Barnmaven

Mime as performed by a chicken

I'm reading my posts over the last week or so and I tell you, I've whined so damn much that even I'M disgusted with myself.  So.  Let us speak of chickens and imaginary eggs.

This summer, as I was contentedly perusing Craigslist, something I should never be allowed to do when my bank account balance exceeds $50.00, I noticed an ad in the Farm & Garden section for a pet chicken. As she was an almost carbon copy of my adorable little Penny Hen, I immediately called the owner and asked if she was still available. She was.  So the next day after work, I stopped on my way home and added yet one more animal to my little farm.  Because obviously I need more animals.

Cin-Cin (short for Cinnamon) is a very friendly little banty hen, and she was lonely at her old house because there weren't any other chickens.  I was hoping that she would find a life of happy companionship with my two girls, Penny and Indigo, but alas, it was not meant to be.  The other two hens took one look at the new girl on the block and BALLISTIC. It was worse than Mean Girls.  For the two days I tried to coop Cin-Cin with the other hens, they beat the crap out of her every time she so much as MOVED.  I felt so sorry for her I invited her to move into my feed room, which offer she took me up on immediately and picked my saddle rack as her perch.  Which means I have to buy another saddle rack.  For my saddle so my $5 chicken can use my other one.  Le sigh.

Up until two weeks ago, Cin-Cin perched on my saddle rack every night and laid an egg in my hay every day.  She's also a friendly chicken, one you can pick up and carry around, unlike my other two, so of course I've become attached to her.

About two weeks ago, I went in to say goodnight to her after putting the horses up and could not see her.  I went over to her traditional laying spot, and there she was, on the nest.   I picked her up and there were two eggs under her, which she clearly wanted to get back on top of.  Yup, she'd gone broody.  I took one of the two eggs, figuring I'd let her keep one and hatch it if she could.  For about a week and a half she faithfully sat on that egg.  Then one day last week I went out and she'd moved.  She was still sitting, but the egg wasn't under her, it was still in her old nest.  I don't know why she moved, but I picked up the egg to check it, and you know it was stone cold. 

Now I was torn.  Put the egg back and let her sit on it until it gets stinky?  Or take the egg and hope she decides to go live the life of a spoiled chicken again? 

Have you ever smelled a rotten egg?  No?  Lucky you.  I took the egg and got rid of it.

A week and a half later?  Cin Cin is still sitting on that damned nest.  On nothing.  Nada.  NO EGG.  Brooding her little heart out for all the world as if she were sitting on ten damn eggs.  Every day, to her protest, I pick her up off the nest and carry her over to the waterer and the feeder, where she eats and talks to me.  As soon as she's done?  Back on that empty nest.

Either my bird has gone whack-a-doodle and thinks she's sitting on eggs that do not, in fact, exist, or she's involved in an elaborate form of chicken mime, in which case the entertainment value totally escapes me.

What's even worse is that I'm not even a little bit close to being as dedicated a mother to my real children, who walk and breathe and eat, as that hen is to her imaginary eggs.  Not. even. close.

 

 

Also, if anyone has any ideas about how I get her to abandon the imaginary eggs and get a life again, I'm open to suggestions.

Landscape

Sometimes in this world of special needs, the landscape is barren and dry.  I feel as if I am stumbling through the desert alone, hot sun beating down relentlessly and without mercy, lips cracking and throat screaming for just a sip of cool water.

Sometimes it is a landscape black, full of despair, trees gnarled and twisted, monstrous and looming.  My heart pounds with fear and every path before me seems fraught with danger.

But there are times when the trees are full and verdant, fingers of sunlight stream through the dense leaves and joy and peace overwhelm. Those are the good days, when my children and I are in sync, when the gears mesh and for once we have a day where everyone is relatively happy, where there aren't constant crises and fights and broken things.  A day where children are playing happily with one another.  A day when the hugs come easy and the tears never fall.

