Oh, What A Spectacle!

Feeling Blue

I am feeling a bit blue. Not entirely sure why. Maybe ending nine years of breastfeeding and still longing for one more baby has left me sad. Maybe because my sister just had a baby and it seems I am being held at bay from speaking to her. Or maybe it's because I can feel the emotions of those I hold close, someone somewhere may be not feeling well. Whatever it is, it needs to end. Last year I yo-yo'd with depression and I was happy to leave it there.

I have been working on a blog for positive body image. I have to say it brings me joy and is an amazing outlet. Finally comfortable with me. I have some amazing friends and amazing support. I just hope like other things I attempt it does not fizzle.

 

Love and Blue Days

Button

Feathered and Fur Friends

Yes, we got some more animals. We now also have a guinea pig and a bird. The kids are very excited and love them already. Maggie holds the guinea pig like a baby. Joaquin and the bird have become fast friends. The bird sits on his shoulder and also, now on his finger no pecking! He is very excited.

Joaquin has Autism as I have mentioned before. When he has something of a living, breathing companion he feels secure. I have always found it interesting that he loves birds. They have flight and in some ways that seems gravity defying. Joaquin has sensations quite often that he is losing his gravitational pull. He was get visibly and vocally upset. He needs rocks in his pocket and....someone to hold is soft pudgy hands.

Maggie probably has ADHD, and maybe be Bi-Polar. This is what has been suggested but, without proper diagnosis. Either way, like Joaquin we still love her. Animals calm her down so much. She has her lab/pit mix lay down with her and he spoons her face to face. She will close her eyes and strokes his coat and everything is good. Small animals give her something beyond herself to care for and nurture. She loves this.

These a few of the reasons I don't mind having various animals around.

Love and Animals.

Button

Of Ex's and Hoe's

It has come to light that the husbands ex-wife has been living in an alternate universe. For many years she has told her daughter I was the sole reason for her and his divorce. Being that I am a woman who likes to live in honesty I will admit, when we met he was married. He had a child with his wife, who was still in high school back in Texas. He told me they were estranged due to her infidelities and dishonesty. We were friends from when we met in November 1994 until I left North Carolina in April 1995. In September of that year I began writing him. He was such a good friend that I did not really want to lose contact. He wrote me back and talked a lot of his daughter. He mentioned his wife and how she did not want to move to North Carolina and was still having a relationship with a woman. They had finally decided to divorce.

We wrote and talked on the phone. For Christmas leave he wanted to come visit me. I encouraged him to go see his daughter and family. That is what he did, and ended up probably fathering another child with his wife. She for years has denied the child is his. He tried working it out with her yet, again. We still wrote and I was in a relationship with another person. This was 1996. I moved to Kansas with that person and the letter writing continued. He had become my best friend and someone I could tell anything to. I will be honest I had feelings for him beyond a friendship for years, held them at bay because he was married.

The Kansas persona and I broke up. We still remained room-mates. Much to my dismay and weakness for not wanting anyone homeless. Jimmy and I started a long distance relationship which consisted of phone calls and lots of letters. In October of 1997 I made the bus ride from Wichita, Kansas to Jacksonville, North Carolina. I went not knowing if I was visiting or moving. It had been about two and half years since I saw him. We had both changed in appearance and more. Yet, it was still like we were those teenagers who talked on long walks and hung out at the music store.

I never moved back to Kansas.

During the time I was living the very sinful life, living with a still married man.....he proposed. His divorce papers came and I lost a baby. He told his parents about me and his ex-wife. They were still in Texas. When he was discharged from the Marines I went to Texas with him. He started to finalize his divorce (the state requires a class that has to be taken in Texas). We spent a lot of if time with his daughter and even his ex at times.

I often gave him the option of leaving me and making a life with them. He refused as she had moved on and was living with her partner. Before we married I told him that any kind of function we did for his daughter would include them, if they chose to come. No badmouthing her mom in front of her, ever! As far as I know, he was able to stick by these things.

