Thoughts
Reassessing Life
Memories of my childhood are tainted, however; I have worked through a lot of aspects of that life, my life, that have built better relationships with those that I love.
Although I have spoken at times about my hapless relationship with my father as a child as well as an adult, we have since built a stronger relationship and I feel honored to call him my daddy. I owe a lot of our progress to my husband that helped me face those tainted parts of my life and reassess my anger. One of the more complicated emotions that I have had to deal with has a lot to do with a major turn of events when I was only nine. In the mind of a child and not understanding how to deal with the issues at hand, I placed the blame on the one man that was supposed to protect me. Images and nightmares would haunt me in and out of dreams, and still do from time to time as a reminder of why I am the person I have become.
I never told another soul about what happened on that summer afternoon until I was around 15 years old. Six years I endured the knowledge that was only shared by one other. I cannot recall why I chose to tell my mother of that day while we were driving down the road, but I did. Silence fell across the car for a moment. There was no acknowledgment outside of a feeble attempt to find out why I had not said something before. The sympathy I was yearning to hear from my mother never came. The arms that I had hoped would wrap around me never extended nor did a tear fall.
It was not until last year when my father and I went for our birthday dinner and movie, did I know that my mother never told my father what I had told her. So I told him about that part of my life.
Did he jump from his stool at the bar to hold me? No. But the look on the man's face and the fading of color told me he was hurting on the inside. I did not tell him for his sympathy because Jim had already helped me past the point of needing the physical affirmation from those around me. I told him because even though he cannot comprehend what demons I have been fighting, and still continue to fight, I no longer blamed him for not keeping me from harm 31 years ago. Although there was a brief moment to where I wished I could have taken back the words, I knew it was a part of me he needed to know in order to know just how strong his oldest daughter was. It was not as if it was ever questioned, but it was a part of my healing that needed to be done.
Can anything be done now? No. The damage has been done and the fears of anyone hurting my children that way has made me more protective in that aspect over them.
I upset a family member over a year ago because I spoke of my father, in their eyes, in a not so flattering way. What they did not understand, by no fault of their own, is that I was in the midst of a very trying time to both stay focus on the healing and facing my own demons. What they did not understand was that anyone who knows me, truly knows me, knows all of me. They know how my childhood was. They know the mistakes I have made. They know the trials I have had to face all the way up to the present day.
I am still hurt that they chose to speak to me as they did and not approach me and ask me why. I was told I would not speak ill of my father and basically cast off when I asked why they had not talked to me sooner with a "if you thought something was wrong, you could have called". I had always thought we had a close enough bond that they could have talked to me about anything, but I seemed to have been incorrect on that assumption.
I treasure the relationship I have with my father. But to truly appreciate and to share the closeness that we have now, you really have to know about the hard times when I was growing up.
Children are not given life from the mother's womb with a manual in hand. Having children and dealing with some of the harder aspects of life has made me appreciate the lack of knowledge more.
My father, while going after his Master's, took a class that made him realize that he had repeated a cycle from his father before him. And in his own words, "I did not have anyone to teach me how to be a father." My father, although a very strong person, did not have the strength to break past the repetitive actions that most children inherit from their parents when they have children of their own.
I drew strength from my own childhood and had a list of things I was bound and determined to not slide into the easy path of repeating what I felt was "bad parental decisions" made by both my mother and father.
Am I the perfect mother? Oh hell no. I have never, nor will ever claim that title. I do the best I can because my children did not come with a manual either.
Before Bobby was born, I put my foot down to his father that if he ever gave me the choice between him and my children that he would lose every time. Also, to never think that I would allow him to kick any of our children out of the house, their house.
In 2005, Jimmy gave me that choice. In regards to Bobby, his exact words were "It's either him or me." My exact words back were "I'll help you pack." I was not going to have my son go through the torment I had to go through and feel as though both his parents were turning their back on him. So I stood my ground. The next day I started looking at the legal section of UPS' benefit package on divorces. I weighed my option and 5 months later I had what I needed to ask Jimmy for a divorce. That divorce was very bitter and exhausting but I prevailed. It was no longer about that night he wanted my son gone from the house, because he could no longer hurt Bobby as by the time I moved out, Bobby was up in West Virginia with Paul and family. But when Len and I made that trip to rescue my son from a failed relationship, I at least had a home he could come to free from his father's verbal shots.
Later, when Luke decided he no longer wanted to live with his father, again, I had a safe haven for him.
And I will continue to offer my life up to my children, and grandchildren (when the day comes) should the circle come about again.