There are times when I encounter another in my landscape who lives in this same place, and we connect, embrace, offer love, empathy, a shoulder or an ear.  

Being the parent of special needs kids is a lonely road sometimes.  When most of the parents you know in your neighborhood and at your childrens' schools have neurotypical children, its easy to feel the odd man out.  Easy to feel the eyes staring at you when you arrive to sign our your child who has spent the day being inappropriate and sometimes even violent with other children and teachers.  Its easy to feel like no one understands you or gets what you're going through.  Its easy to take a walk through that door with the sign "Martyrs enter here" hanging on it.   What's hard, sometimes, is accepting help.  Accepting love.  Accepting anything other than fear and recrimination and self-hatred.  Because even when you know better, its hard not to wonder what you did wrong, why your children should suffer simply because their parents and their parents' parents genetics have combined to give them a horrible combination of biological and neurological time bombs.

Its not easy to look at reports about your child that say things like "does not socialize with other children."  "Does not appear to be engaged in what we are learning most of the time."  "Pretended to cut throat with scissors and waved scissors at other children."  "Throws books and kicks chairs."  "Hits other [children]."  "Not sure he hears directions."

Not easy.

But there are still going to be days when my landscape is full and verdant.  Days when I encounter others on my path who will give me what they can, give of their love and experience.  And we will keep pushing forward, no matter what.  Quitting isn't possible.  Surviving isn't optimal.  Succeeding is the place where I accept limitations, celebrate any victory no matter how small, connect with my children and with other people, advocate effectively and where we make progress, even if it's just an inch at a time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

To all of you who continue to reach out in love and empathy via comments and email, Facebook and Twitter:  Thank you.  I need you.  Keep doing exactly what you're doing, because your words and your help mean so much. 

And to my Mom, who is a frequent helper on this crazy, twisted path:  I love you.  You are everything I ever needed in a mother and I don't know what I'd do without you.  Thanks from the bottom of my heart for your listening, your shoulder, your busy hands and your gentle heart.

Inside vs Outside

Outside I smile, laugh and talk to people.  Go to work meetings, shake hands, talk about strategies and ways to get work accomplished.

Inside I am falling apart.

Outside I return calls and in turn make more calls.   The daycare.  The pediatrician.  The school.  I gather information, pass along information, make suggestions, attempt to be reasonable and understanding while holding firmly to the stance that my son's needs are paramount.

Inside, tears are falling.

Inside, I say over and over, "This is not fair."

Outside I shrug and chuckle and say "Been there, done that, no big deal."

Inside, I think, "It is a big deal.  This is my baby.  He's anxious and out of control, miserable at home and even worse at school.  It IS A BIG DEAL."

I want to have the luxury of screaming and crying and pounding my fists on the wall.  To fall apart.  But that's what I did before, when it was my daughter, losing it and crying endlessly and driving myself into a mess of fear and anxiety.  And that didn't work for me, did it?  In the end we got the help we needed and we made progress, mountains of progress.  But that first part, the part where I fell apart and sobbed endlessly into my hands, threw the phone on the floor until it broke, screamed at the top of my lungs in my empty house, that part was horrible.  I don't want to do that again.

When I let the storm inside me out through the cracks, I didn't feel better.  I felt worse.  It heightened my anxiety and my fear.   It made everything harder, parenting, working, existing.  I careened through my life, bouncing off walls and people, disturbing the peace.

This time it could be different.  This time, instead of allowing the tempest inside to spill over, maybe I can draw in the calm assurance of my external self.  Dial down the drama, replace it with something different. Something better.

No matter how I approach it, I can't control the situation or the outcome.  But perhaps the process won't be as excruciating this time if I just go at it from the outside in.

In Sync

I used to row.

I did my college rowing at the University of Washington, Jan Harville was my novice coach and Bob Ernst was my varsity coach, back before he moved over to coach the men. (I hear he's coaching the women again now). 

