From Pretend to....well...lies

So...here we are again...three years later.  I am worse at this blogging thing than I thought I would be.  

There is so much to catch up on...nobody has died, so that's good, right?  It is good for me.  But a few "things" have died.  And tonight/today ( it is 3:45 am) I am mourning the loss of those "things"  The 'things' to which I refer are memories.  I recently returned from what has become an annual trip with my brother and his wife and Wayne and Rylan to Michigan to visit Dad's grave and some of the places of our childhood and grandparents, followed by a drive to Chicago/ Glencoe to revisit the stomping grounds of our youth, followed by a Cubs Game!  We have made this pilgrimage three times now. The first trip was nothing short of amazing.  It was just Wayne and I, no Ry, and Mike and Shari.  We had a wonderful time and found all of the important places of our childhood...met the people who currently live in the house once owned by our grandparents, got a tour of it, soon many wonderful things.  
The second trip, last year, we brought Rylan with us and it was really fun for him to be with Uncle Mike and for them to play together.  We were also able to "release" Mom's ashes into Lake Michigan at the beach in Glencoe--which I am sure is illegal but we did it anyway.  It was a good experience to do that and to say good bye to her and have Wayne offer a prayer.  The weather was pretty horrible so the beach was abandoned which worked out great for us.  It was good.   We once again had a wonderful time, and the Cubs WON!
This year was different.  In a way it felt stale...seeing the same sights, (aside from the grave) why?  What is the point of redoing it all again?  So there was that.  But that wasn't the biggest issue I have with the trip.  Michigan was fine.  Seeing the grave again and feeling close to Dad was good.  It always is.  But Glencoe was ugly for me.  I have not spoken these words out loud to anyone.  I don't have anyone to whom I dare say them.  But Glencoe made me sick, and made me angry and hurt my heart.  And I have been struggling with these feelings since we left there.  As we sat at the top of the beach, watching a lovely wedding take place and dozens of people play in the cold water and and the warm sand the only thoughts I had was that this place, this town, this Glencoe was the birth place of the lies of my life.  All of the memories I have of living in that place were just pretend...as pretend as the princess I was in my blue Halloween costume when I was about 5.  None of it was real.  Pretend is when you play a part that you would really like to be.  I really liked pretending to be a princess,  or to be a mommy when playing house, or to be a Ballerina when Meghan and I danced the Nutcracker in the living room.  It was all pretend.  So, as it turns out, was my "real life" just pretend.  I just didn't know it.  We were all pretending to be a family.  My parents were pretending to be a happy couple.  My brother and I were pretending to be siblings.  But it was all just not real.  We all played the roles we wanted to be true but they weren't.  My parents were not a happy couple, my brother and I didn't even know each other and we were NOT a happy little suburban family.  Far from it.  I just didn't know it.  So, this year, all of the once happy memories I had in that place became shards of glass slicing into the reality of my life.  Each memory became ugly and false and painful.  I hated being there in that place.  I felt like a fool.  I felt like an idiot...like every one in town knew the truth except me and I was the big dummy.
Glance was the birthplace of the falseness of my life.  Leaving there, to move to Scottsdale,  I now know, was an escape from an ugly truth that was about to be made known...not the Big New Adventure and Opportunity I was told it was. And in Scottsdale, the pretend became blatant lies.   In Scottsdale, truth didn't exist in any form whatsoever.  My parents didn't even pretend to be a happy couple, they simply co-existed, in silence on the good days.  My father spent his days at work and his evenings watching tv, smoking, in silence.  My mother went back to school to "find herself" during the day and watched tv, smoking, needle pointing on the other end of the couch..also in silence.  Weekends are a blur.  I had NO idea what my father did all day Saturday...I do now.  It too was a lie.  It all just got uglier and uglier from there and the lies built upon themselves becoming the new reality.  I hate it all.  I hate who we all became in that hell hole of Arizona.  I hate the people who changed us into those people.  I hate Jone Price.  I hate Al Patraz.  I hate the people who Michael ran away with and who took pleasure out of frightening me with violence.  I hate myself for hiding in my ballet and ignoring it all...afraid to know what was really going on.  I hate it all.  I hate the lies, the deceit, the ugliness. 