There are those that may not appreciate my voicing matters that are sore spots in my life, but what most do not comprehend is the fact that if I choose to ignore that which has happened, I might forget enough to make those same mistakes that I have striven so hard to keep at bay.
Life happened. It is a fact. We may not like what has happened to us by others but facing those demons head on, acknowledging they are there and pulling strength to survive past it is a very real part of life and who we end up being.
As stated, I have made my "fair share" of mistakes. But I have admitted to myself they were mistakes and I have corrected (and continually correct) parts of my life to ensure I break the recurrences from happening again. As I told a friend of mine over the phone, it is never too late to realize a mistake. Will it correct that particular situation? Maybe. Maybe not. But acknowledging that it is a part of us that we are not happy with, we always have the opportunity to take a step back, reassess, apologize, and move forward again in hopes to not repeat said fault.
When Jim and I first got together, I found myself acting out of habit. I was in a 20 year groove of auto responses that built from mine and Jimmy's differences. I found myself lashing out at Jim, rather harshly at times. I am still amazed at the strength of his love for me to help me. Would he have stayed with me had I not cooled off and admitted that I was wrong and apologized to the point of telling him that that was not who I wanted to be? The answer to that question is irrelevant. What I know is that I am very much in love with a man that does not see my tears and frustrations as being "a baby" or being weak, as I had been talked down to all those years. Instead, he took me and showed me that I was being human. We call our first year, "The Year of Hell". It was the biggest year of trials on if we were to last as a couple. I was stating my demands on a level I was trained from my previous marriage. "My way or the highway, I am changing for no one." Marriage is about compromise. Have I changed for Jim? No. But I have changed for myself because who I ended up being while I was with Jimmy was not who I wanted to be. So changes came about. Some small. Some I am still working and dealing with.
I am always striving to be the mother that my children come to when they need a shoulder to cry on. I want to be the mother they can talk to about anything. I may not always get the conversations of difficulty in their life as it happens, but I do get them eventually. Bobby and Luke know they can talk to me about anything. I have cried a little inside and out with some of them, but I talk to them nonetheless.
I am still working on Jonathan, but he is only 11 so positive reinforcements are around every corner I can put them in.
Which bring me to the next part of the reassessment of my life.
Jonathan is having difficulties in reading comprehension. To the point that he missed passing the state test reading aptitude by 10 points. The school is working diligently to get him where he needs to be to pass the retake on Thursday. But Jim and I have sat down to discuss what we feel will help get him to the comprehension level needed to make this part of his education a little easier.
We went to McKay's bookstore in Tennessee yesterday and I found a series of books that are illustrated, big fonts as well as classic novels that I think he will enjoy, given his current line of interest in pirates (Treasure Island), vampires (Dracula) as well as other titles of interest at a level he can understand. Will it be his level he needs? I am uncertain, but I feel it is a level that he needs to start at to regain interest in reading again. This said, Jim and I have both devised "a plan". I am going to take an hour out of every day to just sit with him and let him read to me. Jim, god how I love this man, is going to grab the Harry Potter books and read to him to a point to get him "hooked" on the cliff hangers. Jim will (slowly at first) make excuses, such as "my eyes hurt" or "I have a small headache" and express his interest in finding out what happens next and ask him if he would mind reading "the next chapter" to him out loud. We are also going to take time to grab a book we've been wanting to read ourselves and read more around him. This "do as I say and not as I do" has never worked and certainly won't when it comes to my son's education.
So. If we seem to have less time to spend with friends and family, I hope you will understand that my children have always come before anything or anyone else, including myself.
I want to teach him that part of being a good parent is sacrifice. I cannot count the times that I have put my own needs to the side for my children. Comments such as, "Oh no, baby, I am stuffed, please have that last piece of chicken." when we did not have a lot of money on food. A few well placed, "There is nothing wrong with my pants, I just got them broken in good. But you have to have new pants because you are still growing". Until they have children of their own, I don't know that they can truly appreciate why I was content to give them $20 to go to the movies with their friends while I sat at home and caught another rerun of Grease or Romancing the Stone. But that's okay. It is a parent's responsibility to ensure unconditional love and protection for their children, as well as the continual affirmations that "you can do this, I have faith in you" regardless their path in life.
I spoke to Bobby this morning and talked to him about the choices he is looking at. Regardless of which path he chooses, he will always have my support for just because you may not agree with someone's path in life (be it career choices, religious choices, relationship choices, etc.) I feel a parent has an obligation to respect their child's decision and support them the best way they know how.
*shrug*
I love my children. All four of them. I love my family, extended family and friends. I am always here and my shoulder is strong.
I am "momma bear".