After I graduated from college I took a couple of years' break from being a jock to invest more of my time into being a wastrel.  Inevitably, that too palled, and so I returned again to the world where your backsplash, your puddle, and your swing were all that mattered. 

Swing.

Swing is the sweet spot.  Its the orgasm of rowing.  Its where all rowers in the boat, all eight or four or two of them, hit the same rhythm on the slide, they come forward, drop oar, push back and finish each stroke simultaneously.  When swing happens, the boat just picks up out of the water and grows wings.  If you've felt swing, you'll never forget it.  One year at Seattle Rowing Club we entered both the eight and the fours at a four mile race in Fremont.  Our eight had some rigging problems before the start, and by the time we had the spacers set correctly, the field was twenty or better lengths ahead of us.  We rolled into the start and sort of simultaneously thought "screw it, we're behind, we've got nothing to lose, let's just row the shit out of this thing."  We just went with it.  By the third mile, we hit it.  SWING.  Before long, we were passing boats.  Leaving boats in the dust.  Swinging.  Flying.  We flew up the canal and by God we WON that race by open water. 

An hour later we did it again, in the fours.  We split the eight up into two boats.  The first four, with our stroke and all heavyweights, was heavily favored.  They got to use our club boat.  For the second four, it was me and three lightweights.  Our club didn't own a second four, so we borrowed one from another club, a heavy old wooden behemoth of a boat.  The four of us looked at each other and kind of laughed.  We had no expectation for this race.  We'd already poured our hearts out on a four mile race.  We were just hoping to have enough left in us to finish.

Inexplicably, it happened again. 

Swing.

Somewhere in that race we found the sweet spot and we flew home.  We won again. 

I don't remember too many details about the rest of that day, or anything else.  I just remember the swing.

***

When you ride, there's a thing you look for.  Its like swing, but I'm not even sure there's a word for it.  Its what happens when you start working together as one.  You have a thought in your head of what it is you want to accomplish, you transmit that thought through your hands and your seat and your legs, and your horse, all his muscle and his brain and his nerves, they act out your thought completely willingly.  Its as if he's an extension of your will, not because he's forced to, but because he wants to.

Yeah.

Saturday we took a horrendously awful never-to-be-repeated drive up mountain roads (just thinking about the dropoff right on the other side of the truck door gets my heart pounding in abject fear) to do an orienteering ride.

The night before, T-Bone smashed my nose with his head as he was jumping up on my bed.  I was up past 11 with ice and a towel trying to stop the bleeding and minimize the swelling.  I was up again at 4:30 with a headache and a painful face, trying to will myself to even want to go on this ride.

After we reached the trailhead (and I pried my fingernails out of the truck door), I wasn't expecting much.  I was exhausted but ramped up on anxiety and adrenaline (amazing how worrying about falling down a thousand-foot cliff will do that to you), my nose hurt, and you know when you feel miserable you typically transmit that straight through to your horse.

I took some time to relax and calm down, to put the drive up behind me.  To groom and saddle Bugs and walk him around a bit to loosen the long, bumpy ride out of his legs.  Belatedly I realized he'd thrown a shoe sometime in the week prior, but I was able to borrow a hoof boot from another rider. 

We started down the long initial trail.  It had rained the night before and where the dirt was hard-packed, the horses slipped and slid on their hind legs, trying to find a grip in the earth.  We made it through the first three objectives, and got to the fourth.  It was a camp area and as we were separating to check our orientation points to find the plate, Bugs started to get antsy about being even a few feet apart from his riding pal.  I took him and circled him a few times, let him move his legs and get his brain back into the game.  We finished the objective and headed off down the trail. Where it was not rocky, we trotted and loped to make up some time.  The last ride we'd done this, and Bugs had it in his head that he was in a big fat hurry.  I spent the last hour of that ride fighting him to stay collected and not go barging off into the sunset. 

