Looking At Old Photos Is Like Sticking A Needle In My Eye

My kid is doing a collage representing himself, and he needs some pictures.  This morning I have been scrolling through recent and not-so-recent family photos.  It feels like I'm sticking a needle in my eye.

The pictures of my married life stir up anger and anguish....angrish, as I like to call it, and I'm fighting the urge to blanket my sadness with busyness and business, and I'm wondering why haven't I replenished my chocolate stash lately?


I still have a lot of pain when I look at the pictures of my married years.  Grief and mourning still surround past events and pictures and memories.

It's like the pictures are all up on the surface of a lake, where people are smiling and posing and traveling and being born and growing up, and under the water is a dark current of deceit and sadness and uncertainty.

The worst part is that during all these seemingly happy times, I was struggling emotionally, and I didn't know why.  I didn't know why my husband was working late or why he had insomnia or back pain or depression or the checked-out disease.  I didn't know why it was a burden for him to be with his kids or talk to me.  How was I so blind to my own life, I wonder?

I believed 100% that what was happening was what.was.happening. Days like today I still grieve that loss; the loss of trust and security in my husband and in my life.

Although my husband and my life are much improved with recovery, I have a residual fear that I really don't know what is going on in my marriage and my life.  While my fear unsettles me, that fear also brings me consistently to God.

In my humility, my insecurity, my mistrust of others and situations, that is where I meet God, or that's where He meets me.  Either way.  He gives me stamina, sometimes through a feeling, or a friend or a book:  I can live today, even if I don't have all the answers.  All the answers are not mine to have.  In those old pictures, when I didn't even have the questions to the answers, He knew me and was working in my life.

Could it be a blessing that I didn't know my husband was a sex addict all those years, when he probably wouldn't have been humble enough to seek recovery?  Was I spared years of heartbreak as he tried over and over again to quit?   Did not knowing help me hold things together, albeit haphazardly, until my husband could pull his weight?  Could my blindness have been for my own good?

"Squiddy Ink"

Lately I've been somewhat clenched and anxious, what with school starting and all.  I've been aimlessly picking at my face and staring into space a lot.

Change makes me nervous.  Guess why?  Because change is new and it hasn't happened yet, therefore, I can't KNOW how things will turn out, and at times I have such little faith in God.

Why do I want to orchestrate the lives of the people I love?  As if.....as if I actually knew what was best for this brood of independent souls living with me.

I loved this Anne Lamott quote on wanting to have control of other people and other stuff. [From the book "Help, Thanks, Wow]

"When we think we can do it all ourselves -- fix, save, buy, or date a nice solution -- it's hopeless.  We're going to screw things up.  We're going to get our tentacles wrapped around things and squirt our squiddy ink all over, so that there is even less visibility, and then we're going to squeeze the very life out of everything."

Wildflower, will you please get your "squiddy ink" out of here?  


Sometimes I write my prayers.... Please God, help me let go and trust You with my life and my people.  Can it be that simple?

A Pleasure Working With My Son?

Last week I visited my son #1, who has been working as a camp counselor all summer.  His hair was long enough to French braid, and he had a disgusting condition called, "trench foot", an apparent job hazard of camp counseling.  Despite that, a cloud of pride and love and emotion and heartbreak welled up inside me when I saw him.

I'm ashamed to say that I employed pushy mom tactics last fall to get him to apply for the job, but I felt in my heart that God was sanctioning this experience. That it would be better than anything else he could do this summer.   And it was.  He learned a lot about a lot of things, most of them essential to his future success, but too boring to mention here.

I had a shock when I met his supervisor.  She said, "It's been a pleasure working with your son."

"WHAT? It has?"  (I seriously said this.)

When I met the director later, he gushed, "He has done a phenomenal job up here this summer.  We would love to have him back next year."

To be clear, he does not want to go back, but I liked those words of praise so much, I recorded them in my brain and hit the repeat button.

It's just that I haven't heard or been able to see very many positive things about #1 in the last few years.
I realized he is progressing in many areas.  I lose sight of the person he is, because his addiction is such a monster.  It's hard for me to see around it.

He also loses sight of the person he is.  This summer job magnified all the good he has inside him.  And this kid has a lot of good inside him!  I pray that God will help keep my eyes open to his goodness.

I drove home several hours by myself in the dark, dodging deer in the headlights, and munching peanut M & M's.  I shed some tears as I thought about my son: how much I love him and how little I understand him.

I watched "A River Runs Through It" a few days ago.   In the movie there's a son that everyone loves, but no one understands.  This line stuck out to me, "We can love completely, without complete understanding."

I don't know how to do this.  Any thoughts?

My Neighbor Is A Different Species

Does anyone live next door to someone who is organized, clean, calm, matter-of-fact, non-chaotic and stable?

I do, and when I observe how Justine lives, I feel like a different species.  It's like she is living in air and I am living in water and never the twain shall meet.


School starts pretty soon around here, and tonight I worked hard to get the offspring settled down and into bed earlier than regular summer bedtime.  It didn't work at all, for reasons such as, everyone had to eat three bowls of cereal as soon as bedtime was announced.  I was begged to read books and tell stories about me as a kid, and scratch heads and do treasure hunts on backs.  I didn't do all of these stall tactics, of course, but it wasn't quick.

