I worked yesterday. I'm having another fucking period. This means I was tired and grouchy and bitchy today. I only work 3-4 days/month so when I do have to work, it's quite a process. I rarely ever go to bed before at least midnight. So getting up at 0430 really makes my life a living fucking hell when I do have to work. I do not ever have an issue with sleeping. I just like to spend some time to myself before I go to bed at night. It's my way of unwinding from the day, if you will. I know. I'm more or less a stay-at-home-mom. What unwinding could I possibly need? Ha!! Have you ever spent an entire day with three small children? All of them screaming at you at the same time for one thing or another? Melt downs, tripping over toys, them smacking each other, them screaming at each other, them throwing their toys, food, etc.? It may not be physically draining all the time but it's damn sure mentally and emotionally draining ALL the time!! You have to watch what you say, what you do, what look you give them, what look you don't give them. I'm raising the next generation here! I don't want them to turn out as fucked up as me! With that in mind, I may just start saving for their therapy now!
Today sucked big, fat, hairy, sweat stained balls. I wish I had a do over but I don't. Tomorrow HAS to be better! Tomorrow I HAVE to be a better person, a better mom. I HAVE to be more attentive. I HAVE to stop using the excuse that "I'm busy" for the reason that I can't drop the fucking eggs at that very second to look at the same picture of the scribbled....whatever the hell it is....that I have saw 6 times in the last half hour. I HAVE to stop being a bitch when my son starts bossing the other two around because I get so sick of him doing that! Only to realize, he's doing the same thing that I do to him every.single.day.
I lost my shit too many times today. So much so that I gave myself a headache. I was pissed when they sprayed each other with the hose after being told not to 5 times, leaving huge puddles in our $480 hydroseed potentially killing the up and coming grass. I was pissed when they tracked mud all over the downstairs AFTER I told them to undress in the garage and put their muddy clothes in the utility sink. I was pissed when they drug out every damn Lego they own and scattered them all over the upstairs living room. I was pissed when they wouldn't pick up the toys, when they acted like circus monkeys while we were eating dinner, when they almost flooded the damn bathroom because they were playing with the new stack of Dixie cups for rinsing after brushing thus ruining about 10 of them, when they didn't put away their outside toys and I almost ran over a tricycle, when they wouldn't get ready for t-ball like I asked 6 times thereby making us 20 minutes late, when they wouldn't get ready for bed, when they wouldn't stay in said bed, when I had to take a hand full of ibuprofen for the headache that I blamed solely on them but was also caused by lack of sleep, dehydration and probably too much coffee.
I love my kids but I'm going to have to start leaving them with a sitter more often and pick up more shifts. We don't need the money. I just need my sanity. I don't want to go on play dates. I don't want to go to a friends' house. I don't want friends to come to my house. I want a day where I don't have to listen to them fighting and arguing and me having to holler at them to get their attention. I swear they do not hear me unless I'm screaming like some fucking banshee. I can't take it anymore. I can't take being "that" mom. For now, I'll distance myself from them and them from me. Maybe one day I'll more appreciate having spent all this time with them while they were little. But maybe, just maybe one day, they'll appreciate me having done all the things that I do. Because right now, I feel like the only fucking reason I'm here is to please everyone else that lives in this house. Fuck what I want. Fuck how I feel. I'm totally overwhelmed and I just can't take it anymore.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Has it really been THAT long????
This post isn't going to be mushy. It's not going to be mean. It's not going to be real pretty either.....
