Finally Cal raced out carrying a water bottle and bearing a smile.  After a hello hug we set out.  Throughout the walk Cal’s head stayed largely turned up tracking the clear water bottle as he threw it as high as he could.  Then gauging its descent, he raced to catch it again and again.  I also watched as it soared, delighting with him at how high it went and for his every catch.  I kept waiting for that bubble filled bottle to miss his grip, smash against the sizzling black top, and spew water everywhere.  I also watched, with careful concern, for it’s downward arch and stepped, with agile quickness out of its way.

The path of our walked ambled from here to there as I sought the cooling shelter of  available trees casting long, early evening shadows and Cal followed without a break in his stride or the tilt of his head, as 8 year olds are so agily capable of doing.

As we were trodding up a steady incline, the type that makes you slow your pace and breath heavier due to its continous length, he stopped throwing his bottle and asked, “What was my first word?”
I answered, a bit sadly, “You know, I don’t remember.  I was pretty sick when you were that little and some things I just don’t recall.  Remember our talking about that?”
“Oh, yeah.”  And in his effort to really get his brain more fully wrapped around “my sickness” he said, “So you must have not felt well a lot.  Like been tired and stuff.”
“Yes, that and more.  I’m only here today because of Dr. John’s skill and healing techniques.”
“I’m happy about that,” he said, I wouldn’t have wanted you to die.”  Then he paused thoughtful and added, “I’m glad I have life,”  and looked up at me and smiled.

Those five words really got to me.  They caused a question to etch across the folds of my brain, “Have I ever been glad I had life?”  I don’t recall feeling that way ever honestly.  As a child I was doing all I could to survive and endure, that pretty much consumed me and I think that that way of living continued with me even until today.  The times I felt the freest, the most at peace was on the playground that stood next door to my grandmother’s.  There I spent hours of carefree play swinging so high with my friends we all feared we might loop back over the top bar, climbing monkey bars and daring myself to stand on the top arms outstretched like the boys, teter tautering with a freind or simply running up and down it on my own or sitting at its center keeping it perfectly balanced, and sliding down what I considered the world’s highest slide.  A metal structure with about 20 stairs that had little dull claws to grab and steady the soles of the children who climbed to its full height, it had a shiny, mirror like slide that at the peak of the noon day sun would burn through our thin cotton shorts making it only for the bravest and strongest to attempt going down.  Then, when the season was right, I daily swam long hours in the “Little Pool” the round blue concrete wonder that couldn’t have been more than 2-2 1/2 feet deep at its exact center.  The spot where Robert and I would grip the metal drainage grate beneath us in order to stay submerged and compete to see who could stay under the longest.

This was where I was the happiest.  This was where I spent as many hours as I could from early morning to early evening pausing only to get lunch and then a quick dinner.  This was where there was quiet.  Peace.  A measure of safety.

I thought of that time as I examined myself and the span of my life here on this planet, asking, ”Can I say that I’ve been glad I had life?  Did I at least during my time on the playground have this feeling?”  Honestly?  No.  My time on the playground was me simply loving my time there whether with friends or alone.  At that moment.  Thankful for the freedom.  The sun warming my hair and the cool of the evening shadows as they stretched across the lawn.  It was my place of escape, for solitude away from the troubles that lay at home.

Yesterday, from the mouth of one of the most pleasent 8 year olds I know, who also happens, thankfully to be my son, came one of the most thought provoking, life and thought altering statments for me.  And I think it was so jolting due to his tender age.  To hear someone so young utter such a statement is unavoidably noteable.

So today I make it my goal to reach for the simple contentment of having life.  Not to just “put in my time” doing what I can while I’m here for the service of others, or to make a difference, or even for the need and eranest desire to be the best mom I know to be, for my children, but for me.  For the sheer pleasure of being glad that… I have life. . .

Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-Cal’s water bottle survived 50 minutes into our walk then it smashed.  And when it did it, “made the coolest pattern” rendering it worth the loss of serving as a thrist quenching fluid for Cal.  Also Dan and Grace joined us for the last 15 minutes rendering my evening a delight with my three youngest before they, with great excitment and expectation, loaded into their sisters Blessing’s car to spend the night with her at her apartment.