And tonight/today, I am angry.  I guess I have hit the "anger" stage of grief.  I am angry.  I am angry that my family lied to me for my whole freaking life.  I hate that NOBODY in my family believed in my love for them to trust me with the truth.  They ALL believed more strongly that I would shut them out if I knew the truth than they believed I could love them through the truth.  That hurts and makes me angry.  I am angry that my father chose his broke back mountain life instead of being my daddy. I am angry that he left, he moved away to California and left me alone with no way to get to him...so he could live his real life and not have to hide it from me any more.  
 I am angry that my mother chose to cowtow to Joan instead of defending me and seeing to my needs and life. I was just a kid.   I am angry that she was ok with going away for days at a time, taking all of the food from the house to spend the weekends with Joan at her damn cabin when she could have been spending time knowing who I was, how I felt about life and what I wanted from this big world.  I am angry that she let me live for so many many years in fear and anxiety of making Joan mad and never once told her to leave me alone, that i was just a kid and it was ok to sleep in and be lazy once in a while.   
I am mostly angry that they died.  They didn't have to.  They were both young and they both could have been healthier.  But they both continued to live the lies and now they are dead.  Gone.  Dad, alone, in a filthy rat ridden stupid apartment with a tennis shoe full of nuts and bolts and an oven full of dog food, a closet full of homemade food I sent him that he LIED (again) and told me he loved when in reality he never even ate it.  Alone because he LIED and wouldn't let me or anyone else come visit him.  Sick because he LIED and said he was fine when he was actually dying of cancer.I am angry because he didn't trust my love enough to let me help him, to let me care for him, to be there as a FAMILY should be so he wasn't lonely and alone all the time.  He didn't trust me enough to love me enough and i am angry.
And Mother...dead.  She refused to take her medicine.  She refused to use her breathing treatments.  She refused to sleep with her oxygen.  She refused to eat healthily and mostly she refused to tell Joan to go to hell when she wouldn't help take care of her.  She also lied.  Life with Joan was great!  Life with Joan was fine!  They got along great.  She had a good circle of friends....LIES!  all of it!!  Joan is evil, selfish, mean and controllingly abusive. Her "friends" were Joan's spies, none of them actually cared about mother, they were all pawns for Joan.  Life was not good with Joan. And when she died, I wasn't even able to go back into Joan's house (it was never really mom's house) to collect her things, things I would have treasured...all because i couldn't take any more damn lies!  And I am angry that my mom didn't trust my love enough to come live with me where she could be healthy, and cared for and loved for real. She didn't trust my love enough and I am angry.
So....Glencoe bubbled all of that to the surface for me this year.  Memory Lane took me down a dark alley of dead ends and deceit.  
I hope someday I can get past this anger and enjoy Glencoe again.  But right now, none of it feels real.  It all feels like a HUGE pile of shit and I am tired of stepping in it and saying how nice it smells.   And right now, I find it hard to trust anything or any one.  As far as I am concerned, it is a safer bet that EVERYONE is lying to me...my husband, my kids, the few people who claim to be my friends, everyone...except Michael...somehow I am able to believe him...at least most of the time.Probably because he was lied to as well.
Guess there are always more Kapenta Fish for my plate.  And to read this blog, as though anyone ever does, one would think that my life sucks and that I am never happy.  And perhaps there is some element of truth to that.  It is a struggle for me to feel  happy most of the time.  But my life doesn't completely suck. I will say that these past 5 years have been the hardest of my life.  Far more down's than ups.  And while some things in life are starting to look up, I started this blog for ME.  I called it Kapenta Fish because it was a safe place for me to vent and express the salty and disgusting parts of my life.  It was never intended to be a Dear Diary.  I needed a place to be raw and honest (such a rare commodity in my life) and unafraid of offending.  So there it is...the latest serving of Kapenta Fish. It's now 4:40 am and I have to get up in two hours to do something I have no desire to do.  But do it I shall because I said I would and I AM NOT A LIAR!

