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!
