Sorry

Good.  God.  Where to start?  I said that I wanted to be honest here so here I go.

I am a perfectionist.  Black and white are the boxes I have tried to stuff my feelings, my thoughts, and my life into.  It's not working for me anymore.

I am far from perfect.  Especially when it comes to being a mother.

I smile and say that I'm not angry but rather I am sad, depressed, tired, etc.  Those feelings just sound more polite.  But really, I am boiling over with anger, hatred, rage, and just pure poison.

This morning I fucked up.  Today I reached the point where I truly was not sure that I could be a parent.  Nice.  My daughter is a cute little six year old with the vocabulary of a ten year old, and the mouthy sass of a teenager.  Mornings before school are tough around our house.  My husband leaves before we get up so it is me versus two beagles and a six year old.  I lose most mornings.

In typical fashion my daughter fought me on what to wear, what to eat for breakfast and continued to sass me.  I had been pretty patient but then I lost it.  With the last words of back-talk, I turned around and asked her if she wanted me to go to her Christmas party today at school because she sure wasn't acting like she wanted me around.  Then I said something to the effect of "because I can just leave you and not be around at all".  And I didn't just say these things.  I screamed them.

I watched the tears well up in my daughter's eyes and I saw my own painful grimace worn on her undeserving face.  I hurt her and my made her cry before school; two things I swore I would never do.

I salvaged the tears that I could and dropped her off at school.  A few hours later I went to her party and as I walked in she looked up and saw me and burst into tears.  In those tears I could hear my mother's words taunting me.  We talked for a few minutes, she calmed down and I apologized.  But really, how does five minutes do anything but put a band-aid on the real problem?

I'm that problem and I am scared to death.  There are some people just made to be parents.  They are the ones who should be allowed to have kids.  I am not one of those people.  For a fleeting second this morning, I honestly thought that me walking away would be best for all involved.  I hate myself for arriving at that point because I watched my mother flirt and threaten with that point more times than I can count.

After the party was over I got in my car and headed back to work.   I ended up turning around and going back to her school but her bio-father had already picked her up to spend the night tonight.  So I'm fucked.  And worse, my daughter gets to go to bed tonight, in a bed she doesn't really like, turning over in her mind what the hell her mother meant this morning when she said she would leave.

I am sick at my stomach and none of this is OK.  Yet another thing I swore I would never do; making my daughter wonder who will be there in the morning.

I am so, so sorry.

Need

From The Pliers: The question that occurs to me tonight as I follow the progress of your reclamation project is, What is the singularly most important thing that any given reader of your blog can do for you, with you, or on your behalf as s/he or reads your words?

To be an effect.  To be affected...

There are remarkably unique readers here.  I wrote to another reader that I want my readers to take from my words exactly what they need, not what I want them to need.  That would be rather selfish of me as I have spent a lifetime being told what to feel, what not to feel, and how to feel.  Here is not the place for that.

I began writing here to keep a journal.  One out of ink and out of nosey hands.  I love my family but one member in particular likes to read my spilled guts.  I'm anonymous here and so I write freely.  I have in fact shared printed pages of this site in person but that is as far as I have gotten.

In my writing you will find love.  I deeply love my daughter and my husband.  On paper I am not capable of love.  I believed that lie for far too long.  Love is what drives me to succeed in this; to excel at being whole. 

My love goes beyond those who live in my home as well.  This is a bold love; a love that hopes and believes for the best.  This love hopes that every time my father calls that he will be calling to tell me he has changed.  This love hopes that my mother found the end of her turmoil.  This love envelops hate, consumes despair and braids the three into something fierce and sharp.  My love for my parents cuts and and shreds but loves these imperfect people because they gave me life and they did not kill me; this is the best I got from them.  Underneath the shards of pain, I love them.  Not for what they did but rather for what they didn't.

In these pages the closed mind, the unscathed will find truth.  There are those who hold tightly to a small little world where nothing all that bad happens.  It does.  To children and adults alike. An awareness can be found here as brutal words are wrapped around the perspective of a small child.  It is hard to ignore.

And lastly, for the broken, for the survivor, for the lost; there is hope.  What I write is only my version of hope so seek your hope out as well.  But take from me what you need even if it is just the smallest understanding that you are not alone. 

Because you are not.

For those who are able, take from me the awareness that there are others like me; your neighbors, your friends, the child in your own child's class who forces a smile but carries a frown that is just a little too deep for a tiny face.

What can a reader do?  Please do not waste my woundings.  Take what you need.

Be an effect.  Be affected by love, truth, hope...

Pink

It stings.  It burns.  I don't want to take a bath but my mother says that I have to.  Soap makes it worse.

He is home so I need to hurry.  He likes to walk in on accident.  I don't understand how it is an accident when the water is running loudly or why he sits down on the toilet lid and stays to rub his pants.  That is not an accident.  An accident is when I spill my milk and get my face slapped.  I don't get to slap him for this accident.