Twenty years ago today, my father died. I was 16. My younger sisters were 14 and 12 and my little brother was 9. My parents had divorced 7 years prior to this. We rarely saw my dad.....he lived literally 2 minutes from where we did. Although in a town of only 500 people, it wasn't very hard to get from one end to the other in less than 5 minutes. Any who...back to Mike (aka Dad). He was a kind man. He never bothered anyone except my mother LOL. Although, everyone and everything bothered her. Still does. Other than my mother, the other reasons we never saw my father were: alcohol, fishing, hunting and his friends. And, did I mention alcohol?? You see my father never really grew up. Not completely anyway. He always believed that he would fish and drink until he was too old to do either any longer. His friends, alcohol, fishing and hunting came first. This is all fine and good except when you have a family to care for and about. After their divorce, he would call to ask to take just my brother fishing because "girls don't fish". My mother would of course tell him not unless he was taking all of us. This would piss him off, her off and none of us would end up going. Hell! We didn't even know he had called! My mother would keep that information to herself. I don't know if she did it to protect us or to be a bitch or both. I don't really care anymore truthfully.
Approximately two weeks prior to my father's death, my mother and I had a big one. By "big one", I mean we had an all out brawl. You see my mother and I have never really gotten along. We especially didn't when I was younger. Maybe it was teenage hormones. Maybe it was me just being an asshole teenager. But mostly, it was a lack of respect on both our parts. The way I see it, I had ruined her party life and her life in general 16 years prior to that when she became pregnant with yours truly. From a man she barely knew. Because her philosophy was and I quote, "If he was good enough to take me out, he was good enough to have sex with."....I'm not going to delve into that "amazing advice" in this post. We'll save that for another time.
I lived with a friend for a while after our blow out. Then one day my mother decided that she was going to give a shit and called and told me that I had to come home. I told her to shove it. She said that she was responsible for me until I was 18 and I was coming home whether I liked it or not. I told her to fuck off and that I was moving in with Dad. This of course pissed her off beyond belief but she really had no choice. So I called Dad, fucked up his freedom and moved in with him. Two days later, shit went south.
I asked Dad if I could go stay at my friend's house for the night. #1: I had new found freedom. Dad was drunk all the time. He'd never know what I was actually ever doing. #2: I didn't want to listen to his drunk, babbling bullshit when he got home from the bar. I walked into the bar to talk to him (you can do that in small, rural communities). He was well on his way to being hammered already. No surprise there. I talked to him briefly to let him know my plans. Now here's where it gets a little odd/mushy/whatever the hell you want to call it. I remember standing there and for some unknown reason thinking to myself, "Remember this moment RIGHT NOW! Memorize the design of the plaid in his shirt. Memorize his face. Memorize his goofy grin. Memorize his long, jet black hair that Grandma always hated. Memorize his eyes, the same exact dark green eyes that you have. Remember this very moment.....Right.Now." He asked that I come back later and he'd let me know his answer. My friend and I drove around the town for a while. We later met up with him at his house. I asked if it was ok that we were going to her house to watch movies. Her mom was going to be there. And she was. It was all the truth. I will never forget the look in his eyes. I will never forget the slight hint of a plea in his voice when he almost begged us to stay there with him. At the time, I thought he was just drunk and wanted to blab. Again, I thought, "Not real interested in listening to your shit Dad. You've had my entire life to talk to me. You never fucking bothered then. Why is now so fucking important?!!"
My friend and I left to go to her house. We started a movie with her little brother while her mom did mom stuff around the house. Approximately one hour later, we heard it. The fire whistle that alerted the entire town started screaming. It alerted the volunteer firemen to come running. My friend's little brother saw the smoke and said, "Shit!! That's right here in town!!! We should go see where it is!" So like good little nosy small town people, that's exactly what we did. It was windy that night. So fucking windy. It generally is in eastern Montana. There are no trees or hills to block it. It just whips through. We kept driving towards the smoke. Getting closer and closer to my father's house. Yep! It was his house that was on fire! I attempted to jump out before I even realized what I was doing. I was stopped by my shirt collar choking me. What the fuck?!! I tried to pull harder and harder. Then I realized my friend's mom had a hold of my shirt and wasn't going to let loose until I promised that I wouldn't go running over there. She spoke to the deputy sheriff. I screamed at him. We spoke to one of the firemen who also worked with my dad and had for many years. They were pretty good buds. He was visibly shaken. I kept saying, "Cal, where's my dad? Where the fuck is my dad? Where.The.Fuck.IS.HE?!!!!!" The only response I would get was, "We don't know. We're looking Meccala. We're trying. We don't think he's in there though." Where the fuck would he have gone? His pick-up was still parked in the drive way. The same place it was when I left to go to my friend's house. Maybe he had ran to the neighbors'. Maybe he had just ran period.