But Saturday, even with challenges, we found our sync. He was collected.  He was patient.  He went where I asked him, he stayed where I asked him. He moved off the leg like a dream, he didn't spook or get scared even when we ran into four hunters on atv's.  He enjoyed the hell out of himself, and so did I.  We found the sweet spot that makes you want to get up on the horse again, over and over again, so you can get that all-over amazing feeling that comes when you have swing.

I guess I'm not done talking about this (Newt Gingrich sucks. Hard.)

A friend sent me an email this morning, one that I have declined to answer or forward. It contains a statement from Newt Gingrich from July of this year. 

Newt Gingrich's  statement reads, "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia . "  It goes on to impute evil intent to the builders and supporters of the mosque and to imply that it is being built to create inroads in America for Muslim extremism.  For jihad.

Dear Newt Gingrich:  Of course there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.  Saudia Arabia is not America.  We?  you and I?  We live in a democracy based on freedom and liberty.  We don't operate like Saudi Arabia because we are NOT Saudi Arabia.

We have a constitution that guarantees us freedom to practice (or not practice) any religion we choose.  In fact, Mr. Newton Leroy Gingrich, your own website, on the page devoted to Religious Liberty, states:

"Religious liberty in America is under assault. The secular socialist left – who hates the idea of an authority higher than the government - has used its domination of academia, the courts, and the media to twist the meaning of the first amendment from a right that protects religious liberty to prohibition on religious expression in the public square. The consequence of this campaign is that people of faith have been systematically marginalized in America through a sustained effort by the left to change our common culture and give secular values the authority of law."

Let me see if I understand this, Newt Gingrich.  You are implying here that the government should be protecting our First Amendment right to religious freedom.  And yet, your statement regarding a Muslim cultural center and Mosque at Ground Zero implies that you do not believe Muslim Americans are entitled to the same First Amendment rights as you and I. 

The moment you request that any local or federal government block the building of a mosque in America, you are in effect demanding that we violate the First Amendment. 

What happened on 9/11 was horrific, unbelievable, tragic.  The people who were in those towers were of every race and religion.  I'm not sure if people are even aware than in the Twin Towers, on the 17th floor of the South Tower, there was a room set aside as a prayer room for Muslims.  That's right, a prayer room for Muslims.  Observant Muslims, not jihadists, who happened to be in the towers going about their work just like everyone else, who died or managed to escape with their lives when the terrorists attacked and the towers fell.

I was in the final weeks of my first pregnancy on  September 11th.  I was working for an insurance company in Neptune, NJ, and my manager's husband was on the 104th floor of the South Tower.  She did not know until after 3PM on that terrible day whether he had lived or died.  He survived, though many did not.  J was also working for the same company, and until the company released us to go home, I spent most of the day going back and forth between my floor and his, to see if Kim had heard anything about her husband and then going to give and receive hugs from my husband because I could. 

I hate the terrorists who planned and carried out the attacks in New York and Washington DC on September 11th.  I cannot understand the mind and thinking of any person who hates another person or a group of persons so much that they would give their own lives to see them dead.  But whether I hate them, whether I believe they were wrong, whether I think that anyone who carries out a terrorist act should die for their crimes (I do), I am still capable of separating jihadists from peaceful Muslims.  Just as I am capable separating Catholics from people like Timothy McVeigh, Christians from people like James Kopp, Scott Roeder and others like them. 

The anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country has risen to a terrible screech.  It calls to mind the McCarthyism of the late 1940's and 1950's:

Remember our treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII?  We are still making reparations for that. 

Hate rhetoric is disabling this country piece by piece.  There is no logical, lawful reason for it, and yet it continues.  If it is not toned down, if the people who are spreading this hate like a black poisonous cloud over our airwaves and on our street corners do not stop, I fear it will take root and rise up like some awful, tentacled Beast from hell, taking what is left of our humanity right along with it. 

