Releasing my grip on angst.

I’m telling you, I should have hibernated for the entire month of June!

Hubs and his ex-wife still own a home together in TN. It’s been vacant and listed for sale on the market since the beginning of February. We’d been led to believe the reason it wasn’t selling was due to the fault of an unmotivated realtor, but we decided to see for ourselves. At a 6.5 hour trip each direction, we are relatively close by.

A new friend here in AL had recommended a realtor who sold her home in TN, and I made contact with him early last week. He was quick to respond, and I appreciated his candid and honest feedback on the condition of the home. It was not good. Emphasis on the NOT GOOD. He rattled off a list of 20+ things wrong, and strongly recommended that we make the trip to see for ourselves. I had low expectations, but what we were met with upon arrival was infuriating.

Discarded furniture on the side of the house (visible from the street). Backyard looked like the house was still lived in… kids toys, dog toys, camping chairs, TONS of wadded up chicken wire, makeshift ashtray/ terracotta pot nearly overflowing with cigarette butts, old crumbling sheetrock, an extension cord totally embedded into the overgrown grass, and worst of all – the ceramic crockpot insert, still rancid with remnants of the meal cooked over 4 months ago, left to rot on the porch (?!) –  AND THIS IS JUST WHAT COMES TO MIND FROM THE YARD!

I have to say, if it weren’t for my love for my husband and stubborn awareness that this job absolutely needed to get done right away, I would have thrown my hands up and walked away. It was infuriating. So many metaphors here for how I was literally cleaning up his ex-wife’s messes.

We cleaned through Monday morning. In 3 days time, you wouldn’t have recognized the house it was before. We could have stayed and worked for another week, easily. You can’t imagine how excruciating the conditions were, either. The house has no power and no running water. We had to haul in our own buckets of water to clean with. Hold it if we needed to use the bathroom…only made one potty run all weekend, if that helps paint a picture of the heat/dehydration ratio. We took two large truckloads to the dump. Seriously, who leaves behind two truckloads of stuff when moving, let alone trying to sell the house you’re vacating? Painted a whole room, washed every wall, wiped down every surface and cupboard… all in Tennessee summer heat with no AC!

On top of that, I started feeling very sick on Saturday by mid-afternoon. My throat was killing me! I desperately wanted for it to be allergies, but just knew that it wasn’t. I worked through it, but it was not easy. I felt like CRAP. I’m still fighting off this nasty cold; it’s migrated south to my lungs now. Nursing a bottle of Robitussin as I type this. Blegh.

I honestly can’t believe that my blog has already become the place where I bitch about vent all of my frustrations! To anyone who reads this, I promise, I’m a really lovely and joyful person. I believe I just married myself into a rather enmeshed and backward family (though the man himself is a delight). This frustration, like all things, is temporary. The family dynamic will become easier to navigate as I get to know the playing field. I will have to learn where it’s appropriate for me to set a hard boundary, and where to bend. I pray I can learn where to bend!

I’ve felt so angry and screwed up since my grandfather’s funeral. I think that must have been the trigger that set me off, and I’ve been on a tear ever since. I want to return to my loving and compassionate self. I don’t want my husband’s relationship with his ex-wife and family to be strained because I’m so vocal about how intrusive and abnormal their dynamics are. I want to be open to all of it – but there are some things that I just don’t know how to accept. His kids are now my kids, and my concern for their well being comes before everything else. To know that the home they were living in was left like that, I can really only imagine what kind of conditions they lived in.  And now they’re living at his mom’s house? It’s just not normal. I can’t find the line where its appropriate for me to vocalize how absolutely abnormal that is, while also accepting that it’s happening and we have to accept it.

It’s been a hard few weeks. I have to remember that I cannot control the things that happen in life, but I do have complete control over how I react to them. The things about my husband’s family that seem strange and alien to me are normal to them, as hard as that may be to comprehend. I need to remember that it’s my decision how I choose to face each day and each trial. A lot of situations I’m in right now are new, and by definition uncomfortable. New step-parent amidst a family full of opinions and tensions and weird incestuous dynamics, stationed halfway across the planet. Set up to be an outsider. For now.

In time, things will normalize. Young girls will grow into young women, and I can only hope that one day they can look to me and their father with respect. Yes, we’ve made mistakes and we’re going to make a lot more. But we do our best. I want to keep taking the high road, and somehow manage to do so without looking down my nose at the others. Conscious choice! Have mercy.

Shifting perspectives – attempting to make sense of the senseless.