The whole front half of that stupid fucking trailer house was engulfed in flames. The kitchen sat in the very middle. I just knew that he had put in the fucking chicken he had been talking about and the stove started the place on fire. He had some how fucked up cooking a chicken. I just KNEW it! My dad's place NEVER was in the kitchen!!
My friend's mom said, "Let's go to the ER. If he some how got out and is hurt, he's there." We drove the 2 minutes there and yep. There he was. Laying there on that gurney with second and third degree burns covering his entire upper body. His hair was singed. His face was burnt and getting puffy. His hands were black. So, so black. They were trying to cut off and peel off what was left of his shirt. He had an IV going in his foot (only veins they had any sort of access to). Somewhere in there, someone called my mom. She showed up and even though we wanted to kill one another two days prior, she was obviously very relieved to find that I too was not in the same condition as dad. They stabilized him and threw him in an ambulance for the next "big" town on the grid. We (mom and I) went home and gathered up my sisters and brother to follow the ambulance. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure she knew this was the last time we would see him alive. She was right. We said good bye to him in Glendive, MT. He was flown to the Salt Lake City, UT burn unit. We never saw him again. One week later, he died from complications of infection. We never went to visit him. We couldn't. We didn't have the money. My mom had just finished nursing school. She was broke as shit what with raising four kids on menial child support and her few hours as an aid here and there at the local nursing home. My grandparents (mom's parents) worked to get us the money to fly there but by the time everything was in place, he had already passed away. My Grandma (his mom) and my aunt (his sister) went there. They flew out right away. That's a whole other story that I'd rather not get into right now. Suffice it to say, they were too busy shopping and taking pictures of his bloated, burned body to give two fucks whether or not he was actually still alive. My aunt always was the better of the two siblings. Don't believe me? Just ask her! She'll tell you exactly how fucking great she is!! She later shoved those pictures in my little 9 year old brother's face so he could see. Pretty fucking sweet of her huh?! I wanted to punch her right in her perfect fucking teeth!
In the end, we found out the truth. This according to Fire Marshal Bill (hehe....ok not funny), he attempted to light the pilot light on his furnace which lived in a closet right off the kitchen. It blew up in his face. It's theorized that he was able to crawl to the front porch. And that he was attempting to make his way out but was trapped. Probably by fire and by smoke and by complete drunkenness and by fear and by pain and by multiple deep, deep burns covering half of his body. Two guys I went to high school with happened to be driving around and saw the smoke first. They crawled in and pulled his ass out. They threw him in the back of the pick-up. One sat with him keeping him warm while the other "flew" to the ER.
It makes me sad that he suffered such a horrible death. He was a good person. He was a very like able person. It makes me sad that he wasn't here to see his kids grow up. That he's not here to see his grandchildren grow up. It makes me sad that I didn't know my dad hardly at all. It makes me sad that I really didn't have a dad growing up. It makes me sad that my sisters and brother didn't have a dad growing up either. It makes me sad that he chose alcohol over his children.
I have memories of him. The most memorable though? The design of the plaid in his shirt. His face. His goofy grin. His long, jet black hair that Grandma always hated and his eyes, the same exact dark green eyes that I have.
Thanks all for reading.