I have not responded, cannot respond to the email I received this morning.  The person who sent it to me is someone I care for, she is the close relative of someone I care for even more.  I don't want to have this argument with her.  It is heartbreaking to think that someone I know and like can even think about participating in this campaign of hate and lies.  But there it is.  People I know, people I even like, they may think this way.  I could weed them out of my life, but would I just be closing my eyes and ears to what exists?  Or is there some way that I can reach out to them, not in anger but in love, not in the arrogant belief that I can change them, but in the hopeful optimism that the God I believe in, who loves us all, who cares for each and every person in His creation as if they were his own child, that maybe He can reach them, even if I can't?  Maybe.

I keep wondering when God is going to come and save us from ourselves.  Soon, please.

Don't move, he's holding scissors

April 24, 2007.

I remember this date, because its the day before I boarded a plane with my mother-in-law and my children to fly West to begin a new life.  J and his dad had already left a couple of days earlier in our minivan with the dogs.  The kids and I would fly to Seattle, spend a night at my parents, then drive to Eastern Washington to our rental house. 

I'd spent the last couple of days having farewell drinks with just about everyone I could fit in (I think my liver is still mad at me for it, too).  The day before we were to leave I decided at the last minute to go get some highlights and get my layers evened out.  There's nothing like a good haircut to give you confidence on the first day of your new career, right?  Right. 

I walked into the [famous department store styling salon] at the Ocean County Mall without an appointment, as usual, guaranteeing myself the lowliest of the stylists.  I'd never really had a bad cut there before, I had no reason to believe today would be any different.

After a few minutes of waiting and idly perusing the magazine stacks, an elderly gentleman came out from the back and read my name off the checklist.  I had a brief moment of thinking perhaps he was the [famouse department store] Salon equivalent of the Wal-Mart Greeter.  Maybe he was just going to wash my hair for the stylist?  No.  He WAS the stylist.  Dude was eighty years old if he was a day, but I've never been shy about meeting new people and I was determined to enjoy my haircut, so I took my seat in the chair with an air of optimism and innocence.

I love old people.  Really, really love them.  Two of my favorite things about singing in my church choir are Perry and Cora-Jane, our director and his wife.  They don't know it but I often fantasize that they are my real-life grandparents, I love them that much.  Although most won't admit it, we make assumptions about people based on their age.  Don't we?  Of course we do.  What do we usually assume about the elderly?

"Sweet."

"Cute."

'Harmless."

"Oh, such a dear person."

Hmmph.  What a crock of doodle. 

It all started off well.  I told him I wanted some red highlights here and there throughout the crown of my head and I needed my layers evened out. Simple, yes? 

As we looked at color samples and we started the chit-chat that you usually have with a new stylist, things like "Where are you from?" and "How long have you worked here?" and "You're not going to ruin my hair, are you?"  I learned that he was had been a widower for a few years after a long, happy marriage, that he had a grown son who he was close with, no grandchildren.  How sweet, I thought.  We talked about my husband and my kids, and we started swapping stories.

As he began to put the foil in my hair and put the paste on, he started to tell me about how hard it was to start dating again after so many years.  I commiserated, dating isn't easy for young people, it must really be hard for you.  I noticed he was being a little heavy-handed with the color, but I was too afraid to be rude to an old person to speak up.  How bad could it be? 

After I'd been under the dryer for the prerequisite length of time, he rinsed out the color and started to cut.  As he was cutting my hair he started to tell me about a woman he'd been dating recently.

She apparently was a lady who came in to the salon weekly for her regular style and set with another stylist, and he thought she was rather nice looking.  He asked her out to lunch.  He said at first she seemed reluctant to go, but after a few weeks she relented and agreed to have go out with him.  They had their first date and he really liked her. He wanted to ask her out again, except...she stopped coming in to the salon.  I felt so bad for him, his first dating venture after becoming a widower and here this mean old bitch was breaking his heart.  "Well that was awfully rude of her," I said.  "Exactly," he said.  But what he did next?  He asked her regular stylist if she'd heard from her, and when the stylist said no, he played it off like he was worried about her, maybe something had happened, and did she have a phone number to contact her?  No, but the stylist had her last NAME. 