The family drama that followed my last post only compounded in on itself. In fact, it was written before the worst of the two incidents which resulted in chaos, screaming, and childish outbursts. For the first time that I can ever recall, being the one who openly loves everyone feels like the ultimate burden.

On the first few days, I willingly stepped into the role of the mediator. I was ready to help clear the debris out of decades of long ignored lines of communication. I was fair, I was honest, and I stood for no bullshit on any side. It sucked, but it was a level of chaos I was well-equipped to navigate. In truth, every party was professing their desire for the same thing. They all wanted it to be honest and fair. I just had to help them talk to each other. Why couldn’t they all just get along, then?

I want to be truthful without airing my family’s bullshit out in public. God forbid anyone find this and end up throwing resentments and anger at ME in 20 years… But let’s just say that’s what happened. One person drank way too much alcohol and acted in a way a person might when confronted with life’s greatest grief and a shitload of booze. The rest of us were wounded and attempting to 1.) calm the afflicted, and 2.)
stand up for ourselves. It went…poorly.

Thursday morning I woke up with a sense of dread and despair. Unknowing of whether or not this would be the last time I ever got to see my dear family together. These delightful people I so love and often brag about, would these be the memories that turn the pages of my story into inevitable repeats of theirs? Anger and resentment… baggage stuffed within baggage and swept under rug?

The rest of the family arrived on Thursday. What a blessing for them, and for us! Looking back, I wish I had waited. Not tried to do “the right thing” and be there for my mother. Just stayed out of it and made my appearance to show respects and mourn. These well-timed arrivals were a Godsend. Where I wasn’t sure if my aunts and uncles would ever speak to each other again, they were a perfect buffer. They were uninvolved in the drama, and eager to spend quality time with each other. By 3 pm on Thursday we felt like a “normal” family again (weird as we are).

Friday was the funeral, a very rough day. Started off with 3 too many cups of coffee, jitters just on time! I read a beautiful letter that was written by my uncle to my Grandfather more than 20 years ago. It was ripe with symbolism about not wanting him to move [on] and how hard of a time he was having with the unavoidable life change. “Part of growing up.” He also spoke of his sisters, and how very badly he wanted everything to be okay again, as it once was, but how terrible he is with words and expressing himself. He wasn’t sure how to get through to them, but he promised to try harder. That was the end of the letter. I PROMISE TO TRY HARDER!

How much more pertinent does the symbolism get than that? With his permission I read the letter and added a few of my own remarks about how important it’s message was. I started out very shaky with some extended pauses, and am really astounded that I managed to pull it together. Answered prayer and divine intervention, that was. Thank you!

Friday was sad. It was supposed to be sad! The visits and laughing commenced right on schedule, following the service. It was nice.

Saturday, however, I awoke again with a to-the-bone feeling of impending dread. It was one of those days you just felt like you’d be better off never peeking your eyes from beneath the covers. After many hours of doing just that, my logic-brain kicked in and started reasoning as to why I “should” get out of bed. Last day to visit with family before going away… living in a different country and time is limited. Blah blah blah. So I did. Got ready and every breath from that moment forward was off. Shit hit the proverbial fan for the second time somewhere around 9 pm, I believe. Because I was elbow deep in the first shitstorm it wasn’t asked of me to be the one to take it on… it honestly felt that it was expected.

Retrospectively, I’d have liked to have just said “fuck off.” but of course, I didn’t. I assumed the role because no one else was stepping up and shit needed to be taken care of. It’s infuriating to look back on it.

The stress of all of this is many times compounded by the fact that I HAVE NO PHONE WITHOUT WIFI. At my grandparent’s house, this meant my phone didn’t work if I wasn’t in an adjacent room to the router. Elsewhere, it didn’t work at all.

This cannot be emphasized as inconvenient enough. Just imagine not knowing where you are going, but trying to find a very drunk runaway grown-up in an unknown area, in the dark, with no way to contact them or anyone else. Alone. While there are 10+ other capable grown-ups watching you have a meltdown while looking at you indifferently.

It was fucked!

I need to remember to address that stuff with the parties involved when I see them. I don’t want to be carrying this shit around for decades to come. My brother came through for me and helped with the driving meltdown. Lost runaway drunk was located. All wrongs were righted; business was taken care of.

I made it to my temporary “home” in Alabama on Sunday, after a travel day worth a blog entry in and of itself. Who doesn’t love 6 hour journeys turning into 20+?!

Here’s the thing though. None of it matters. It was a long hard week full of old family drama and people being cruel and unkind to each other. I tried to help until I reached my limit. I was not always pleasant. The emotional stress and grief took it’s toll on me. I was short and unkind and very bitchy towards the end. (Did I mention I my RAGING period and hormones arrived after a 51 day absence? AWESOME!)