Our oldest son was born. My grandpa was sick back in California. Jimmy's mom was mentally unstable and things seemed to be calling us out west. I left first with our oldest he followed suite two weeks later. We had his daaughter a few summers at first then, as the years went on the visits were less frequent. Sometimes we had no money, sometimes she did not want to come. He wanted her to live with us, she said she wanted to and was scared her mom would be mad. She chose to stay with her mom. Her calls became infrequent and emails stopped coming. She did not return any we made for many many months at time.

When she was upset at her mom, or hurt she would call. This became a pattern, and still is.

Over the weekend I was working on an article for this blog about the relationship between a step-mom and a step-daughter....it got a bit emotional. My heart ached and before it was finished other things happened. A little share of Facebook my husband made, from a conversation with our oldest son turned ugly. His ex joked, I made a joke and she lashed out. His daughter lashed out, a friend tried to stomp out the embers but, it was too late.

As I had predicted years earlier, lies had been told....and I was painted as a husband stilling hoe. Him as a filandering player with no regard. Well, I will admit in my younger days I was kind of a hoe...however that has nothing do with my marriage. He is hardly a player but, often gets attention he does not want.

Now his ex and his daughter have decided not to speak to him. Lovely...and all he wanted was to be in his daughters life, be friendly with his ex and enjoy life.

Maybe one day both sides will come to light and form the truth

Until then

Ex's and Hoe's

XOXOXOXO

Button

Five Minute Friday: Busy Brain

So much going on in my head right now. Uggg! Okay, so either Jimmy or myself may give my cousin a kidney. So now we really need life insurance....and a will.....and a guardian for our kids. But, who is gonna take five kids???ALL FIVE!!!!! I half way sobbed this to Hezzie's teacher/aide. She said she would. What a sweetie. But, nobody in my family will? WHAT THE HECK?

In saying that I need moe community. My community died some time ago, This makes me sad and is it wrong that I would like more time with friends? Is that bad?

My garden is growing...love my garden.

My uncle is dying.

I want to live in Austin now, but will miss a dear friend..gonna happen anyhow.

I wish my brother was clean.

Life....blah!

Love

Button

 

Want to join the Five Minute Friday craziness?  Head over to The Gypsy Mama’s site to learn more and link up.

long day and too many thoughts

so today i went to a funeral. my second cousin and graduating classmate Lisa passed away. it just bring so much to consider. what if i pass away after jimmy and we still have young children? children in the home who will need love and guidance. realistically i know that nobody i know will parent how we do. the kids will be forced into public school, a few may be medicated, they will be vaccinated and told not to speak their mind. this really freaks me out.

i have an underlying fear and what feels like knowledge that jimmy will pass before he is 45. that is only ten years from now. hezzie will be 12, waylon will be 14, maggie will be 16 (oh dear lord), joaquin and dexter will be of age.  in no way am i saying he will pass at that age, it just seems that way. the gift of knowing is not be gift. it's just this feeling i have been getting and he said he has the same feeling.

our families are just so different and we have lived so outside the box for so long. a decision that came gradually but, that fits us and the kids so well, that anything else seems frightening to me, for them. i have no life insurance, a will and a capable person or family member. well, okay a willing family member. it's hard enough to get someone to watch them let alone raise them. i don't regret having five amazing self thinkers. not for  a bit, i just now need to figure it all out. separation from one another would just kill them.

there is so much to process and agree upon.