In contrast, Justine told me a few days ago that for the past few weeks she has been putting her kids (some in middle school!) to bed three minutes earlier every night, so they will be adjusted when school starts.

She said it like it was the easiest thing she had ever done.  See what I mean?  I am a different species, and so are my children.  My kids would have staged a full-fledged mutiny.

I can't even say that her life is simple: she has a difficult special needs son, but boy, does she make it look easy!  She handles him with such tenderness and love it is heart-warming.

Anyway, I realize that Justine and I are each unique and we have different strengths and capacities. Regardless of species, we are both moms and friends doing the best can with what we know.

Little People To Be Unfolded

School shopping with my 12 yr. old today.  He picked out two pairs of fluorescent athletic shoes (one chartreuse), two pairs of bb shorts (one was fluorescent orange) , and four t-shirts (2 were fluorescent green).  Exactly one-half of the purchased items were fluorescent.

His color choices tell a lot about his personality. Half the time he is jostling for my attention.  He is loud.  He is in my face.  He is annoying and teasing and fluorescent in personality.  He's hilarious and infuriating.  He's the child that spit on the cookie dough in this post.

The other half of the time, he wants to blend in with the carpet.  Maybe he wants to be the carpet, so he could just be.  If he were the carpet, he wouldn't have to acknowledge the existence of other humans living in the same house, and he wouldn't have to respond to unwanted requests like, "Will you please take a shower?"

I remember a quote that a friend growing up had posted on her kitchen wall.  "Children are not creatures to be molded, but little people to be unfolded."  


Here's to you, kid, may I love whatever You unfolds.

I Sortof Got In A Fight With A Stranger At The Park

The men in this photo are much younger than the men in this story.

Now that my blood pressure has returned to normal range, I am reporting that I SORTOF GOT IN A

FIGHT WITH A MAN AT THE TENNIS COURT TONIGHT!

I was at the end of the court with my 9-yr old innocently picking up tennis balls, when we noticed through the chain-link, about ten feet away, a group of decent-looking adults screaming at each other.

My son looked at me wide-eyed and we both smirked at each other like, "Oh, wow!  A fight?!"

From what we could gather, an older couple with two dogs had asked Peter (I learned his name later), a man with one dog, to please walk his dog in the other direction, because one of their dogs wanted to play with his dog.

It sounds benign, right?


Apparently, Peter didn't want to walk his dog in the other direction.  It was his firm position that, "YOU SHOULDN'T BE OUT WITH A DOG YOU CAN'T CONTROL!"

That comment appeared to smack the couple in a vulnerable place and they lashed back with a string of profanity.  It escalated from there into a tennis match of heavy cussing.  I put my hands over my son's ears, then he tried to plug his own ears, then we both gave up, hoping it had blown over.

But, they kept yelling and swearing, and we had front row seats.  After several minutes had passed, and wow, A LOT of bad words can be packed into several minutes, I said weakly, "Hey, there are kids in the vicinity!"


They didn't even glance in our direction.  However, the couple started to walk away,  and I breathed a sigh of relief that it was over.

Just then, the woman flipped around and advised Peter on where to go and what to do when he got there.  Peter shot back a scathing personal insult, that would burn my fingers if I tried to type it.

The insult to his wife caused the man to turn and challenge Peter to a fight.  Peter accepted with a lot of fierce, "COME ON! COME ONS", and he began to tie his dog to a tree to free up his hands.

The woman was now hollering at the top of her lungs, "He's not worth it, honey.  Look at him, he's an old, fat, bald blankety-blank."

Really?  They were going to duke it out right there?  These two old men were getting ready to beat the crap out of each other on this beautiful summer evening?

And then, without even thinking,  I jumped into the fray.  I walked right up to my side of the chain-link and screamed, "SHUT. UP!!!!!!!!!!

And they actually did shut up.  For a few seconds.  The couple turned and left, but Peter charged over to me, "Ma'am, ma'am, I want you to know that if someone is going to be aggressive against me that I will do what I need to to protect myself."

I pointed to my kid as I said, "I don't like the "freakin'" language." (I'm not proud I used the word freakin, but there it is, my friends)  My kid is hearing this whole thing!"

He proceeded to yell at me about how not one cuss word had come out of his mouth.  That he hadn't sworn once, and had I noticed that?  Huh, had I noticed that?

Actually, I had not.  Upon further reflection, I think he may have been correct, but he certainly wasn't right.  If the swearing had indeed come from the others, then he had been just as mean and insulting with non-swear words.  In fact, if I were to crown a winner of meanness in the exchange, it would be him.

He continued to hound me through the chain-link about his innocence, and how PEOPLE SHOULDN'T BE OUT WITH A DOG THEY CAN'T CONTROL!!"

How 'bout you, buddy?  YOU SHOULDN'T BE OUT WITH A MOUTH YOU CAN'T CONTROL!  (I thought of this retort later, of course.)




Anyway, was I being courageous and asking for what I need?

Was I establishing a boundary of what I would not listen to in a public place with my kid?

Or was I just another person who shouldn't be out with a mouth she can't control?







P.S.  I did apologize for my outburst five minutes later, and that's how I learned his name is Peter.  He shrugged it off, but said I owed him a beer.  What?  I'm confused.  Was it codependent to apologize?  I feel messed up tonight.