I was honest about my feelings and I called people on their bullshit. I definitely got some cold shoulders during those last two days. WHO CARES?!

I came home with a new delicious appreciation for my husband and our brand-newly beginning little family. I learned things and reflected on the legacy we might hope to leave to our children. I began wondering about how people might speak of us, and who might be present in the end of our lives.

It renewed my strong conviction about taking care of post-death affairs while you’re still here, no matter the age. Make your desires regarding belongings and estate so perfectly clear there is no room for misinterpretation. Get rid of unnecessary junk! HOLY COW, I can’t emphasize that one enough. I think having to move myself to a different country in the last year really helped me in this regard, but I intend to try to live more simply forever. I have found a new delightful pleasure in throwing things away.

That same concept goes for holding onto emotional “things” too. The weight of carrying around anger and pain is too great. It’s so much easier to just love people for who they are, even if you don’t always like the things they say or do. Just ACCEPT THEM and MOVE ON. You don’t have to like someone to treat them with courtesy and respect.

I need to work on this stuff. If not in my own family, in the one I married into, which is already causing my heart to harden and turn cold. I am sure the repercussions of this (very long) week will last a lot longer than expected. I just hope the lessons end up being positive ones. I know that my family may be broken in a lot of ways. That is not a reflection of my love for them. The picture may not end up looking the way I hoped. It’s okay. These relationships are individual. What you see in one does not have to be a reflection of another.

I have to accept that just because I am a gooey ball of lovestuff, it’s okay if some people don’t like each other. It’s not my job to “fix it” or change their minds.

This whole “healer of wounds, savior of the lost” routine has got to end for me, at some point. It’s not my job to fix people that aren’t broken. They are just people! Complex and stubborn and perfectly lovable, just the way they are.

Thanks for reading. xo

 

 

 

Grief and it’s accompaniments

My grandpa died on Saturday. I got the call during our morning breakfast ritual. Living in Germany, and being in the US so briefly, I’m currently reliant on WiFi to connect with the outside world. My mom’s call came in shoddy…”Hello? Jordan? Can you hear me?” My connection was bad so my .03 second delay in response time didn’t (nor does it ever) cooperate with my mom’s short attention span. “Jordan, MY DAD DIED. HELLO? Can you hear me? GRANDPA’S DEAD.”
I could hear her, but she couldn’t hear me, apparently. The call was dropped within seconds and that was that. Grandpa died.

No appetite anymore, I went straight to the computer to look at flights. There are a lot of small airports near where we are at in Alabama; none with affordable last-minute flights to Phoenix. Still, within 24 hours, I arrived and the “work” began immediately.

My grandma just died in April. We were still in Germany at the time and it killed me to miss being with my family, my favorite people, while they were grieving. Especially my mother. Being in the US, it wasn’t going to happen that way again. Apparently I thought that this [mostly] mentally stable and healthy group of siblings would handle this better. I was WRONG.

What a nightmare! The tension and fighting began within minutes of my uncle arriving – after a 12 hour drive – to see his father’s house in chaos as we were sorting through some 10,000+ pictures and keepsakes my grandmother meticulously kept. From that moment, one wrong sentence, misinterpreted, and the whole week was shot. No reasoning, intense grief, decades of resentment, and alcohol – not the greatest combination for a beloved man’s wake.

I hope I find the time and energy to write more about it later. I’ve been thinking of writing, but too covered in the dust of a 72+ year collection of STUFF. Surrounded by baggage resentment that I never knew existed.

I’m heartbroken and disappointed. I’m sad because my favorite family is straight-up BROKEN. It’s not fair to my future kids, or to my parents, or theirs.

He never wanted this, I’ll tell you that. They’re all giving up but I have to stay strong. I really do believe in our family love. I’m too young to take the matriarch role, but shit… I don’t know if anyone else can bear the weight of the shoes.

Right now, it’s a loose fit, but I’m wearing them.

Then I remember that I’ll be leaving country again soon.

Fear & Parenting: How Home Ec Failed Me.

Hi there, new friends!

Can we just talk about how scary it is to be responsible for the care of other small human beings? Like, how it’s the job of 100% of parents who are very much “winging it” all of the time to make sure that these smaller humans turn into decent people who can care for themselves and not be shitty to the planet and other living things? I am not sure if other parents just lie through their teeth about it, or if it genuinely gets easier with time. I get the feeling that no one truly has any idea what the hell they’re doing when it comes to parenting, so why do we spend so much time and energy judging other parents for the way they do things?

