Mother's Day Pity Party

No nice way to say it.....today sucks!!!!!  For all of you moms who are celebrating your mother's day with your kids, I am so happy for you.  For all of you kids who have a mom to celebrate Mother's Day with, I am so jealous of you.  Me?  Today I don't have either and I am sulking in a BIG way!!!!!

Yesterday, this is how I got to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom.

My dad, one of my brother's and one of my dad's nurses from dialysis and I went to put flowers on my mom's marker.  Happy day, wooo hoooo!!!!!!!  It's a crock of poo that this is how I have to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom now.  It sucks!!!!!!  Even if my flowers from my garden made her marker look pretty, it still sucks.

Last year I bought her a really pretty hand painted glass candle holder for Mother's Day and went to Richmond to see her.  I took her flowers that day too and left her gift here in Edinburg by mistake, duh!!!!  When she went to dialysis that following Monday with my dad, the patients there asked her what all of her children had given her for Mother's Day and she said i gave her some cut flowers.  They all asked her if that was all I had really given her and she said yes.  Boy did i feel like a rotten daughter.  I had told her I had a gift for her that I had actually bought back at the beginning of April  but had forgotten to bring it with me, but I think she didn't really believe me.  I took it to her the next time I went home to visit she and my dad, and that is when she told me about what the patients had said to her at dialysis.  I told her to make sure she told them I had brought her belated gift to her so they wouldn't think I was such an awful daughter.  What I would do to have her here this year to do something dumb like that again.  I like to think she and her mom, my grandmother, are having a great day spending Mother's Day together for the first time in a long time.  And I do hope she saw the flowers I brought for her this year too.

My kids are with their dad and their brand new step-mom.  Their dad got remarried yesterday so I guess they are celebrating Step-Mom's day with the new step mom.  Do I sound bitter?  Yes, of course I do.  Planning a wedding on Mother's Day weekend so your kids can't see their mom for mother's day is mean.  Okay, I will give him the fact that when he set the date, he didn't know my mom wouldn't be alive on this Mother's Day and that it may be an extra tough day for me, but still.  He could have given them the car keys and told them to drive here for the day and surprise me, couldn't he have?  I'm sorry, I am being childish and selfish, but it's my blog and this is why I have it...so I can write what is really bothering me.  If I say all of this out loud, I just start crying hysterically and feel even more crappy afterwards.  This way I can pound on the keyboard as i type all of this out and it gives me a little bit of satisfaction. 

My Mother's Day post was going to be a really sweet post about how wonderful my mom is, was.  I was going to go down memory lane and tell about the funniest, happiest moments I remember with my mom.  I was going to talk about how she had the patience of a saint with me because I was really a difficult daughter for her at times.  I never let a year go by that i did not disappoint her in some way or another but yet, she was always there for me.  It's no wonder her hair turned gray so fast after she had me.  If I didn't agree with something she said, I never kept my mouth shut about it like my brother's did when they were younger. NO, I had to just get right up in her face and tell her I was right and she was wrong.  (know what?  she was actually always right, but at the time I couldn't see the forest for the trees)  This post was going to be a tribute to my mom, but in all of my selfish misery today, I can't seem to sit down and write gushy sweet stuff.  I feel it in my heart, and I have written the gushy, sweet stuff in other posts.  But today, just bitter, foul nastiness is all that I feel.

So there you have it, my Mother's Day Pity Party.  I am now going to conclude my party and try to make something positive come from the rest of my day.  I am going outside to play with my chickens, find where Ebony disappears too everyday, hope she has a nest filled with eggs she is almost ready to sit on, and later on cook a yummy steak on the grill with my loving and very patient Robby.  I really do wish all of you moms a super Mother's Day and please forgive my ranting and raging.

Debbie



What is Normal?

This is not a normal blog post.  This is me typing out random thoughts that keep firing through my brain.  I have to get it out because it is just too much to keep inside of me.  Please forgive this if it is raw, boring or just too personal.  It is the only way I know how to release.
I can not begin to process all the thoughts racing through my mind.  Since my mom passed away a week ago today, my world in un-recognizable to me.  What I thought was my normal life, is no longer in any way, normal.  The role that I thought I was to play in my parents life, is no longer the role that I am playing.  Responsibilities I thought I would have years to take on, have now been given to me at a time I was not prepared to receive them.  My mom has left me without any warning and no explanation of what I am  suppose to do.  As the only girl in my family, I feel an inherent responsibility to step in for my mom.  This is an impossible feat, as there is no replacement for her.  The demands she placed on herself to be perfect, have made it virtually impossible for anything I do to feel sufficient in my eyes.  I am exhausted to the point that I can't sleep, and I have not done 1/4 of the things she does on a daily basis.  I don't know what to do for my dad.  I don't know how to ease his pain and yet give him the room to start moving forward.  I look around my parents house and I just become so sad.  So terribly, terribly sad.  How can my dad stand to be in that house with my mom and him everywhere.  It is so lonely and quiet.  The grocery shopping, the food prep, the shrubs in the front yard that need pruning, the pansies around the mailbox that should be dead-headed daily so they keep looking fresh, the dusting, the laundry, the list goes on and on.  How can my dad not be overwhelmed when I am? 