And he went on to tell me how he looked her up in the phone book and got her address and phone number and he called her and asked her out again and she said "no."  So he started driving by her HOUSE.  And he noticed she had a gentleman friend, which he figured out because sometimes there was a car there that wasn't HERS. And that he had called her a few more times but she stopped answering the phone so he thought she might have that Caller ID thingie-ma-bob, so he was going to ask his son if he could borrow his phone to try and see if she would take his calls then.  And as he's telling me this, he's getting clearly more agitated by the recital, and he's cutting more and more of my hair, except I'm afraid to say anything because apparently my hairdresser is a scary STALKER and he's holding scissors.  Scissors!  And all I can hear is the blood roaring in my ears and Freddy Krueger's nails scraping along the wall.

By the end of the ordeal, I'd lost a good three inches of length, and my red "highlights" were a lot more like "fire engine red hair ALL OVER."  And I was too scared to say anything critical to him.  "There, look at it in the mirror!  Doesn't it look nice?"  "Great," I mumbled, "It looks great.  I need to go now."  I paid and got the hell out of there as fast as I could.

Lessons learned:

a) Old people are not necessarily nice people

b) Make an appointment next time. 

c) Don't ever give the salon your phone number. Or your last name. Just say that you'll call THEM when you need an appointment.

d) You don't really need a new haircut to start a new job.  Odds are you'll end up looking like somebody totally different than the person they hired and when you show up for your first day of work your new boss will do a double-take and say, "Wow, that's REALLY, um, RED." 

Reparations

"I don't want to spend my whole life down on my knees

Just fixing what I've broke."

- Hem, The Pills Stopped Working from Funnel Cloud, 2006

What are your regrets in life? What are the things you did in your past that hurt another person that they either never forgave you for or for which you never made amends?  You know, the unresolved ones.

When I left my first husband there was no awful thing that he'd done wrong, no infidelity (on his part), no lying, no abuse, nothing.  I went through a lifequake of epic proportions when I found my birthfamily and pretty much fell off a cliff.  I didn't want anything to do with anyone, didn't want to work, didn't want to be married, didn't want to have majored in English, wanted my whole life back so I could do it over and be who I finally thought that I was.  The best I could do was end what I came to realize was a marriage of incompatible people and try again. 

In retrospect, I was incredibly selfish and immature.  Maybe we *were* incompatible, but how would I know?  I didn't try.  I believe he will never forgive me for it.  I don't believe he has to.  Its not a requirement.  And I also believe there is nothing in this world that I can do to make amends for shattering his life.  I can apologize.  I can say it was all my fault, that he did nothing wrong.  But I can never, ever fix it.

Should I have to?

12 years later, he sends me an email to let me know the dog we had together has passed away, as he did last year when one of the cats died.  And I let him know about a mutual friend who passed.  We are polite, we don't ask questions or talk of personal things, but at least we are polite.  There is no meanness, no need to dredge up painful pasts.  I'm comfortable with that.

I remember a friend I had, she was a very needy friend and very controlling.  We had entered a contest together, the Milk Carton Derby during Seafair.  We didn't win the judging, but we did win a random drawing for two tickets on Continental Airlines, anywhere they flew domestically.  For me, it was great timing.  I was planning on going to Boston with my rowing club to compete in the Head of the Charles.  I wasn't sure how I would be able to afford to get there, so this ticket was like a gift straight from God.  My friend, though, thought that we should use our tickets to go somewhere TOGETHER.  I offered a compromise, I would take extra vacation days while in Boston and after the race was over, she and I could do some touring around New England.  It would be in the fall, the best time of year to be in the Northeast. 

My mother's cousin's widow lived in Boston, in a very fine old neighborhood, in an enormous house.  It was three full stories with a basement, she came from old money.  She very generously offered her home to me and any of the other rowers who needed a place to stay. 