I inherited three girls when Hubs and I got together, and it’s a truly terrifying thing to think about. For one, they’re adolescent girls. Having been an adolescent girl once upon a time (and not a particularly good one), I think I have a better idea of what’s to come than he does… but I digress. *Gillie, Hub’s oldest Daughter (11), is a bit of a hell raiser. Very demanding of [negative] attention and dramatic,. She’s had a rocky relationship with her mother for many years now. She is definitely the quintessential image of “daddy’s little girl.” She’s been dead-set on coming to live with us since we arrived in Germany, and we will be happy to have her. I think.

You see, Gillie has been more than vocal about her vehement hatred towards me. While I have to be honest when I say it hurts me, it also completely envelopes me in rage. Is it right for me to be mad at a young girl who is in the midst of a painful situation and acting out in accordance with her strong feelings? No. I am looking at an irrational/hormonal child and expecting her to behave through the eyes and mind of a calm, collected adult. I’m not reasonable in it – but that’s why I have this blog…So I can RAGE OUT out about my anger and sadness without hurting anyone close to me. I know I am not the only one feeling so lost and alone while attempting to traverse the murky waters of step-parenthood.

I should be better at this step-momming thing than most. I was a product of a broken marriage; a misogynist father, a stubborn and often cold mother, and I was an absolute bullheaded tyrant for a few too many years in my own troubled youth. Karmically, one might say, I have it coming. I also have a whole armory of experiences with which to draw on when it comes to the manipulation, anger, lies, and deceit that a young woman is capable of. You can’t pull one over on my because I did all that shit – and I did it much better.

Here’s the thing though: I don’t know where I fit in yet. I have no idea what to expect of the household relations. I don’t know how I will react when I am angered, or hurt. I know full-well I am not their mother, and I long to be a trusted confidant in the lives of these young people as they grow into old people. I want to like them and genuinely be interested in who they are and who they become, what they are passionate about and what sets them off. What terrifies me most is not the teenage outbursts… it’s not the anger and cruelty that can come from a girl whose body and worldview is changing faster with each breath. What I fear most is that I may not learn to love who these people are.

That truth makes me feel like a monster.

Logically, I understand that these girls have experienced a huge pain and turmoil in their lives. Their father has been absent for approximately 1/2 of their lives, due to deployments and training missions. He estimates he’s spent more than 6 years overseas. They’re military kids, so I guess they’ve grown “used to it”. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a huge impact on who they’ve become. As a result, Hubs has a bit of a “disneyland dad” syndrome, which has only gotten worse since we relocated overseas.

Now, I want to make a point to keep this to pertinent information about me and my feelings, but I suppose it might be beneficial to give a bit of backstory on Ex-Wife, Felicia. Hubs and Felicia met and married straight out of high school. To say that her homelife was colorful is the most polite term I can come up with. She was not afforded the lessons of becoming a functional adult before they married and began a family together. Money management, hygiene and cleanliness, parenting styles, you name it…she lacks. Even now, at 30+ years old, she fails to make any payment on time – has never made an effort to conform to a budget, or savings plan…etc. She’s still very much a dependent, and I fear she will be for all of her life.

The empath in me feels sorry for her. It’s 100% not her fault no one has ever held her accountable for her actions.  On the other hand, I feel that there are few excuses when it comes to taking care of business, and at a certain point, you just have to lace up your bootstraps and do the damn thing. Unfortunately, she failed to do so then, and continues to fail to do so now. What I’m saying here is that I think she’s an emotionally neglectful mother who is failing to prepare her children adequately for the “real world,” because life has robbed her off the skill set to do so.

Well shit, that carousel came back around right quick, didn’t it? It’s a paradox. I don’t think that I, or anyone else for that matter, have a right to judge other parents who are just doing what they can to get by as they ride their own emotional waves and try to be “all of the things” for their children. BUT I DO! Damnit, I’m human and I DO.  I don’t think she consciously neglects her children, just that she does it. Their words, demeanor, and actions prove it. Felicia was dealt an unfair hand in early life, and the mirror has reflected the same dysfunction unto her children and relationships ever since. It’s not her fault – until it is.

How many times does a person need to attend swimming lessons until they venture off without an instructor? Case in point: Felicia has moved all three young children into Hubs mother’s home. Let me reiterate: My new husband’s ex-wife and children have moved across the country (out of a beautiful home we’re still paying the mortgage on) to live on my mother-in-law’s livingroom floor. Because that’s normal, right?

exhasperated sigh

Talk some sane into me, guys. Am I wrong to be feeling these things? Is there any grounds for me thinking that the lack of familial boundary is not normal?