Pine Valley on the side

I knew I would stink, like Kapenta Fish, at this blogging thing...and I do. I just re-read my last post and sadly many of those unanswered questions have been answered.  As I approach this summer, so much has changed and then so much hasn't.  It is hard to believe that a year has gone by already.  That whole "when you're having fun" thing...not so much.  It just flies regardless of what you are doing.
So, mom died.  She wasn't supposed to do that either.  She went "home" to Joan's house just after Thanksgiving.  8 days later she was back in the hospital with pneumonia....again. I knew it would happen, I just had hoped it would take longer than 8 days.  Alas, after a couple of weeks in the hospital, and a week in the rehab hospital, she was sick again.   Pneumonia...still...and influenza A and B and CDiff...talk about alphabet soup...and then she was gone.  Just gone.  I had to make that unspeakable decision and turn off a machine that gave me a mom...and allowed her to become a box of ashes that haunts me to this moment sitting up in the closet "hidden" under a blue towel where I am not supposed to know where it is.  Good hiding Wayne.  It was a hell of a birthday present.  She left the world the day she brought me into it.  We were both born that day, but it sucked.  I miss her every day.  The drs kept telling us her "numbers" were looking better and that she was getting better.  But I knew differently.  I could smell the Kapenta Fish and they were not to be ignored.  I knew those lungs of hers and I knew they were done.  Drs are stupid.  (and I am married to one, so...)  they look at numbers and machines and test results and charts...but not often do they look into souls. 
Consequently, the questions of going home, and coming back, and living with me, and all of that was answered in a split second and a last breath...a quiet sigh, and a look of emptiness in the eyes of a parent who I loved and needed.  I sure wish I could get that image out of my head.  But some Kapenta Fish never leave.
I miss her.  every time I shower, I think of helping her shower, and wash her hair.  Every time I put on my pink robe, I can see her skinny little legs coming down from inside that robe while I dried her off.  Every time I open a container of cottage cheese or yougart or make toast I miss making her breakfast and lunch.  Every time I watch a talent show on tv I miss watching it with her and eating ice cream cones.  I hate shopping, never loved it, but HATE it now cuz she isn't there to push in the wheel chair and shop with.  I dread the holidays and my birthday and my life without my mom.  Losing Dad was enough for one year, wasn't it?  Did I have to lose them both?  and move?  and still not have a home?  and live on 1/3 the promised pay? ( a post for another day), and have no friends, and miss my kids and grand babies?  Isn't that all enough for one year?  I am full.  I can't eat any more freakin Kapenta Fish or I will vomit out my soul.  STOP already!  I am done.  How do I get down from this table and walk away? Feeling powerless is the worst feeling I know and I have never felt so powerless in my life. I miss my parents, their advice, their support, their encouragement and love.  I miss their voices and their hugs and their cards.  My heart has a huge empty hole in it, filled up with Kapenta fish.
And then there was Pine Valley.  For so many months I prayed for peace of mind and just peace of any kind.  I never thought I would find it.  Then there was Pine Valley.  It was the stop over place we were gong to have to live until our house sold and we could move to St George.  Well, Pine Valley is no stop over.  It is the other half of my being.  It is the part of me that I have longed for for the past 20+ years.  It completes me.  It doesn't pull the fish out of my empty heart, it doesn't make the loss hurt less or the painful memories go away.  But is speaks peace to my soul and allows me to rest.  There will be no move to St George if I have a say in it.  I do hope to move to my own house someday.(if the Savannah house ever sells....another kettle of fish)  But it will be in Pine Valley even if it has to be a small shack it will be my home in Pine Valley.  The mountains surround me like Father's arms and hold me close.  The wind carries their voices into my heart and the sky is so  blue that it is almost transparent enough to see right into heaven.  Even the blankets of snow were like bandages to my wounds.  Pine Valley heals me. 
So, I have still a huge plate of Kapenta Fish, but, I also have a heaping helping of Pine Valley on the side and it sweetens the taste and that helps a lot.  Chomp chomp, I work away at the fish, but every bite is taken dipped in Pine Valley so I can swallow.