My friend wasn't interested in this shared housing, and she tried to find herself a hotel room in Boston.  She could not find any hotel that wasn't already booked.  She called me, angry and demanding a solution.  I said I hadn't realized that so many people would be in town for the race, maybe she wanted to change her mind and stay at my relative's house?  She SHRIEKED at me.  "People aren't in town for your FUCKING RACE, you idiot, they're there for a convention.  Your stupid race isn't that important!!  And no, I don't want to stay at your cousin's house with a BUNCH OF FUCKING DYKES!!!!"  And hung up on me.

She never spoke to me again.  I left her a couple of half-hearted messages, hoping to patch things up, but she never returned my calls, and frankly it was a relief.  (And just for the record, I had a WONDERFUL time in Boston.  We took a silver medal in the women's 8, and a couple of us rented a car and drove to Vermont and did a bunch of sightseeing and had a wonderful vacation. SO THERE.)

I have wondered about her since then, whether she still hates me.  What she would say if we just randomly ran into one another at the grocery store or at a restaurant.

Would she expect me to fall on my knees and apologize?  Would I want to?  

I wouldn't expect it of her, even though I thought her behavior was horribly rude and selfish.  She probably thought that I was the one being selfish.  And rude.  I think where the disconnect happened was that she had very high expectations of me, expectations I wasn't going to fulfill.  That was the beginning of a painful breach that has never healed.

Another person comes to mind, a man who, though I didn't date him for long, was a big part of creating the codependent monster I eventually became.  He was an alcoholic, much older than me.  In the months that we were together, I became unbalanced as I tried to fix him, control him.  The relationship was one of the worst in my life.  He was always at the bar, drinking.  He never came home when he said he would.   He would pick on me for my clothing or my weight or my hair.  I was never good enough.  He cheated on me.  He gave me an STD.  After I finally grew the ovaries to throw all of his belongings in black plastic garbage bags and put them in his car, I spent years being furious with him.  I wanted him to SEE how wrong he had been.  To acknowledge it.  TO GROVEL ON THE GROUND AND BEG MY FORGIVENESS.  To change. 

The things that went wrong with J and I, for a while I did the same thing.  And even when he owned his part in things, I still felt unsatisfied.  I was still angry and I wanted someone to PAY.  To grovel.  To fix what they had broken.

As time passes, I realize that I do not have that right.  A person can only apologize for what they own as a wrong.  If there are reparations to be made, if they have the ability to make them, ok.  But most often, in friendships and interpersonal relationships, there is nothing the other person is going to be able to do that makes you feel better.  That part, the getting over the anger part, that's up to ME.  And damn, that's harder than hell to do.  To stop expecting people to fix the broken thing in me.   Its happening, though.  I think I'm starting to understand the concept of accepting responsibility for my own repair.  At the same time, learning to stop being endlessly angry with the people I feel have hurt me.  Being mad isn't going to make them admit their offenses.  Being mad isn't going to make them sorry.  I need to let it go, write it on a piece of paper and burn it in the fireplace.  Cry my tears and let the river flow away, taking my pain and anger and hurt with it.

Because I too would like the forgiveness of others.  I dont' want to, cannot, spend my whole life groveling for forgiveness, trying to fix the broken parts of other people.  Its not my job.

Someday, I think, if I work on this hard enough, I really will know peace.  Someday.

Love/Hate

Being an adult with ADHD brings with it an array of nuance to life, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious, sometimes excruciating.

I came home tonight to a letter from my FlexPlan coverage asking me to provide a receipt for a prescription that was purchased four months ago.

The likelihood that I would have managed to retain a receipt for more than three days is absolutely ludicrous.  My mother?  Would still have the receipt carefully filed in a waterproof-fireproof-bombproof cabinet TEN YEARS LATER. 

But not me.

