More things I can't say

So I hope you know I don't ever mean to hurt you or offend you or any of that happy horse shit, but I really, really hope that things change. We have all tip toed around your drinking for years, "our dirty little family secret" and I'm really tired of it. I don't want to drag out all the old hurts because I don't think any of that is constructive. But I think you need to know that expecting to overcome a problem this big and this solidly entrenched on your own is unrealistic. You can keep trying to hide it, but we all know, and that's dumb. You have a great support system, you have a lot of family that cares and would do anything to help you get better. I know that you are old school, and I know that you live in some world where a "man has to be a man" or some other crazy thing, but really? LIFE IS HARD. We get that. Life is harder when you are incapacitated. It's also much harder when you try to "do it alone."

What I'm trying to say is - I DON'T SAY ANY OF THIS TO HURT YOU - merely to illustrate the point that I understand more than you think I do, and I know more than you think I do, because I've lived with all kinds of addicts, I have strong tendencies towards it myself, and I'm addicted to addicts. I am what they call co-dependent. Which means I like to fix people. I like them to need me, and then get mad when they do. It's twisted. But here's the thing. I grew up believing that if you truly loved me you wouldn't drink. Because I hated it, and it scared me, and I really really thought that you must know how much I hated it, and you just didn't love me enough to not do it. I've since learned that it doesn't have a damn thing to do with me. It took me lots and lots of counseling to learn and believe that it's not my fault that you drink, and that it is your problem, not mine. And that I can't fix it. I can't make it better for you, I can't make you stop. I know that now, that these are your demons. But it took me a long time to learn that.

I also know what it's like to feel hopeless, and unloved, and unwanted, and unworthy. Those feelings are so ingrained in my psyche that I fight them every day. Every fucking day, I paste a smile on my face and go through a list of people that care about me and would be sad if I were gone. Every fucking day. So, dude, feel sorry for yourself, but you are not alone. Have your pity party, because sometime that's what you have to do, and then put on your big boy shorts and get on with it. You are not the only one with black in your head. You aren't the only one with demons. Yes, I know you've killed people - but they were bad people, and probably needed killin'. At least you have that. Still, you should talk to someone about that. Me? I killed my baby. You think that's not fucking hard to live with? Especially now? Now that I know what it is to hold my little girl, and what a miracle she truly is. You don't think I've dealt with some shit because I chose, chose to kill my child before he ever had a chance to be? So, ya, my demons aren't the same as yours - but they surely aren't less. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder how different my life would have been had I chosen differently, but I did what I did, and I had to learn to forgive myself, and to know that I made the best choices I could with what I had at the time. My point is, you are not the only one with pain and darkness, I'm just better at faking it than you are.

I figure I am a pretty even combination of you and Mom, with some extra compassion and reason thrown in to make me super cool. So I get how for people like us, we feel things more, and deeper, than others. And I get that sometimes it's easier to medicate those feeling away, be it with alcohol, food, xanax (yay! xanax!) or with unhealthy turbulent relationships. Hmm, let's see, who's had those? Oh, ya - me!! Every single guy I've dated, married, or lived with (with the great and fabulous exception of Jaime) has been either an alcoholic, a drug addict, or a depressed zombie. But I just love the ups and downs, that's how I get my fix. So, ya, I get it.

I just need you to know, that I would be overjoyed, deliriously happy and so proud if you decide that you are done being drunk and are ready to get some help. And I don't mean you are just gonna stop drinking. Cause that ain't gonna cut it. You need to see a counselor, go to AA, find rehab, something, whatever, but don't try to do it alone. Because it's hard, it's unbearably hard to change they way you think and act. I have been depressed for so long that it's comfortable and familiar to me, it's the only way I know how to be. Being happy is fucking hard. My days now are more better than not. And I know when I start to slide that I can reach out and someone will catch me. I know that if I don't reach, I'll spend a few days, or weeks, or maybe months in the dark, but I know now that no matter how long it's dark, I can get back to the light. I can get back to the happy. It's better now, I have Jaime, who is amazingly supportive, and I have Grace, and well -she just has to smile and it reaches into all the dark corners of my soul and brightens them up.

So here's the thing. Be ashamed. Be ashamed that you fucked up. Be ashamed that you made that choice. And then choose to get some help and get better. Reach out, there are lots of hands here that will help you up. NO ONE expects you to do it alone. NO ONE. And then learn to forgive yourself, because everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes can be forgiven, but continuing to drink at this point, I don't know how much more forgiving any of us have left for that behavior.

Wow, I am so good at lecturing, I'm gonna be a rock star Mom. Really, I know I'm your kid, and maybe you don't see me as an adult, but many people ask my advice and think I'm wise beyond my years. Cause I'm cool like that. Actually, years of studying people, relationships, and teaching have taught me a lot.

I hope that you choose life, and I hope you choose sobriety. It's the harder choice, but it's worth it. We're all here! Crazy bunch, but this is what you have. Not a bad group, and entertaining maybe. I want Grace to know her Grandpa, Jaime's Dad is already gone, so you are all she has. No pressure. ;) I want her to have those anchors in her life, to know that she can go to the men in her world and count on them to bail her out. You can't be that guy if you are drunk. Because you have to know that I won't let her be anywhere near you if you are drinking. I shouldn't have to tell you, you know that right? You know that you can get mean when you are drunk, and there is no way in hell she will ever be around that. You think I lost my fucking crackers over the dog and the couches at WalMart all those years ago? That is nothing.