I really am quite mulit-faceted in many ways.  I’m not one to just settle on one thing.  Some take comfort in a mundane routine in their life.  That would make me crazy.  Take food for instance.  For 23 years of marriage I cooked.  I mastered cooking before internet and cooking channels.  I dug in with a few books and learned on my own.  I was never content to have a menu resemble…Monday, meatloaf, Tuesday, Spaghetti, Wednesday, Tuna Casserole and so forth  or a rotating two week, three week, or monthly schedule.  The thought of using those methods for turning out meals would have driven me to refusing to eat.  Nay, instead I functioned from a list of recipes and choose, or create on the fly with whats on the shelves and cooling in the fridge.  Then there’s my reading and movie genres.  I’ve mentioned in the past that I love Stephen King/horror, most recent: Nightmare on Elm Street, and then I adored the Shopaholic book series, which were better then the movie, Harry Potter, Knights and Castle time periods: the newest “Robin Hood”-loved it, and certainly J.R. Tolkien, “Lord of the Rings”, a splash of romance, like “Dear John” I watched with Grace today, at her request, and a heavy emphasis of comedy, most recent view: “Birdcage” laughed till my stomach ached, drama,viewed last night with Cal and Grace: “Extraordinary Measures”, and more…  Those type of genres I find appealing in both the world of books and film.  And my work?  Well the nature of it keeps me going from one family to another.  Some I see twice in a week others once a month.  But regardless I am on the move.  Full of a variety of kids.  And my hair.  I go through periods of vast change mixed with the same thing for a couple of years.  The last six months the cuts have been about change.

I LOVE new.  I LOVE different.  I LOVE cutting edge.  Thank god I was too young to really submerge into the rebellion of the 60′s! I did enough on the outer burning off fringe of that era.

My friend once told me I was great at sensing what was going to be a new rage in room design.   She surprised me the day she said that, but then when I allowed myself the moment of stepping outside my insecurities I saw…yeah, that is or was true.  I say was because since the divorce money for such privileges sort of evaporated, so logically along with it went my “being in touch” with decorating shall we say.

To give you more of a glimpse into my tastes and variety in music I’m going to share…
When I was young, which honestly feels like yesterday, I played the violin for nearly four full years.  I was very good at the time.  Took first chair violinist from the minute I walked into the schools orchestra.  Which caused a great problem from the older girl who had to shift to the second chair.  At the time I had no idea what it meant to be 1st chair violinist, my teacher didn’t tell me.  She was a coach of the truest form.  Criticize constantly.  Praise.  Well, none.

I wanted to learn viola and cello and go on possibly to Julliard one day and would have except I had to stop learning when we moved to a school district that didn’t offer string instruments as a part of their curricula.  Since the years spun by and the separation from the instrument became a fact of life.  But I won’t say that I haven’t yearned to return to the stings and bow.  That I haven’t grown to longingly regret the day I turned my violin into my teacher.  But life took over.  Husband, children and with it time and money evaporated like smoke in the wind and that has left violin long behind.  And with it I have changed and wonder if I really have the drive to start again.  Or was that simply a part of my life.  Then.

So why the violin background info and how does it tie into my tastes in music?  Well here is where I share a couple bits that have been playing on my Youtube tonight…

Now I love most of the classical musics for stringed instruments however what these guys do is incredible.  See???  Multi-faceted.  That’s just me.  And that can make me a hard person to peg.  Figure out.  Follow.  And.  Well.  I like that about me.

Love ya, night,
Theresa Jane
-last post “Invisible Mikey” commented that that post allowed him to see me clearly.  I was startled.  But glad he told me.  Then I polled my friend Cathy and she agreed with more humph.  “Well,” I muttered to myself then let’s keep at this.  Keep trying to clear away the haze that blocks me from you.  And frankly me from… me.  And today was about that…

I find it amazing how all these years can pass and so much has never been said.  Things that were so needed at the time…by us both.  Things I never knew.  Never would have suspected even.  And the same coming from me.  Owning stuff.  Admitting stuff.  It’s so healing.  Can be tough to say.  But healing.  Why is it that we don’t tell others these things when they’re so desperately needed?  How much better life would go if we would.  So often we/I clunk through life expecting so much, suppressing more, and struggling to get through.  When a simple thing like honest communication could solve so much so much sooner.  And free each of us up.  Then we could live the life we want to live.