I wish I could.

I turn the water on.  Really hot.  I am a dirty girl and the hot makes my filthy skin red instead of bad.  I turn the light off and peel my clothes into a pile on the floor.  In the dark I can't see my bruises, my scars, or my filth.

The tub begins to fill and I jump in.  I am standing and I can feel the scalding water turn my feet a mottled red.  The doorknob turns and I pray it's my little sister... or even my mother.

It's him.  His obligatory and surprised "OH" is exclaimed as he slides through the door an presses it shut with his back.  He is not surprised and neither am I.

He flips on the light as he is sneering about me bathing in the dark... how weird it is.  He smiles his toothy grin and rubs his hands together in anticipation of his pleasure.  I feel my stomach drop into my privates and I loathe that all too common feeling.

The water continues to run and the tub is nearly full.  I reach to turn it off as he silently shakes his head "NO".  Instead he reaches down and pulls the drain stopper to drain the water simultaneously as it pours from the faucet.

He is not going to sit on the toilet lid this time as he unbuckles his belt.  He motions for me to step out of the tub and silently I obey.  His clothes are peeled off into a pile next to mine and I do nothing. 

I do not scream.

I do not run.

I do not cry.

I slowly turn around the way he likes.

He is heavy as he works to be inside me.  In disgust he mumbles about me being dry.  My stomach is pressed and pounded over and over into the vanity.  The drawer pull rubs me raw. 

I open my smashed shut eyes and there I am.  In the mirror, face to face with the dirty girl.  I focus on her eyes and then I look away to avoid drowning in her dead eyes.  I see her freckles and her stubby nose.  I look a little closer and then I see it.  I see her smile. 

She is his happy girl and her name is Sara.  She is five and she says she is a princess.  Her eyes come alive and sparkle under her blonde eyelashes.  I love her hair because it is not like my own dark and curly hair.  She smiles again as he groans with pleasure.

She is not happy, I know this.  But she is his happy girl.

I am lost in that mirror looking for a way out of those drowning eyes.  Quickly I am rescued as I am pulled away and dropped into the still scalding water.  Ribbons of burning red stream from where I am sitting.  I wince with pain as he rolls his eyes in disgust. 

He takes my towel, the only towel, and cleans himself.  He dresses quickly.  As he buckles his belt he tells me to wash good because I am filthy.  I know this already. He returns the drain stopper shut and then the door opens and shuts and he is gone. 

I sit there until the water is cold.

My skin is no longer red but my bathwater is pink with shame.

Baggage

I know we all have baggage.  Some more than others.  Some less than others.

I have closets crammed deep and to the top, a storage unit full, and an 18-wheeler truck full of my baggage that follows me wherever I go.

Last night my husband did something that triggered me beyond reasoning.  He was in the wrong and of course he apologized but this was after nearly an hour of my screaming and even tears. 

Yes, I cried.

I got a hold of myself only when he matched my pitch and told me,

I am not your parents... I am not him... breathe and look me in the eyes...

 Pressed into a corner of the room, it was then that I came back to reality.  Suddenly he didn't look like my father anymore and his words didn't sound like my mother's searing rage. 

He told me late last night, after we went to bed, in the dark so that he didn't have to see the hurt on my face, that he hadn't fully realized just how damaged I was until this episode.  His words cut me to the bone because they were true.

I am damaged and on the off chance that a closet door is opened just a little too far, that baggage tumbles out crushing whomever is standing in the way.  It is times like these that I feel so badly for my family.  They did nothing wrong yet they are getting trampled by my past.  Although not as bad, this is my mother all over again.  Her past knocked me over flattened me.  Damaged me and smothered me under her own musty baggage.

I can't be her.  I just can't.  It is not fair to my family and it is times like last night that I wonder what the fuck I was thinking when I started playing house.

Always

Ten Things I Will Always Tell my Daughter:

1. You make my life complete.
2. I have learned more from you than I will ever teach you.
3. It's not where you come from but rather the person that you become.
4. Some of my fondest memories are those from when it was just you and me.
5. "I love you"
6. How beautiful you are.  Inside and out.
7. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to.
8. The truth of who you are... kind, loving, smart, funny... even when you can't see it or believe it.
9. Don't be too serious.  Enjoy being a kid and always reserve a tiny corner of your heart that never grows old.
10. Happy Birthday.  I am so glad you were born!

Today is my daughter's 6th birthday.  She loves her birthday and she loves Christmas.  She says that December is the best month of her life. 

This year she asked for "a private birthday party with her parents".

And a Nintendo DS.

She got both and then some...

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

P.S.  I know that you won't always want a private party with us and that is OK.  Thank you for letting us be cool for however long that it lasts...