....button

more rambling and bad grammar

some days i just had a bad hour or two. some days they are horrific. seriously, not sure why i have allowed my emotions to be so out there in my almost middle age.

i have had a lot of self doubt today. for some reason i feel like i just fail! fail as a wife, mother, daughter, friend and all around human being. my husband comes home a knit picks what is wrong or undone. my family criticizes my parenting and housekeeping. friends stay at arms distance. maybe i carry the loverly ordor or supreme failure. maybe the lack of degree on my crayon colored walls or the fact i don't conform to the wal-mart standards of society does it. my 2.5 kids has turned into five and they are unschooled, unsocialized and can be unruly. mostly, they are just like any other unbrainwashed kids.

i know i have chosen this life. the life of kids all day and all  night. the life of a domestic hippie and wife. but, you know i feel somehow punished for it, that seems unfair. my heart is so full of love that when it breaks...it shatters. i fall to pieces, and it comes it big waves. tears, words and emotions take me into the abyss and back above water rapidly. it can be hard for jimmy hearing my shakey tearful voice on the phone.  sometimes i feel like holding back the details of my thoughts with him because of his health. can you imagine if my lack of self esteem was his demise. one way or another he finds out how it all is in my head. but, we are very different souls tangled in love.

i am very blessed i have a friend i can turn to who has similar emotions and thoughts. helps make things clear and even has helped me see jimmys side on things. gotta say between the two i am still breathing and loving my world. bi-polar much? maybe, maybe not.

some days i think my kids hate me despite what i do for them. it's like nothing is good enough. just like with my husband and numerous relatives. wish i could snatch them up and live in a rv of sorts for a year. on the road traveling, learning, loving and living life.   being away from all that consumes and frustrates me. connecting again and remembering why i chose to make a family with kids who can misbehave and speak their minds. kids who go barefoot and eat food from the earth that we planted. kids who sing, dance, paint draw and make music. kids who read and write. kids who get dirty and say what they man and mean what they say. kids who wear tye dye with camo and fedoras with vans. kids who pick their noses and pull each other hair. kids who eat frozen grapes and carrots. kids who lay across me and ask me about the day they were born.

i also have chosen to stay married to someone with an on again off again drinking problem. someone who i am sure has some mental issues as it runs in his family. someone unsatisfied with life and who still carried the wrongs of his exes. someone who looks at me and sees all the things he dislikes in his own mother. someone who questions the things that matter to me the most. i have chosen this because i know he loves me still despite my eccentricities and all that consumes me. he protects me from those who come to harm me emotionally. sounds weird i know, sounds somehow abusive i know. but, it's not. and i am no angel. i can be physical when emotional. somehow hoping he'd leave and live a life that satisfies him. maybe have new wife, new kids with disney channel wardrobes. a house that looks likes his neighbors and chance for american normalcy. because, i want none of those things. he assures me, that is not what he needs....but, is it what he wants.

my life is colorful and fragile at times. i always kind of knew it would be this way. but, i never knew it would involve a family. just thought it would be me in a one room apartment with cats and maybe some fish. in my own thoughts laying upon a cold bed with books and music to feel my emptiness. riding a bike to get from here to there and living on nothing. taking warm showers to make me feel loved living in a place where i knew nobody.

it's funny because i can still feel empty, i can still feel my bed is cold but, i know i am loved. i leave near people i know. but, i am still at a distance from them. be it me or them...it's still there. then the sun will come out and life is wonderful. i have friends and family. i am smiling and in my head i think "how soon will this end?". life is a rainbow of emotions for me. my only hope is that my kids don't suffer the same way. that they can learn to love and accept love early on. that they can be happy in life with a little or a lot. that they can break the mold and not fall into mundane patterns of existing and not living....

button

Just some thoughts....okay rambling

There are times when I second guess my chosen "occupation" of stay at home wife/mom/unschooler/homemaker/breeder. But, it is not very often. Usually, it's when someone isnults my intelligence or tries to correct my parenting or wife skills. I have no degree for a college or university, I am short, fat, a minority and come from uneducated parents. Admittedly I can be found around 3om watching Real Housewives of...(wherever they are). I will text or chat and use LOL  way too much.  Instead of working outside the home I have chosen not to, I have chosen this role to enrich my kids lives and because I am a bit paranoid. Day care sucked for my oldest as he was always sick. However, despite my lack of job or degree I am in no way stupid.