Otherwise, since we spoke last I’ve been doing pretty well.  I had a bunch of days since last week where I’ve slipped into a slump of being, hummm, how do I sum this up??  Going through this whole mid-life, pre-menopausal thing can have it’s moments at times.  Add to that all I do with my kids, my business, trying to heal issues with the ex, continuing to strive to greater healing and resolution with my kids, working, and oh a zillion other things and I will honestly admit that there can be times where things seem gray.  As I’ve said before, I love being a woman, however the cycles we go through are only intensified at certain times of the month and then entering the whole pre-menopausal phase into this soup and well let’s just say that a chunk of last week and most all of the weekend I’ve been not myself.  Swimming around trying to locate me and discovering all the more that I’m not sure who I am or who I’ve been all these years and wanting to find me.

A friend said that I’m rebuilding myself.  I liked that word.  It’s true.  I feel anymore that at times that I’m a pile of lego blocks spread all around on the floor and I need to be re-assembled into something new and wonderful.  Here’s the thing.  I’m the builder as well.

And pieces are being snapped into place.  Where I am and have been this past week or so is assisting in that process, for that I’m certain.  This whole dark night of the soul thing I read about years back is completely true.  I’ve been living it.  In and out of darkness.  But the terrific thing is that I’m moving through and becoming…more…me…

Just got to do it that’s all

Talk at ya later, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose thankful for friends, my children, the sun that’s shining, my computer, the internet, my new hair cut that turned out so well this weekend, that I was able to enjoy the entire weekend with a bunch of my kids, for my health, for life

BIG physical change.  But then her entire life went through a big change.

Hair and clothes seem to go hand in hand with a women getting divorced.  I know it did with me.  I think it’s needed.  Psychologically.  The shift is huge and with it much needs to change to keep up with what happened to our lives.  What was hotly pursued yesterday is history today.  Change can be painful.  Change is good.  Change produces newness…

As with Kate, divorce brought about a change in my clothes and hair but change didn’t and couldn’t stop there.  I continue to be in change even today.  I married at 18.  Was married for 23 years.  Didn’t go to college.  Was a housewife/mom.  I never stepped out and found me.  So now old is new.  Then there’s just all new.  But what is new?  There is nothing new under the sun is there?  Just a recycle.  But to me it’s new.  Learning to embrace the me of I involves change.  Becoming…  Enlarging…  Moving toward and moving away.  But one thing remains the same, I’m a mom.  I love and care for my kids.  I miss being a stay at home mom.  Since I can’t be that anymore I want to become a successful business woman.  Which, in my mind makes sense.  I got me a bunch of kids.  I want them to have things.  I want to provide it for them.  Having my own successful business can bring about those things far faster than working a 9 to 5 could ever think of doing.

When I listened to the questions that the woman on The View peppered Kate with I rolled my eyes.  She was supposed to be there to some degree to be talking about being on Dancing with the Stars and they wanted to know about the particulars of how her divorce is working.  Is her husband, yeah a slip of the tongue, which she corrected pointing out that he was an “ex”-husband, helping by watching the kids.  Is he paying alimony????  She graciously answered the first letting them know that he watched the children for a week while she was at the show, but beyond that she trailed off some on that answer.  I mean is that a surprise?  The woman is divorced.  Is she supposed to know the where abouts of her ex?  She didn’t respond to the alimony question.  I applauded her for how she dealt with them on that one.

I also saw some commercial clip from a comedian making some crack about how it was good that Kate would be on Dancing with the Stars so her kids could see her once a week… Now let’s simply ignore that she is at HOME practicing in her basement.

Kate G. was for the most part admired as a stay at home mom but questioned as she transfers beyond that, as if she doesn’t need to provide for her kids, and this is something I know about…Ergo this post…

Here’s the thing that I have to state to America.  I want to lay it out in blazing colors:  Divorced mother’s that work and pursue their own career/business still love and care for their kids.

In all the years that I was married, I was a stay at home mom with a husband who worked at least 12 hour days and traveled for several years.  When home he barely assisted me around the house…he had worked all day.  And what had I done?…  BUT in all the years I never heard him get peppered with questions about his fathering.  Or how much money he did or didn’t give me…  He was admired for his work.  For the hours he put in and now since he has the children with him his praise factor has risen through the roof and me?  Well…  Me divorced?  I don’t get a lot of praise.  I get loads of intrusive questions that can imply that I don’t love my children.  They started with my own mother and to this day I can hear the grating tone in her questions as she grills me to report on how much I see them.   Questions from other come in a lot of the same form that I tend to hear Kate G. get and she’s the primary caretaker of her children.  And they come with the same cocked eyebrow, whether visible or not, that the world gives.