Twenty years ago today, my father died. I was 16. My younger sisters were 14 and 12 and my little brother was 9. My parents had divorced 7 years prior to this. We rarely saw my dad.....he lived literally 2 minutes from where we did. Although in a town of only 500 people, it wasn't very hard to get from one end to the other in less than 5 minutes. Any who...back to Mike (aka Dad). He was a kind man. He never bothered anyone except my mother LOL. Although, everyone and everything bothered her. Still does. Other than my mother, the other reasons we never saw my father were: alcohol, fishing, hunting and his friends. And, did I mention alcohol?? You see my father never really grew up. Not completely anyway. He always believed that he would fish and drink until he was too old to do either any longer. His friends, alcohol, fishing and hunting came first. This is all fine and good except when you have a family to care for and about. After their divorce, he would call to ask to take just my brother fishing because "girls don't fish". My mother would of course tell him not unless he was taking all of us. This would piss him off, her off and none of us would end up going. Hell! We didn't even know he had called! My mother would keep that information to herself. I don't know if she did it to protect us or to be a bitch or both. I don't really care anymore truthfully.
Approximately two weeks prior to my father's death, my mother and I had a big one. By "big one", I mean we had an all out brawl. You see my mother and I have never really gotten along. We especially didn't when I was younger. Maybe it was teenage hormones. Maybe it was me just being an asshole teenager. But mostly, it was a lack of respect on both our parts. The way I see it, I had ruined her party life and her life in general 16 years prior to that when she became pregnant with yours truly. From a man she barely knew. Because her philosophy was and I quote, "If he was good enough to take me out, he was good enough to have sex with."....I'm not going to delve into that "amazing advice" in this post. We'll save that for another time.
I lived with a friend for a while after our blow out. Then one day my mother decided that she was going to give a shit and called and told me that I had to come home. I told her to shove it. She said that she was responsible for me until I was 18 and I was coming home whether I liked it or not. I told her to fuck off and that I was moving in with Dad. This of course pissed her off beyond belief but she really had no choice. So I called Dad, fucked up his freedom and moved in with him. Two days later, shit went south.
I asked Dad if I could go stay at my friend's house for the night. #1: I had new found freedom. Dad was drunk all the time. He'd never know what I was actually ever doing. #2: I didn't want to listen to his drunk, babbling bullshit when he got home from the bar. I walked into the bar to talk to him (you can do that in small, rural communities). He was well on his way to being hammered already. No surprise there. I talked to him briefly to let him know my plans. Now here's where it gets a little odd/mushy/whatever the hell you want to call it. I remember standing there and for some unknown reason thinking to myself, "Remember this moment RIGHT NOW! Memorize the design of the plaid in his shirt. Memorize his face. Memorize his goofy grin. Memorize his long, jet black hair that Grandma always hated. Memorize his eyes, the same exact dark green eyes that you have. Remember this very moment.....Right.Now." He asked that I come back later and he'd let me know his answer. My friend and I drove around the town for a while. We later met up with him at his house. I asked if it was ok that we were going to her house to watch movies. Her mom was going to be there. And she was. It was all the truth. I will never forget the look in his eyes. I will never forget the slight hint of a plea in his voice when he almost begged us to stay there with him. At the time, I thought he was just drunk and wanted to blab. Again, I thought, "Not real interested in listening to your shit Dad. You've had my entire life to talk to me. You never fucking bothered then. Why is now so fucking important?!!"