I want to leave and go home to my life.  I want to try and get back to something that seems familiar.  I want my kids, my husband, my home, my bed, my dog, my own space to grieve.  And yet, I feel an overwhelming amount of guilt because I want to get away and escape.  I don't want to be in their house anymore right now.  Is this so wrong?  My dad wants to go through some of her things, but I don't want to do that now, but I also don't want him to have to be seeing her things all the time if he doesn't want to.  I don't understand the stages of grief and I guess everyone goes through them differently.

I have unanswered questions that I would love answers to, but will never get.  Did my mom have a feeling that something was going to happen to her?  Dad says she did some odd things a few days prior and it makes me wonder.  Did she suffer before the aneurysm, because she complained of a headache early that morning and then when it hit, she was calling out "help me, help me" in the dialysis center where my dad was.  Did she know this was the end?  Could she hear me or feel me at all when I got to her and she was on life support?  I sat by her side, forcing her hand to hold mine for the last 7 hours of her life, with my head on her shoulder, staring at her eyelids, praying to see them move so I would know she was still there.  Squeezing her hand as hard as I could hoping she would wake up and tell me i was hurting her or just squeeze my hand back.  I couldn't believe she was just gone.  How could a life go that fast?  What were her thoughts that morning, for the few short hours she was here?  And more importantly, how do I STOP having all these questions and thoughts race through my mind?

In spite of my efforts to feed my dad the way he is to be fed, he has lost more weight this week.  I have made sure he eats three meals a day and drinks as much fluids as he is suppose to, but yet his weight goes down.  With his kidney disease, I worry that he will get himself into more trouble with his health because he will not take enough care with his eating.  What will we do if he ends up back in the hospital again and my mom was the one who stayed with him around the clock when he was in the hospital.  Sooooo many things that i think of and worry about.  And the worst part is, no one has the answers for me. 

Tomorrow, which is Tuesday, I will go to a doctor's appointment with my dad, and then Tuesday evening, Robby will come get me and take me back home.  I am scared to leave but feel that it is time for me to go.  My brother's are going to come by and spend time with him and watch the Va. Tech football game with him Thursday night.  We all feel it is important that he get back to a normal routine, whatever that may be for him now.  He needs to do for himself, and as long as I am here doing for him, he will never do it on his own.  I am scared for him, I am scared for me.  But most of all, I am sad, and want HAPPINESS back.

I'm tired and don't feel like writing any more now.  But I imagine, I am not done.

I Am Human Too

All my life I have been the happy person.  The person who never gets mad, always is smiling, laughing, cheering everyone up.  I refuse to shake hands with people when I first meet them, I'm a hugger.

I am sure I intrude into many people's personal bubbles by hugging them, but that's just me.

I don't wear much makeup, but I can wear the crap out of a smile.  Yep that's me, Miss Happy Go Lucky.

Or they might call me the Life of the Party.  Always ready to have fun and risk looking stupid no matter what.  As long as I make you laugh, it's all good.



Singing and Dancing in the rain at my wedding reception.



I am known for my smile and my positive attitude.  I generally let the small stuff roll off my back and knew not to sweat the small stuff long before that became a popular saying.  I am just a happy, smiley person.




 

 Sooooooo, when things start getting a little stressful for me, and I make a picture like this my profile picture on Facebook, people get a little concerned. They say they are worried about me and ask if I am okay.  Now i don't think i look that unhappy in this picture, just contemplative and in thought.  That isn't always a bad thing.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And forget about when I put this picture up for my profile picture.  People REALLY FREAK OUT when I use this one.  I don't think it looks all that sad, it's artsy and yes my eyes look haunted but that's kind of cool.  Don't ya think?



Haunted eyes.



Today at work, we had a staff meeting, and for maybe the second time in the history of the 9 years I have worked in this office, i gave my honest opinion of how I thought things were going.  Apparently, I," Miss happy go lucky", actually SCARED people with my tone of voice and the things i said.  It isn't any secret to anyone who reads this post that i have been a little frustrated with the direction my life has been heading and that I have been more than ready for a change.  I still love nursing, but have not loved our situation at work for about the past 12 months or so.  Perhaps I am PMSing this week, it's really hard to keep up with being pre-menopausal and all, but today i just had to vent.  And maybe because I don't have a lot of practice at it, I may not do it in a very controlled manner.  Or, perhaps it's because I don't ever do it, that when I do, I freak people out.  Well, let me just say, I don't really like myself when i get to that point.  My stomach hurts, my head feels like it is going to explode wide open, and today my cheeks turned bright red and I am sure if I were to check, my blood pressure was off the charts which it NEVER is.  And the worst part, probably nothing was resolved and nothing will change so it was all for not. 

Now, I am home, i am venting about my venting, and it makes me feel better.  Next I am going to go get my Art Journal and work on that some more and then go make homemade pizza for dinner.  Please don't worry if i post a profile picture of myself that isn't of me smiling.  I am still the happy girl but I am human too, and i have my crappy days just like everyone else.  Sometimes they are just in the shape of a square and those don't roll off my back very well.  Have a happy evening everyone and a great Friday tomorrow.