What do people always want to know of me?
If I’m working my chose way to earn money: caring for other people’s children the questions will be:
1)  Where are my kids now?
2) Who is caring for them?
Thoughts that bounce through my head: Oh I locked them alone in the house, left milk in the fridge and bread on the shelf and told them I’d be home in a few hours.

–Here’s another.  People hesitate to hire me because, and I get this a LOT, they don’t want to bother me or take me away from caring for my kids. Lots of times when I arrive at a job they’ll ask if it’s really ok for me to be there to care for their kids?  Then follows point 1 and 2 from above.  (Let me add that I have many families that hire me without  these questions.  They’re lovely and supportive of me.)

Hum, I need to work.  I have bills.  I’m divorced.  Not a stay at home mom. Money doesn’t just appears so I can pay bills?  How is my chosen way to generate income till my business takes off, caring for children, any different then say working at Target??  I’ll tell you the difference.  It would involve my personal happiness and pay.  I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much, if at all, and frankly it would likely pay less.  I want to ask someone, “Is it wrong to pick child care as a means to generate income?  If I could be paid just to care for my kids, believe me I would.  In a heart beat.  But there’s no more pay or retirement there then there was when I was married.

What I do I do to create a future for me and my kids.  Just as my “ex” does for himself and the kids.  He works for others to build his 401K.  I build my business to build my financial future.  Is it wrong to want a secure future?  To want to have my own business?  To do what I enjoy? Because I have a bunch of kids?

My marriage ended.  Regardless of the number of children I have to move forward.  I can’t just stay in my apartment and raise my kids.  Nor can Kate G.  As she clearly stated, “I’m thankful for these opportunities I have to provide for my children.”  And so am I.

Why does the world have such a time accepting the change that woman, such as us, were thrust into accepting?

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane

It was 7:45 a.m. when I went into my bedroom to sleep.  My room was cast in a pink hue from the sun filtering through the silky pink curtains. I buried my pajamaed self under the pile of blankets, between the soft white flannel sheets, and waited for sleep.  My thoughts drifted to the memories of the occasional times when my ex-husband would work all night for his corporate job.  That work went to build their business.  “Well”, I said, as I pulled the covers up over my head and around my face leaving just enough space for my nose and mouth, “this work and time spent was to build my business. Work I’m going benefit from and will make a difference in our world.  The lost sleep was worth it.”

I was up again at 10:30 a.m. downing a glass of water and rubbing sleep from my eyes. I padded over to the same chair that the day before I had spent 20 hours in, sat, and responded to the important emails I had expected to find there.  An hour later I was back under my covers for a few more hours of sleep. When I got up this time I went straight to the computer to check emails and see where things had progressed, I responded, and then made a hot cup of Orange Blossom tea into my blue glass mug.  It steamed curly wisps into the air as I checked on other things I had set in motion yesterday on the internet.  Then I showered, dressed, blow dried, and left for work.

In the time that I have gone down the path of, how long has it been…the last month, discussing !BLAM!ming my parents and then onward to my kids and I, I have kept the work I do with our business humming right along.  It has absorbed much of my days and nights as I revolved it around my children, the holidays, and working.  Much has been done and much planned.  Much of what has been planned is now being constructed or is done.  One of those “things” you’re seeing right now, my blog into my own self-hosted site so I can enjoy the benefits that accompany it and the privilege of having my own “.com”. There’s been other things too, we’ve added a lot to the web site, John Solomon started his own blog which John and I worked getting set up and still tweek, and other things of  much more larger in capacity and some that are the little but very significant things. But all in all the work of laying the foundation for our business is strongly under way and I’m excited and thankful.

I find this project to be exhilarating and challenging all at the same time.  I’m learning the ropes of being a business woman and enjoy the growth that I am able to look back at and see of myself when I started hobbling around seeking to learn after my divorce to today.  I wrote a post about that some time back.  I’ll see if I can find it and link it after my closing.  I am looking forward to the day when our business produces my salary and I can fully devote my time and attention to its care.