My friend and I left to go to her house. We started a movie with her little brother while her mom did mom stuff around the house. Approximately one hour later, we heard it. The fire whistle that alerted the entire town started screaming. It alerted the volunteer firemen to come running. My friend's little brother saw the smoke and said, "Shit!! That's right here in town!!! We should go see where it is!" So like good little nosy small town people, that's exactly what we did. It was windy that night. So fucking windy. It generally is in eastern Montana. There are no trees or hills to block it. It just whips through. We kept driving towards the smoke. Getting closer and closer to my father's house. Yep! It was his house that was on fire! I attempted to jump out before I even realized what I was doing. I was stopped by my shirt collar choking me. What the fuck?!! I tried to pull harder and harder. Then I realized my friend's mom had a hold of my shirt and wasn't going to let loose until I promised that I wouldn't go running over there. She spoke to the deputy sheriff. I screamed at him. We spoke to one of the firemen who also worked with my dad and had for many years. They were pretty good buds. He was visibly shaken. I kept saying, "Cal, where's my dad? Where the fuck is my dad? Where.The.Fuck.IS.HE?!!!!!" The only response I would get was, "We don't know. We're looking Meccala. We're trying. We don't think he's in there though." Where the fuck would he have gone? His pick-up was still parked in the drive way. The same place it was when I left to go to my friend's house. Maybe he had ran to the neighbors'. Maybe he had just ran period.
The whole front half of that stupid fucking trailer house was engulfed in flames. The kitchen sat in the very middle. I just knew that he had put in the fucking chicken he had been talking about and the stove started the place on fire. He had some how fucked up cooking a chicken. I just KNEW it! My dad's place NEVER was in the kitchen!!
My friend's mom said, "Let's go to the ER. If he some how got out and is hurt, he's there." We drove the 2 minutes there and yep. There he was. Laying there on that gurney with second and third degree burns covering his entire upper body. His hair was singed. His face was burnt and getting puffy. His hands were black. So, so black. They were trying to cut off and peel off what was left of his shirt. He had an IV going in his foot (only veins they had any sort of access to). Somewhere in there, someone called my mom. She showed up and even though we wanted to kill one another two days prior, she was obviously very relieved to find that I too was not in the same condition as dad. They stabilized him and threw him in an ambulance for the next "big" town on the grid. We (mom and I) went home and gathered up my sisters and brother to follow the ambulance. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure she knew this was the last time we would see him alive. She was right. We said good bye to him in Glendive, MT. He was flown to the Salt Lake City, UT burn unit. We never saw him again. One week later, he died from complications of infection. We never went to visit him. We couldn't. We didn't have the money. My mom had just finished nursing school. She was broke as shit what with raising four kids on menial child support and her few hours as an aid here and there at the local nursing home. My grandparents (mom's parents) worked to get us the money to fly there but by the time everything was in place, he had already passed away. My Grandma (his mom) and my aunt (his sister) went there. They flew out right away. That's a whole other story that I'd rather not get into right now. Suffice it to say, they were too busy shopping and taking pictures of his bloated, burned body to give two fucks whether or not he was actually still alive. My aunt always was the better of the two siblings. Don't believe me? Just ask her! She'll tell you exactly how fucking great she is!! She later shoved those pictures in my little 9 year old brother's face so he could see. Pretty fucking sweet of her huh?! I wanted to punch her right in her perfect fucking teeth!
In the end, we found out the truth. This according to Fire Marshal Bill (hehe....ok not funny), he attempted to light the pilot light on his furnace which lived in a closet right off the kitchen. It blew up in his face. It's theorized that he was able to crawl to the front porch. And that he was attempting to make his way out but was trapped. Probably by fire and by smoke and by complete drunkenness and by fear and by pain and by multiple deep, deep burns covering half of his body. Two guys I went to high school with happened to be driving around and saw the smoke first. They crawled in and pulled his ass out. They threw him in the back of the pick-up. One sat with him keeping him warm while the other "flew" to the ER.
It makes me sad that he suffered such a horrible death. He was a good person. He was a very like able person. It makes me sad that he wasn't here to see his kids grow up. That he's not here to see his grandchildren grow up. It makes me sad that I didn't know my dad hardly at all. It makes me sad that I really didn't have a dad growing up. It makes me sad that my sisters and brother didn't have a dad growing up either. It makes me sad that he chose alcohol over his children.
I have memories of him. The most memorable though? The design of the plaid in his shirt. His face. His goofy grin. His long, jet black hair that Grandma always hated and his eyes, the same exact dark green eyes that I have.
Thanks all for reading.
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