So I can plan at the expiration of the 30 grace days they’ve given me to reimburse my Health Care Flex Plan 80-odd dollars for a prescription I purchased.  You know, for my HEALTH CARE.  Which my FLEX PLAN IS SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING FOR.  Which flex plan I am paying into with my own money. 

Which somehow in ADHD world makes PERFECT SENSE.

Free Pumpkins

When we bought this house a little over three years ago, the prior owner had cultivated a large garden patch.  It had giant sunflowers, roma tomatoes, peppers, beans and pumpkins.  I suck at gardening, honestly.  I didn't have time to nurture everything into harvest.  Almost everything else went to waste, but those pumpkins...they took over.  We had pumpkins coming out our ears.  There were mini pumpkins and regular carving pumpkins.  After I decorated my entire house for Halloween and gave some to my coworkers, they were still out there ripening.  I finally took a big moving box, wrote "FREE PUMPKINS" on it with a magic marker and put it out in front of the mailbox.  Every couple of days I'd go through and pick what had ripened and put it in the box.

Last spring, after Lady died, I went through the front pasture where she is buried and randomly shoved some pumpkin seeds into piles of horse dung.  I didn't know if any of them would take, but I thought it would be nice to have some pumpkins this fall. 

I had some issues with my irrigation this year and wasn't really paying attention to the front pasture except to feel cranky about the weeds growing there (horses are picky, they don't eat weeds.  I need goats for that).  Until I noticed the pumpkin vines growing by the fence.

I have about four good-sized ones and some smaller ones forming on the vine.  They were planted late and so are still dark green and gaining size. I am guessing we will have them ripen right on time to carve for Halloween.

Its starting to cool down now.  High 40's to low 50's in the mornings, cool enough to need a sweater or a hoodie for my morning trip to the barn.  I love spring, and summer here is comprised of 99.9% sunny days, ranging from perfect (low 80's) to OMG I'm Baking (99-102).  I appreciate the plethora of rain-free weekends, since this old horsewoman has no desire to haul my arthritic hips onto a horse in wet weather.  But when fall arrives, when the air gets crisp and the long sleeves appear, when the kids start practicing for football, and when we get our first cool fall rain, it feels like homecoming to me. 

The next two months will be busy with birthday parties and buying costumes, the last few trail rides of the season for the clubs, and my yearly favorite - swapping out the warm weather clothes for sweaters.  Two big tubs will sit on the floor of my room until summer finally gives its last gasp and I no longer have to dress for both fall and summer at the same time.  We'll start decorating the house soon, with gourds and fall colors.  We'll make plans for corn mazes and pumpkin patch visits, start planning Thanksgiving menus and take long rides in the cool fall air. I'll stop drinking whites and go back to reds.  I love this time of year.

Speaking of Mama Grizzlies

I shot off an extremely long and detailed email to the district superintendent today.  I included details and names, explanations and observations.  I MIGHT have indulged myself in a some over-capitalization of words, but really.  "Unacceptable" doesn't convey the outrage in the same way that  "UNACCEPTABLE!" does.  You know its true.

I was successful in in not cursing, although I had to backspace over a few words and replace them with something that didn't sound so much like "You've got to be fucking kidding me!"  I find that people tend to respond negatively to insinuations that they are stupid or negligent or even worse, evil motherfuckers.  For the life of me, I can't understand why.

My email, followed immediately by a phone call to the superintendent's secretary, resulted quicky in two phone calls - one from an operations manager and one from my son's school - and we have him on the correct bus today and a promise of filling the dead zone between the school and the transportation office with something resembling an information conduit.

This afternoon, one email, from the superintendent with apologies to both me and my son.  (Not as satisfying as having someone come over and grovel at my feet begging for my forgiveness, but I suppose it will have to do.  We can't be picky.)

I guess all that's missing is a coupon for free pizza and beer so I can sit back, guzzle a brewski and indulge in a little chest-thumping.

I SO want this to be over.  Please tell me its over.  With apologies to David Banner, you don't want to see me when I'm angry.