I want to close with saying, I’m glad for all of you, my friends that are along with me on my journey.  That of finding myself as I come out of all the years of housewife, the trauma of my childhood, and learn to become a entrepreneur business woman/film maker/mom… of 8 of the greatest kids on earth.  You’re support is appreciated beyond any thing words could ever express.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-here’s the link for that post I mentioned http://wp.me/pMvwD-iY

Frozen Water Fountain

So why did mention in my last post that it felt like the Ice Age movie?

Well, in the last post I told about a conversation with John.  During it I had mentioned that there was a “crack” in me and that was what triggered it…
See, when it came to my mother, I knew, that when I was young, I had frozen into an Ice Queen.

Soooo mention a “crack” in me, and it was an instant carry over seeing myself in my own personal “Ice Age” chasing an acorn as it bounced off the frozen landscape of my hate.  I’d get a hold of it and lose it in the same breath.  But happy just the same to keep unconsciously chasing, feeling justified to not allow a single crack invade my perfect, shiny layers of ice that blanketed my being and kept me trapped in it’s frozen prison…

Course the problem was, all along the conscious and sub-conscious part of me wanted healing.  To have the true-freedom mentioned in Red Book and Cotton book that I had read and re-read.  So those parts of me were busy at work doing all they could to heal.  And because they were, one day that nut “happen” to fall out of my hands, tip down and pierced the thick ice with the tiniest of crack.  I may have been frozen solid but all I needed was the smallest of  “cracks” to appear…

“Great oaks from little acorns grow”
-OR-
Big explosions from tiny cracks begin…

You know, I don’t think it was any coincidence that the creators of the Ice Age movies have a squirrel chasing an acorn.  The acorn served as a symbolic foreshadowing of great things to come…Lions and Mammaths living together in peace.  I hope that for my mother and I, but intent to have it be the case within me.

The other thing… like the acorn, there are parts of me that must be buried in the dirt and DIE so I can be re-born.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-BTW the pictures of ice are as common as dirt when one lives in the North, which I did all my life till the last 8 years of living in Alabama, but down here you don’t see such sites.  It’s so rare that my oldest, John, took his brothers, Caleb and Daniel, and his sister, Grace to see this fountain, to walk across the ice, and pull chunks off the frozen waterfall, which resembled icicles, so that they could have this “common/rare” experience before it thawed.

I’m not making my step-father innocent mind you, by no means he played his part.  He was awful.  But he has asked for forgiveness and admitted his wrong and by now time and again.  AND he has CHANGED.  For the most part he’s doing things completely differently.  No one that has been that broken and is changing deserves to be beaten on.  No one deserves to be harangued and demoralized when you’re the other person that played as equal a role in the mess.  But this is what she has done to him in a very demoralizing manner all these years.  

Let me give a couple recent examples:

Example 1: Remember when I had gone home a few years back, to try to achieve some form of establishing a basis for us to move forward from, in a healthy manner rather than just enduring the periodic forced phone calls she had pushed on me for the few years prior? (click here for post) Well, during this very meeting she said, “I regret ever marrying him.  He ruined my life and my children’s.  He was the reason for all the problems…”  Then, through tears, she went on to ask, “How could you just forgive him after he destroyed our family and lives.”  

I was so so shocked I said, “I can’t believe you.  He’s sitting right here.  How can you do that?  Not to mention this is the man you have been married to for over 40 years.  You played your role or have you forgotten?  My God you’re awful.”  
Her response was tearless with a small care-less shrug she said, “Yeah, well.”

Example 2: She had told my brother the week before that I had “called” (the !BLAM!) and, “Theresa was extremely rude and mean to me.  Here your father had caused all the problems and ruined everything and she treated him like royalty and me like shit.”

So, it’s pretty simple to put two and two together even if you don’t know a lot of history.  She’s been bullying him to carry all the blame for years…and it’s obviously worked.  Look at his reaction to me.

Well, anyways, there was no way I was getting cornered like this.  I had compassion for him but I’m sorry this wasn’t happening.  My mother needed to stand on her own two feet.  Be an adult.  Own her stuff.  I wasn’t getting bullied anymore.  That call/!BLAM! I had made was serious to me.  To my life.  To my growth.  To my experiencing real healing.  And no one was going to take this from me.  I had already been through the issue of her backing me into a corner a few days earlier (click here to read that post),  I wasn’t going back.  No sir.  And frankly all I could think was, what on earth has that woman done to you???  I felt his pain.  I felt the shame she had foisted on him.  I felt more love and compassion.  AND I KNEW how he felt.  My mother had done the very same thing to me for my entire life.