It is interesting to me that time goes by, without noticing it, and everything changes while everything stays the same.  I just realized that I have not blogged in a very long time...told you I wouldn't.  And the original plate of Kapenta Fish that I discussed and that spurred me into this bloggisphere (sp) in the first place, has indeed been eaten, digested and the taste is almost, though not completely, gone from my mouth.  When I started this blog, I had no idea how or when those Kapenta fish would be consumed...but they were.  Over time, and with patience and a little at a time, they have been consumed.  They did taste every bit as nasty and salty and disgusting as I knew they would, but with Help (using the capital H to indicate the source of that help), I was able to do what seemed impossible.  Amazing.  and Encouraging..because, in the time that has elapsed since the last blog and certainly since the first blog....."a whole new kettle of fish" as my brother would say, has been dumped onto the briefly empty plate of life.  And this pile of fish really stinks!  I am very hopeful for the same kind of Help I got before, because I really need it this time...and I am really really not hungry for these Kapenta fish.
So, this past summer has been miserable.  I have never liked summer to begin with.  Never really that thrilled to be out of school, rather prefer a schedule and routine.  Never been a huge lover of the beach or sunning.  Grilling is good, but so is crock potting...and Heat is absolute HELL.  I hate sweating, I hate clothes sticking to me, I hate flat hair and melted make up...I HATE being hot.  Period.  But this summer, I even missed all that is tolerable about summer...I missed the 4th of July with my family...and the 6 ft rattle snake they found, killed and grilled in our yard, I missed swimming in the pool (maybe made it out the door 5 times all summer), I missed vacation with my son, I missed leisurely laying around and reading or visiting...gone.  none of it.  This summer will be remembered not for hot dogs and fireworks, not for naps and relaxing vacations...this will forever be the summer of sadness, loss and stress.  My father died.  He wasn't supposed to do that.  He was supposed to stay here for me to confide in and talk to and learn from and laugh with.  He was NOT supposed to fall down at church, be diagnosed with lung/brain cancer and be dead in 5 days.  That was NOT supposed to happen.....but it did.  Big plate of stinkin Kapenta Fish there.  Enjoy.
My mom was not supposed to fall 12 days after coming home from finishing up my father's business and break her collar bone.  That was also not supposed to happen.  She was also not supposed to then fall again and break her tail bone...nope not that either.  She is supposed to be my mom..my example, the professor, the intelligent woman.  She is not supposed to be frail, and forgetful, and feable with a walker and a breathing machine and a million pills to take daily.  She is not supposed to be the child.  She is supposed to be the mom. 
And we are moving....after 17 years of desperately wanting to get out of the swamp...the heat, the humidity, the awfulness that is Savannah...we are given the opportunity to move to Utah!  It was such a good thing...early in the summer.  But today, it is a scary, dark and foreboding thing.  No friends, no peers, no ward, not even an address...not of our own.  No security, nothing familiar, nothing normal.  Dark, scary, insecure and......dare I say.....wrong.  I don't know that it IS wrong, just that at this moment of Kapenta Fish...it feels very wrong.  But EVERYTHING feels wrong.  NOTHING feels right, or normal or comfortable anymore. 
But....I must admit, there were a few things this summer that were good...truly good.  I got to spend time with and know my brother and his wonderful wife.  Because it is just the two (3 or 4 if you count Shari and Wayne), of us...we had to deal with Dad's passing alone.  But, dad being dad...it was completely organized and as "easy" as it could be.  Thanks for that Dad...that was good.  It was good...no GREAT...to spend time with Mike and Shari and to renew relationships that had been stretched to the thinnest possible layer  for many many years.  But I love them, and that was good...very very good.  It was also good to ......actually, I think that was the only really good part of the summer. 
Taking care of my mom has also had its good...difficult but good...spending time with her alone has been good.  Being able to repay some of the compassion and caring that she showed me while I was a kid has been good.  Watching her interact and get to know Rylan has been good.  Having opportunities to express my love for her daily has been good. 
But the Kapenta Fish of not knowing the future is HUGE on my plate.  When we will move..exactly...who knows.  When we will sell our house...who knows.  When we will be able to be in a place of our own...who knows.  When/IF we will be taking mom home to live with Joan...who knows.  If mom will be coming to live with us...who knows.  When she will fall again, or get sick again and I will have to start this whole process over again...who knows.  Will I be able to go see Garrett and Hannah's baby when it is born ....who knows.  Will I be able to give Rylan his birthday party....who knows.  How will we pay for this move, our life and help our kids with their needs....who knows.  Will Wayne's license come through in time or will he be out of work and out of pay check for a while....who knows.  When will I be able to go with Mike and Shari to Michigan to see my father's grave and finally say good bye....who knows.
Kapenta fish stink...we have established that.  I am trying to take encouragement from the first post and the fact that those fish are now gone...forever I hope. And that maybe, just maybe someday this plate of fish will also be digested and gone.  I sure hope so....but until then....nibble nibble nibble...I HATE Kapenta fish!