I am a very well read person, or so I think. Since I was very young I have read almost everything and anything these brown hands could grab. By ten I was reading Kerouac and Burroughs. When I was entering junior high I had read all of the works of Shakespeare. Yes, I had also read all the fun stuff  by Beverly Cleary and Laura Ingalls Wilder. It's in me to absorb everything and make my own opinions on things.

Honestly, sometimes I think too much of whatever think of my intelligence. For some reason it something fretful for me. When I was in seventh grade I tried to fail because my same aged cousin would get mad at me. "Stop being so smart! I am tired of being compared to you!" "Nerd!" "Geek!" "Four eyes!" which came with the mandatory spit infused fingerprints in my lenses. The best and most hurtful of all was "You know, 'Nita boys don't like girls who are smarter than them." In the gut and hear at the same time. Something in me lead me to believe them, I had never had a boyfriend and they were practically engaged at 13. Or so it seemed.

So for years I yo-yo'd with my ability to be both smart and worth of a boy or man. I say boy because I am sorry a sixteen year old is not yet a man. Whenever I would meet someone who seemed to be able to carry on an intelligent conversation with me they'd end up with some girl who bathed in lip gloss and read Cosmo as if were the truth the way and the light to life. Or sometimes they would end up with a friend of mine who was inclined to shake her ass  from underneath her skirt. That just wasn't me. 

For sometime in my late teens and early twenties I thought maybe those words were correct. Never was I able to have an intelligent relationship. So I really did dumb myself down and became a person I still am not able to reconcile. The old me would still come out from time to time, caught reading a book or writing some poetry made me "intriguing" or "different". But, off to the next girl... Honestly during this time there was maybe a couple of guys who were willing to deal with my brain and eccentricities but, I just could not believe them. I gave up hope. Forget the fact that any women I dated at the time were....possessive NO THANKS!

Some morning I feel like I need a good slap in the face and remember that I am married. I do have some great friends, some wonderful children and am intelligent. This is all okay and I just need to forget what the world thinks of it all.  I read sociology books for fun, NPR is on my iPhone and I bake bread. Why do not just I but, women and people in general feel they need to fit perectly into categories?

Like I said lot's of rambling.

 

Love and The smell of a new book.

Button

uggg

i want to post but, i don't. there is too much on my mind right. i wonder if that is part of my uncertainty. i will have to wait it out and see. jimmy has two weeks off of work for depression and high blood pressure. i see the doctor tomorrow about my breast issue.

i don't know if i can think clearly and really would like to go to sleep. i took a long nap today. my mind wanders off. i remembering things that seem of no real value. some of the things on my mind:

at beaumont high school i always sat by the door, or near it.

at banning high school i always sat in the middle of class.

i wore a lot of plaid in high school

i like boys who wear plaid shirts and have glasses (thinking some of this is related to a teacher i had  crush on)

i have flat feet and why is that bad

how come i never have told my doctor i get occasional numbness through out my body

i am off balance a lot and don't know why

i wish that i could travel more

will joaquin ever have a good digestive track

do my kids really love me

do my parents care about me

what if this is cancer and it's bad

have i tied all my loose ends

do i have any real friends beyond jimmy and jeremy

am i the reason maggie is moody

am i a good wife, lover, friend. mom....

have i made any good impact on anyone, should i even care

in my writing in vain

will i ever see my grandson

why do things happen this way

am i too hard

am i too soft

does god love me

why did god take my grandparents

do i smell

what is the reason for this all

.....

 

those are just a few things.

 

 

 

No Ordinary Day

I know my last post must have me looking like a whiny brat. We have had some good times, some great times even. There was this one time when we had taken the kids to Temecula. We went to a BBQ house on a whim ate and hung out for awhile. I remember the waiter, he was amazing. Joaquin was still not talking really and screeched a lot and was always spilling stuff. We rarely ate out because, we always had bad vibes. But, this was no ordinary day. Joaquin did screech some and spilled quite a few drinks but, we were ok. We were happy and relaxed. We walked downtown to some shops, Jimmy bought a Raggedy Ann and Andy for Maggie and Waylon.