This call gave me exactly what I had cried out for for the days I was stuck in that corner…
Strength to stand up for myself and never go into my corner again.
Giving me even more resolved to not back down.
To stop the sadistic cycle my mother had created:
The fear,
the control,
the intimidation,
the psychological torquing she had done to my brain,
to stop concerning myself with what she might do to me or herself if she were pushed in any way.  (since I was young she’s threatened, “I wish I were dead.”)

Monday morning I began to be equipped to take my life back in a new way.
To beat that iron mask of worthlessness into a new shape…
Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-more tomorrow

I didn’t know if he was going to make it.
And I didn’t know what he thought since we hadn’t talked, to say we talked, since I !BLAM!ed them.
The !BLAM! wasn’t to slam them and drive their faces into the mud and cut my life off from them.  It was to get their attention.  It was for my healing.  It was for their healing.  It was to gain unity among us on some level at the very least.
But, unbelievably in the middle of everything I’m trying to do, these surgeries take place.
Any follow up call we needed to have got back burnered.
I have thought how they could have called me before the first surgery.  They had plenty of time.  They should have seen how important and necessary it was to call.
But they chose not to.
They did the same with the second surgery that was bumped earlier.
They could have sought to have “the follow up” call themselves.
To shoulder some responsibility instead of leaving me with “it” (the past) as always.

But they didn’t.

And there we were, in that extreme situation, unsure of what on earth was going to happen.
There was no way I was going to allow him to possibly go to his grave with some misconception about how I felt toward him.  That would be cruel.  Inhumane.  I wanted him to know that I sincerely had forgiven him at my aunts house, back when I had come home that 2 plus years ago. (click here for that post) That that had never changed just because of the phone call (the !BLAM!).  I let him know I loved him and I wanted everything to turn out fine.  I urged him to call an ambulance.  That it wasn’t a good idea for him to be walking to the car.  But he hates ambulances…
Then I moved to “hang up words.”
He needed to rest.
To conserve strength… since there wasn’t to be an ambulance.

But to my astonishment he began sobbing and pleading with me, “Let me call your mother so you can speak gently and caringly to her.  Everything in the past was my fault.  I ruined everything.  She only did what I told her to.”
To say the least I was stunned.  Completely taken aback.  What was this?  I didn’t want this conversation.  The timing was nothing less than terrible, he didn’t need this.   And this wasn’t how to handle any of it.  For the fist time I squared my shoulders and took charge, I wasn’t going to allow this to happen this way, to be forced into a situation where I was made to be wrong, where I had “done something that I needed to fix with my mother.”
As if it was all about her.
That it wasn’t about me.  What I needed.  What I was seeking.
I was “against” her… again.  “Hurting” her again.
For God’s sake NO.
I had done nothing wrong.  Frankly I was the only one trying to fix things.
Had always been the only one doing anything trying to fix things.
For the last several years I was the one trying to braid together what shreds there even were to go on, to create something…

“Dad, you never made mom do a thing.  She chose to do what she did.
“Yes, I did,” he gasped.
“Dad lis…”
“It’s all my fault.”
“Dad.  Listen to…
“She just did what I told…” he’s gasping for air…
“Dad listen…
“her to do, she did…”
“Dad.  Dad.  Stop.  Listen…You need to focus on yourself.  Don’t worry about any situation with mom.  I’ll take care of this in it’s time.  But this is not the time…”
“No Theresa, let me call her, get her on the phone.  Talk to her nicely…this is killing her…”