Validation of life

Last night was one of the most wonderful yet strange nights of my life.  While waiting for Wayne to get home to eat the birthday dinner I did not prepare...story for another blog...I was just wandering around aimlessly on facebook and started typing in names from my past.  All of the sudden, I found Jamie Carmell...she had been one of my best friends when I was a little girl...pre-kindergarten through 5th grade.  I sent her a message to confirm it was really her and it was!  Then I found Laura Beck...another close friend...and from there it snow balled and I found websites for several of my childhood friends and the town I lived in, Glencoe Illinois....it was amazing.  It was so exciting to find them.  But what was most interesting to me was the feelings that overcame me and the absolute flood of memories that bombarded my head.  I saw Sandy Simon and immediately, I was back at her house at a birthday party that we wore costumes to for some reason.  I had gone as Oliver Twist and we were dancing to "Dizzy" in her living room...like it happened yesterday.  I saw Karen Haas and I was at her house looking at her caged Monkey...smelling so terrible listening to "Lucy in the Skies With Diamonds".  I saw Elizabeth Edwards and I went back to her house to a birthday party where her mother told me I looked just like an Afghan dog.  I was spending the night at Jamie's house playing super model with her fancy phones....cuz she was really rich! and eating bagels with cream cheese and jelly.  I was at Stephi Shaffer's house trying on each other's training bras and feeling like we were such women.  I was at Laurie Beck's house looking at the shrimp that they grew in a nasty tank in the kitchen and playing the Game of Life with her brother Bobby who was stuck in a body cast and listening to the radio with him.  I was just overcome with memories and feelings and I found myself smiling and giggling.  It was ridiculous.  Wayne and I sat up half the night looking at pictures.  I know he was bored.  Tough.  It was amazing for me.  It was like a second life that I lead had become real.  Like finding out that what you thought was a dream was reality.  I felt validated, like what I always remembered really did happen and was not just my imagination.  All of these people are a part of my life that NOBODY who I currently associate with know anything about at all so they didn't seem real to me either.  It was an awakening that I can't get enough of.  I have now wasted half of this day searching and reading and waiting for my application to be accepted so that I can be a part of the Glencoe Illinois Central School Class of 73 profile so I can really connect with the past.  Then, the fear sets in.  What if these people don't remember me.  I am sure that as I read names, there are people I should know and their names on the paper mean nothing to me.  What if I am that person....meaning nothing to anyone.  Scary, but worth the risk.  If they don't know me, I will look at their pictures and laugh at them anyway.  Bring on the past...I am ready for it.  .  I know how the past ends...it ends in now...The future is a whole different story...who knows how the future ends? 