The way you want to take her fishing, hunting, and tell her stories? Be that cool ass Grandpa like in the story books? That will not happen unless you stop drinking and get help. I simply will not let her be with alone with you until I can trust that you aren't going to drink around her. I won't have her exposed to that. I want you to be her friend and one of her heros (I am her ultimate superhero), hell, I want you to be my friend - but I refuse to let her be anywhere near you when you drink. It is my job as her mother to keep her safe, and I take that job very seriously.

So that's my piece. It's a long piece, but there it is. I can't make you stop drinking. I can't make you do anything. All I can offer is support and compassion if you choose to get better.

I love you, for what it's worth, and I hope I didn't piss you off too much. Or if I did, I guess you'll get over it.

Of choices

I started to  write this in response to this post, and realized that it was one hell of a comment and perhaps I should just post it on my own blog. Hey, if you're gonna have dirty secrets......

I had an abortion 11 years ago. I was married, too young, and my husband said to me "If you have this baby, it will ruin my life." I ruined his life anyway, because I couldn't stand to look at him after the fact and left him a year later. I tried, oh, I tried to "do the right thing" and stay with him, and stay married. But I'm not sure I ever loved him, and I certainly didn't even like him after we killed our child. The thing that hurt me the most? I never saw him cry. I don't believe he did. It was nothing but an expensive inconvenience to him.

I hadn't told my family or friends I was pregnant, I didn't tell them about the baby until after I left the husband. When no one could understand why I left, why I was scared, and why I had gotten so cold. I only told one person, someone who was 500 miles away, but I trusted him with my secret. He supported me, supported my decision, and checked on me for months to make sure I was ok. I will be forever grateful to him for that. For being the one person I could trust with my hell while I was standing in the middle of it.

I cried every day for almost two years, the pregnancy had been an accident, but tentatively wanted by me. Not so by him. I was too young to fight him, and didn't have the support I needed. My family was in shambles, my father drunk and the husband's mother crazy. Knowing what I know now, I did the best I could, and am glad I did. I will always grieve that loss, but it shaped so much of who I am that I think I am grateful for that, too. That *choice* was made, if you can believe, out of love for that child. There is no way that man was a suitable or safe father. I was in no way, shape or form ready or capable of caring for another human. I truly feel that I saved that baby from a miserable, dangerous life. No, adoption was not an option for me. The family would not have understood, there was so much ugly going on then. I just couldn't have done it. I wasn't strong enough.

Now, 11 years later, I still wonder who he might have been (that baby will always be a "he" in my heart.) Years of counseling, and giving myself room to truly grieve for what I lost, what he lost, helped. Being in a solid and secure marriage also helped. As I now hold my 6 month old baby girl, I am grateful that I made the choice I did. I couldn't have done it then. I just simply couldn't have done it. I gave that baby the best I could by choosing not to bring him into the world. Because of him, I give her more of me now. I treasure her every breath, even the ones she takes while screaming her lungs out at 3 am. Because she is there to scream. Because she is wanted and so very loved, by both her parents, and so many other people. She has the best we can give, and that, for me, is the only way.

It isn't an easy choice, how could it be? I surely never thought I'd be "that girl." But I was, am, and will always be someone who "chose." I don't regret that decision, but I'll always mourn that loss. It makes me hang on tighter to her now, and be ever so much more grateful for the gift of her. I will always support the right to make that choice, because every story is different, unique, and intensely personal.

Since the first time I saw those pink lines, all those years ago, I have always been somebody's Mom. As a Mother, you do the best you can with what you have, sometimes it's good, sometimes not so much.

I made that choice, and whether or not you believe it was the right thing, it was the best thing, the only thing for me at the time. Rest easy, little man, Mommy still loves you.

Wind chimes and other things I hate

So, I have a blog. A good blog. One that lots of people read and get enjoyment out of. I used to love to write in my blog, my little window of how I was really feeling. But here's the thing, my family, friends, and clients all read that blog. 

Which makes it very hard to really say what I feel and sometimes, vent. Because they will read it, and that is no good. I'm really just a regular chic, nothing fancy or special going on here. I've done some stuff, and I've seen some things, but nothing too out of the ordinary. But it'd be nice to have a place to put all the crazy, where someone could see it, but not the someone's who look at me every day. Cause then they'd know. Know that I probably really don't like them. That I'm faking it. 

Yes, I hate wind chimes. They freak me the fuck out. Also, I hate people who can't flush in public restrooms - I mean really, how hard is it? Clowns - could definitely do without clowns. Does anyone really like clowns? I didn't think so. Also, I hate stupid fuckers who let their dogs run loose. I don't care how well trained you *think* your dog is, it's not. Even if your dog is a superstar, is it so damn hard to put a little rope on it? So that people like me don't have to recoil in fear? Is it so hard? Really? Also, I'm pretty sure I hate Rush Limbaugh. So there. I don't hate much, because it takes a lot of effort, and mostly I just simply don't care.  I usually just dislike something, then proceed to ignore it forevermore.