Peace Out
Spitty
Memories of my childhood are tainted, however; I have worked through a lot of aspects of that life, my life, that have built better relationships with those that I love.
Although I have spoken at times about my hapless relationship with my father as a child as well as an adult, we have since built a stronger relationship and I feel honored to call him my daddy. I owe a lot of our progress to my husband that helped me face those tainted parts of my life and reassess my anger. One of the more complicated emotions that I have had to deal with has a lot to do with a major turn of events when I was only nine. In the mind of a child and not understanding how to deal with the issues at hand, I placed the blame on the one man that was supposed to protect me. Images and nightmares would haunt me in and out of dreams, and still do from time to time as a reminder of why I am the person I have become.
I never told another soul about what happened on that summer afternoon until I was around 15 years old. Six years I endured the knowledge that was only shared by one other. I cannot recall why I chose to tell my mother of that day while we were driving down the road, but I did. Silence fell across the car for a moment. There was no acknowledgment outside of a feeble attempt to find out why I had not said something before. The sympathy I was yearning to hear from my mother never came. The arms that I had hoped would wrap around me never extended nor did a tear fall.
It was not until last year when my father and I went for our birthday dinner and movie, did I know that my mother never told my father what I had told her. So I told him about that part of my life.
Did he jump from his stool at the bar to hold me? No. But the look on the man's face and the fading of color told me he was hurting on the inside. I did not tell him for his sympathy because Jim had already helped me past the point of needing the physical affirmation from those around me. I told him because even though he cannot comprehend what demons I have been fighting, and still continue to fight, I no longer blamed him for not keeping me from harm 31 years ago. Although there was a brief moment to where I wished I could have taken back the words, I knew it was a part of me he needed to know in order to know just how strong his oldest daughter was. It was not as if it was ever questioned, but it was a part of my healing that needed to be done.
Can anything be done now? No. The damage has been done and the fears of anyone hurting my children that way has made me more protective in that aspect over them.
I upset a family member over a year ago because I spoke of my father, in their eyes, in a not so flattering way. What they did not understand, by no fault of their own, is that I was in the midst of a very trying time to both stay focus on the healing and facing my own demons. What they did not understand was that anyone who knows me, truly knows me, knows all of me. They know how my childhood was. They know the mistakes I have made. They know the trials I have had to face all the way up to the present day.
I am still hurt that they chose to speak to me as they did and not approach me and ask me why. I was told I would not speak ill of my father and basically cast off when I asked why they had not talked to me sooner with a "if you thought something was wrong, you could have called". I had always thought we had a close enough bond that they could have talked to me about anything, but I seemed to have been incorrect on that assumption.
I treasure the relationship I have with my father. But to truly appreciate and to share the closeness that we have now, you really have to know about the hard times when I was growing up.
Children are not given life from the mother's womb with a manual in hand. Having children and dealing with some of the harder aspects of life has made me appreciate the lack of knowledge more.
My father, while going after his Master's, took a class that made him realize that he had repeated a cycle from his father before him. And in his own words, "I did not have anyone to teach me how to be a father." My father, although a very strong person, did not have the strength to break past the repetitive actions that most children inherit from their parents when they have children of their own.
I drew strength from my own childhood and had a list of things I was bound and determined to not slide into the easy path of repeating what I felt was "bad parental decisions" made by both my mother and father.
Am I the perfect mother? Oh hell no. I have never, nor will ever claim that title. I do the best I can because my children did not come with a manual either.
Before Bobby was born, I put my foot down to his father that if he ever gave me the choice between him and my children that he would lose every time. Also, to never think that I would allow him to kick any of our children out of the house, their house.
In 2005, Jimmy gave me that choice. In regards to Bobby, his exact words were "It's either him or me." My exact words back were "I'll help you pack." I was not going to have my son go through the torment I had to go through and feel as though both his parents were turning their back on him. So I stood my ground. The next day I started looking at the legal section of UPS' benefit package on divorces. I weighed my option and 5 months later I had what I needed to ask Jimmy for a divorce. That divorce was very bitter and exhausting but I prevailed. It was no longer about that night he wanted my son gone from the house, because he could no longer hurt Bobby as by the time I moved out, Bobby was up in West Virginia with Paul and family. But when Len and I made that trip to rescue my son from a failed relationship, I at least had a home he could come to free from his father's verbal shots.
Later, when Luke decided he no longer wanted to live with his father, again, I had a safe haven for him.
And I will continue to offer my life up to my children, and grandchildren (when the day comes) should the circle come about again.