Paco Must Dance

Today is my sweet husband's birthday...54.  What the heck?  I met this man when he was an acne faced, glasses wearing skinny bowl legged young kid of 17...and his smile melted my heart.  It truly was love at first sight.  I know, I know...corny at best, and not likely at worst...but true none the less.  My friend Paula introduced us, standing in the parking lot of Scottsdale High School in October of 1974.  He was wearing a yellow checked shirt and jeans and horrid horrid brown two tone shoes...they were awful.  But, he was perfect.  He gave me a ride home that evening, and all I wanted was to never leave him.  Granted, there were more than a few struggles going on at home at that time...so escape and distraction was a good thing.  But, safety and acceptance was so much more than escape and distraction.  It fit like a soft warm sweater and yet held the excitement of falling backwards off a cliff.  I didn't want to leave him.
I could write for days about the passing 31+ years that have been filled with happiness and sorrow...struggle and success...all of the typical "stuff" that marriages go through.  But today, I just want him to have a happy birthday.  I want him to know I am happy he was born 54 years ago. I would thank his mom, if she was alive to tell, for bringing this child into the world for me to know and love.  Unquestionably my best friend, my greatest cheerleader (minus the dorky outfit and mega phone), my most reliable confidant, and my love.  Happy Birthday to my high school sweet heart who remains my sweetheart into old age as well.  Hope there are another 54 for us to celebrate.  And so, Paco must dance...I will not disappoint Paco!

Brothers and Best Friends

I had started writing a whole thing about this...but it was dumb.  Suffice it to say, I am lucky enough that I have both...and today, they felt like the same person.  My brother lost his best friend this past weekend, and my heart hurts for him.  And I have my junk going on, and he cares about me, too.  He is my friend and I am sad that he lost his.   

When a person is over 50...

So today I heard words spoken to me that were as stunning as a glass of water in the face.  They shouldn't have been since they are as true as true can be.  They were also not new news or anything I didn't already know.  I think it was the way they were said...just so matter of factly and so unappologeticly...(yeah I don't know how to spell that word at all).  The words were spoken by my new eye doctor.."J.C."....what kind of name is that for a dr?  "Hi, I'm J.C."...and I am supposed to take that seriously?  Anyway.."J.C." was examining my eyes and while checking me for glaucoma...thank you mother dear...and without even looking up at me sympathetically he said."When a person is over 50...blah blah blah".  I didn't even hear what he said after the word fifty...I stopped right there and my mind went in a totally different direction than "J.C."'s did.  He could have told me I was dying of cancer or that I had just won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstake...I have no idea what he said.  Now, I know I AM over 50---52 to be exact.  I usually feel over 50.  This was not news to me, after all, even if I was in complete denial, I did just fill out 4 sheets of paper with my birth date on it in the waiting room.  But hearing the phrase "When a person is over 50" and then suddenly realizing that you are the only person in the room it applies to (because let's be honest,..our friend "J.C." is just 30 minutes out of High School and probably still has his prom pictures on his dresser at home)...is just dumbfounding.  It really is.  (let me just interject here that I am FIGHTING  the urge to go back and change "it applies to" to "to whom it applies"  but I am told you are just supposed to free think here in blog land and not worry about grammar or structure...but it is killing me.  I just wanted it noted that I am aware of the grammar error and I apologize.)  But back to being over 50...In his defense...J.C. is a very nice young man, and seems to be a very thorough eye dr. and I will gladly go back to him and even refer him to my friends...yada yada yada,...I guess I am more surprised and stunned at my own reaction.  The words that hit me in the face like a brick just flowed off of his tongue with such ease.  Why did they stun me so?  I have been wondering that all afternoon.  And I still don't know the answer.  It was hard enough to realize that I qualified as at risk for gallbladder trouble by satisfying the "four F's"  Female, Fertile, Fat and Forty.  And that was 12 years ago!!!!  I don't even qualify for gallbladder issues anymore...no longer fertile and waaaay over forty.  Who ever thought that would be a disappointment?
So, what is wrong with being over 50?  nothing...except everything.  Realizing that when I have been married as long again as I have been now...I will be 83!!!!  Did you hear what I just said?  83?  I think we all know that everything goes faster when going down hill instead of up hill...and I am definitely on the down hill slide of life...and it is going to go faster and faster...on the bright side, I won't be pushing up a hill any more which is a whole lot of work...and I am too tired.  But still....over 50 hurts a little and makes me feel slow....I hope he didn't tell me anything too important after he said that because I didn't hear it.
I wonder if babbling is a sign of over 50?  must be...