We ventured down some more to listen to some amazing bluegrass. Walked around some more and headed for the duck pond. The kids had an amazing time and so did we. We fed bread to the ducks and hung out. I know Jimmy didn't care to be there at first but, came to enjoy it.I know everyday of my life can not be like this. I know life has it's ups and downs. It is days like this I am looking back on, and am wondering if they will ever come to exist again.

Can we be a family who can go out and enjoy a day so amazing again. We have five kids now, and don't do many things. I like doing things and escaping the walls that surround me everyday. I like parks and hiking, I like beaches and mountains. I like camping and bike riding. I like roller skating and bowling. I know the kids would love these things as well, if we would just do them.

Like I said, lots to consider. Will I be well of on my own, hell no! Will the kids have amazing gadgets and stuff, not likely. But, it isn't about gadgets and things, it's about simple memories and not seeing mom and dad cry all the time.

Ducks and BBQ,

Button

one foot in one foot out

so many times in my marriage i have wanted to leave or have jimmy leave for one reason or another. we have drifted apart and back together several times. for years i felt neglected and hated. i felt unloved and around amusement and sex. i am hearing this was all untrue and still is. i am ready to walk out of the door and be that terrible single mom of five kids. you know that mom who walks everywhere, has a part-time job and wakes up lonely.  this is in no way ideal. i know what people will say and think. i know we look on the outside, and we have tried off and on really hard to keep it together. we have grown in different directions in my opinion. we have both done some not not nice things to each other. we have both closed each other off at points, some lastly years.

at one point i fell into a really bad depression and instead of being pulled out gently i was left to saosk in it. i was left to feel worse because, i could not pull myself out, the quicksand of depression is a hard thing to navigate alone. he was rather mean and harsh, probably scared. his mom has mental problems and i am not sure he was ready for mine.

he has battled a drinking problem since before we became one. i thought my love would be enough to heal his wounds. it never has been. but, coming from a family of addicts i know it has to be something he wants to do, for himself. not for me, not for the kids...for himself. there were times he would pass out midweek on the floor in a pool of his own vomit. my tears can only clean up so much. he has it under control now, but, like before i am leary of how long the control will last. if it's fleeting.

I've in no way been perfect. at some point i closed myself off and became who i thought he wanted. this ultra conservative housewife. i thought he wanted tons of kids, and a house filled with laughter and misplaced fingerprints. sometimes, i am not so sure anymore. he complain a lot about little things, i know a neat and orderly house is grand, but five kids live here. five kids who unschool and are rather artsy. kids with special needs. i think a few years back i lost who i was. i could not see me beneath everything else that was existing.

there have been times when words were barely spoken and kisses were tight lipped. times when sex was one sided and love making was never around. i can't remember how many years passed where i just laid there and looked at the ceiling waiting for it to end. not that it was bad, i just was not there, and either were the orgasms for me. i was shut off entirely and broken.

i stopped doing anything for so long. i rarly did housework, made dinner and all that being a housewife entails. i stopped caring about life, my life. yet, i never did what i had wanted because i love my kids so damn much.

at this point i am willing to work on what we have. i am unsure of the outcome. i do love him, but i am not sure if it's enough. he is working on changing and i have been coming a new person as well.

today jimmy took the kids to the park. he told them that we both love them and we will always be there for them, just maybe not together. that is beyond heartbreaking. because if i do leave, i don't want to get tied into one of those things where mom and dad can not be in the same place at the same time. that is a bunch of bullshit. but, that would depend on us, and any future partners if we ever had any.

thoughts and tears

button

p.s. i hate how i feel and how i make people feel....