There are those that may not appreciate my voicing matters that are sore spots in my life, but what most do not comprehend is the fact that if I choose to ignore that which has happened, I might forget enough to make those same mistakes that I have striven so hard to keep at bay.
Life happened. It is a fact. We may not like what has happened to us by others but facing those demons head on, acknowledging they are there and pulling strength to survive past it is a very real part of life and who we end up being.
As stated, I have made my "fair share" of mistakes. But I have admitted to myself they were mistakes and I have corrected (and continually correct) parts of my life to ensure I break the recurrences from happening again. As I told a friend of mine over the phone, it is never too late to realize a mistake. Will it correct that particular situation? Maybe. Maybe not. But acknowledging that it is a part of us that we are not happy with, we always have the opportunity to take a step back, reassess, apologize, and move forward again in hopes to not repeat said fault.
When Jim and I first got together, I found myself acting out of habit. I was in a 20 year groove of auto responses that built from mine and Jimmy's differences. I found myself lashing out at Jim, rather harshly at times. I am still amazed at the strength of his love for me to help me. Would he have stayed with me had I not cooled off and admitted that I was wrong and apologized to the point of telling him that that was not who I wanted to be? The answer to that question is irrelevant. What I know is that I am very much in love with a man that does not see my tears and frustrations as being "a baby" or being weak, as I had been talked down to all those years. Instead, he took me and showed me that I was being human. We call our first year, "The Year of Hell". It was the biggest year of trials on if we were to last as a couple. I was stating my demands on a level I was trained from my previous marriage. "My way or the highway, I am changing for no one." Marriage is about compromise. Have I changed for Jim? No. But I have changed for myself because who I ended up being while I was with Jimmy was not who I wanted to be. So changes came about. Some small. Some I am still working and dealing with.
I am always striving to be the mother that my children come to when they need a shoulder to cry on. I want to be the mother they can talk to about anything. I may not always get the conversations of difficulty in their life as it happens, but I do get them eventually. Bobby and Luke know they can talk to me about anything. I have cried a little inside and out with some of them, but I talk to them nonetheless.
I am still working on Jonathan, but he is only 11 so positive reinforcements are around every corner I can put them in.
Which bring me to the next part of the reassessment of my life.
Jonathan is having difficulties in reading comprehension. To the point that he missed passing the state test reading aptitude by 10 points. The school is working diligently to get him where he needs to be to pass the retake on Thursday. But Jim and I have sat down to discuss what we feel will help get him to the comprehension level needed to make this part of his education a little easier.
We went to McKay's bookstore in Tennessee yesterday and I found a series of books that are illustrated, big fonts as well as classic novels that I think he will enjoy, given his current line of interest in pirates (Treasure Island), vampires (Dracula) as well as other titles of interest at a level he can understand. Will it be his level he needs? I am uncertain, but I feel it is a level that he needs to start at to regain interest in reading again. This said, Jim and I have both devised "a plan". I am going to take an hour out of every day to just sit with him and let him read to me. Jim, god how I love this man, is going to grab the Harry Potter books and read to him to a point to get him "hooked" on the cliff hangers. Jim will (slowly at first) make excuses, such as "my eyes hurt" or "I have a small headache" and express his interest in finding out what happens next and ask him if he would mind reading "the next chapter" to him out loud. We are also going to take time to grab a book we've been wanting to read ourselves and read more around him. This "do as I say and not as I do" has never worked and certainly won't when it comes to my son's education.
So. If we seem to have less time to spend with friends and family, I hope you will understand that my children have always come before anything or anyone else, including myself.
I want to teach him that part of being a good parent is sacrifice. I cannot count the times that I have put my own needs to the side for my children. Comments such as, "Oh no, baby, I am stuffed, please have that last piece of chicken." when we did not have a lot of money on food. A few well placed, "There is nothing wrong with my pants, I just got them broken in good. But you have to have new pants because you are still growing". Until they have children of their own, I don't know that they can truly appreciate why I was content to give them $20 to go to the movies with their friends while I sat at home and caught another rerun of Grease or Romancing the Stone. But that's okay. It is a parent's responsibility to ensure unconditional love and protection for their children, as well as the continual affirmations that "you can do this, I have faith in you" regardless their path in life.
I spoke to Bobby this morning and talked to him about the choices he is looking at. Regardless of which path he chooses, he will always have my support for just because you may not agree with someone's path in life (be it career choices, religious choices, relationship choices, etc.) I feel a parent has an obligation to respect their child's decision and support them the best way they know how.
*shrug*
I love my children. All four of them. I love my family, extended family and friends. I am always here and my shoulder is strong.
I am "momma bear".
Peace Out
Spitty