the ground running head first, as with every other single thing he’s done throughout his life, I’m constantly in awe (not to mention, super PROUD) of this most amazing kid, my son.
~Life Lessons Never End!~
I was standing on the deck last night, looking up at the stars, talking to my Daddy in heaven, as I do most nights, paying absolutely no attention to my dog, whom I should’ve been watching…… He’s got a way of finding trouble no matter where it is, ya know how precocious a curious, crazy, high strung dog can be….. Kind of like my mother. She’s the prime example of crazy, and high strung. That’s pretty much been my entire life with her, no matter what I say, do, give, it’s never been good enough. At my age now, I shouldn’t be surprised by this, because, she was never that “mom”, you know the kind, never made me feel like I was important, her love was ALWAYS conditional, I never really knew the true meaning of a mother’s unconditional love until I became one. SO the bulk of my childhood was filled with tears, punishments, threats, if then statements, a longing for normalcy, if you will, with every single thing – no hearts and butterflies and rainbows in my childhood. For some people childhood is the best time of your life. For others, like me, childhood is what we spend the rest of our live trying to get over….. So, essentially, what I learned from her growing up – was how to NEVER parent! The good news is, tho it took me like 40 plus years, I’ve reached that stage in my life where I finally have realized that no matter what I do, say, give, it will never be good enough for the crazy, narcissistic, self centered bitch that is my mother. And that’s ok because now I’m positively sure in my heart that it’s definitely not me, it’s her, as it’s always been. How do I know this!? The proof is in the pudding as they say….. My husband (who has loved me unconditionally for the last 36 years, yes, you heard me right, 36 years together – my high school sweetheart, and every waking moment of it – being unconditionally loved by him) and my son, and the constant Love in our house, our home, our life together. The sun rises and sets on my son. He’s my whole world, from the moment he was conceived and until the day I die, his happiness will ALWAYS come first, He’s the most important thing in my life. No matter what the cost, he’s number one. His needs, loves, wants, desires are my first priority, as they very well should be. And here’s the thing, that’s EXACTLY what my head, my heart, and every living breathing cell in my body tells me is the RIGHT thing, no matter what. Even if that means taking a bullet for him, I wouldn’t even hesitate….. to be his mom is a privilege and an honor, raising him is one of the best jobs in the world, how someone could not treasure that I will never understand!? Because I find joy in it, the good times, and even the bad, there’s always an opportunity to find a blessing in each day when you’re raising a child.
~Parenting~
Becoming a Mom ~
In just about 4 weeks, I am going to know what it truly means to be pushed to my limits and beyond. I am going to understand, on a grand scale, what it’s like to create magic from some of the most intense pain ever experienced by a woman. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to hurt. But I know it’s going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s a miracle and I can hardly wait.
Do you realize how unstoppable we really are? Do you understand what you are capable of? We are amazing creatures. I am simply in awe. We have the power inside all of us (well, most of us) to create life. So don’t ever stop creating the life you want because if we can grow an entire human being inside of us, really, we can do anything.
And this of course goes for your partner as well. We create together. We are all unstoppable. Those that work as a team, even more so, double the power! Quite frankly, it’s simply amazing. We are amazing, all of us. so get off your ass and #liveyourbestlife cause no one truly knows when their time is up. And, YES, I’m gonna say it, live every day as if it were your last, there’s a reason they call it the “present”, because every day you’re on this earth is a GIFT!~The Beginning~
Since I was a little girl I’ve always dreamed of being an amazing mom. That dream was born the day my dad died and my whole world fell apart around me, especially what I needed most at the time, my mother. I was 9, yes, 9!
It was so extremely important to me, for us, to raise our son right, to be the best parents like ever, especially me, I wanted to be the BEST Mom, the COOL Mom, the house that all the kids would want to hang out at. All the things that I never had, all the things that my own childhood lacked, all the things the rest of my friends had, since my childhood was so fucked up. I mean like so seriously FUCKED up.
So, it was with pleasure (and a little bit of happy sadness) to let go of the 12+ years alone together with “no responsibility”, you know, sleeping in when we wanted, all those fun, crazy, nights we stayed up late talking about our hopes and dreams, kissing, cuddling and making love, like we were still newlyweds, with no worries about what the next day would bring. Only being responsible for ourselves.
I look back now, and think, wow, what a crazy action packed ride we’d had. Despite all the obstacles, and the stress that comes with living pay check to pay check, I wouldn’t change a thing. We worked hard, and yet, we were still poor as hell, but blissfully happy. Having no money didn’t matter, cause we’d had the time of our lives, together, building our bond, learning what it truly means to sacrifice one’s happiness for another’s, that’s what marriage is isn’t it?
Still. All these years later, I can still remember our pre-wedding classes where we’d learned from Pastor what the foundation of a happy marriage was, communication, self sacrifice for one another, love unconditionally, forgive. Through it all, I was trying to manage my diagnosis (a very unpredictable auto immune disease), Yay! – NOT! But I sucked it up, cause my sweet’s was still plugging along, working toward making his dream come true and his career was finally starting to take off. And that’s what you’re supposed to do right?, no matter how tough it got, which it did, we never turned on one another. Never.
Now, all these years later, I look back A LOT, I mean like ALL THE TIME, (my therapist reminds me constantly that that is def a problem, whatever, no one is perfect, right!? I can’t help that I’m a very sensitive girl, always was….. not very much self esteem in here…) and still, despite everything, I’m so blissfully happy he’d chosen me to build and share his life with, cause, trust me, there were TONS of girls that wanted him, he could’ve had his pick of the litter, but he picked me, insecure, crazy, fucked up, me.
He’d always, always, made me feel loved. Always. No mater what. He showed me what loving unconditionally really meant, he made me feel like I really was beautiful, inside and out, something that still, to this day, that I struggle with (thanks Mom – sarcasm). This amazingly drop dead handsome boy with the HUGEST heart wanted me!? So at 14 I’d met the man of my dreams, my soul mate and the only person, ever, that made me feel as if I was the luckiest girl in the world.