“Dad, you’re sick and in awful pain.  We’ll deal with all of this when you’re on your feet again.”
Like a man grasping at life he begged, “Promise me you’ll call her.  Promise me.  Call her tonight.  Make things right with your mother.”
“Now Dad,  just let me worry about that.  I don’t hate mom.  But certain things need to be addressed  And she certainly needs to own what is hers.”
“Oh good,” he said overly relieved, “I don’t want you to hate your mother.  It was all my…”  shallow gasping breaths…
“Dad, it wasn’t all your fault.  Mom did what she did.  On her own.”
“No she didn’t.”
“Yes, Dad, she did.  You couldn’t make her do a thing.  Especially when you were at work.  You didn’t call and make her beat me and scream at me for hours.”
With pressing urgency he said, “Yes I did.”
As gently as I could I said, “Oh dad, no you didn’t.  Don’t take responsibility for what she did.  You took responsibility for what was yours back at my aunts house.  I forgave you then.  Let her be responsible for her stuff…Look, let this go for now.  Really.  You need to rest.  Please.  Let’s stop this conversation so you can rest.”
“Okay.  Okay,” he gasps trying to sooth himself and as if delirium takes over, “the pain in my leg is terrible, I’ve got to go back to the doctors.  He’s going to figure out what the problem is…”
“Okay, Dad.  Now, listen you take it slow.  And be sure you let the doctors know everything that’s going on.  If you’re in pain insist they give you pain medicine.  I love you.  Goodbye.
We hung up.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-I think you’ve figure out already that this will take a few more posts… 
-!BLAM!ming births a journey… to true freedom . . .

For years I’ve pretty much been doing the same thing over and over again with my parents and expecting different results.  !BLAM!ming them was doing something different.

By not ever dealing honestly, openly, and calmly with the past and being straight up with them I swept everything under the carpet.  The result was I continued to get walked on and held responsible for their guilt and pain.   This allowed them, but honestly mostly my mother to continue with a lot of her/their hurtful ways.   The most recent examples: the card and phone call to the hospital mentioned in the prior posts.

She’s been bullying me my whole life in similar and much, much harsher ways.  She’s made me responsible (and her husband and son) for her wrongs and guilt.  I finally came to a point where I felt no guilt for what she had done in her life, or to me, or what she ever would do.  I decided that I was giving the guilt and pain back.  I had been bullied long enough…So the !BLAM!

Once I did this I set myself free.
Since I’ve been experiencing freedom, more self-confidence, much more clarity.
Some of the clarity has come in the form of being able to see myself clearer.  Remember my posts on “Peering Down the Rabbit Hole” and I talked about feeling worthless most of my life?  And how now that I see it I can 1) heal it and 2) must to be on the look out for slipping that mask back on?  Well after the hospital phone call I discovered that when it comes to my mother I tend to put that mask on right away.

She hung up on me and I felt worthless.  Unvalidated.  Wrong. Wrong for telling her she hurt me.  That it was wrong what she/they had done to me…  Typically in the past I would have gotten angry and spewed it out.  This time however, when I felt these feelings rise up I stopped.  I began to observe…calmly.  And that’s when I got in touch with “something different…”  I saw the little girl inside me.  She had backed into a corner, drew her knees up to her chest, put her face between her legs, and hid. 

I continued to watch.  She didn’t know how to come out.
I’m 45 for heaven’s sake and I’m reacting as if I’m a child.  Good God who knew?
…Later, the little girl was still in charge and was nervous on the phone with the man in her life that’s showing her love, kindness, and acceptance and hasn’t a problem in the world with her, yet she felt he did and she began to say things that questioned this.  But this time I/the adult saw what I/the little girl was doing.  I/the little girl was creating a situation where he would get upset with her/me, thereby proving to her/myself that I was indeed worthless.  Worthy of the worthless mask.

Once I saw it I countered it by being honest and admitting exactly what was going on, that I was going to do all I could to overcome this illusion, and I needed help.  And I received it    I received love.

Since I have wobbled around coming out of the corner.  But I’ve been observing. Learning things about myself.  Healing and growing and creating new realities.  Happily I haven’t created a mess with him, my children, or my ex as I would have in the past and wondered how it happened.  Instead I have dealt lovingly with myself and strove to not let the past effect my present.  I’m an adult, my mother can’t hurt me this way anymore.  I have value.  I have worth…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose finally leaving the past behind and beginning to really live in the present    because I did something different… I !BLAM!med…

CONTINUED from yesterday, I said there was more that has opened for me…
The day before when I was writing about my thoughts on “The !BLAM!ming” (click here for the post) and stated that I was like a war vet suffering post war trauma, the strangest thing happened.  There were visions in my mind, like the Ghost of Christmas Past had taken me to when I was a child… I was watching scenes of myself in my parents home.  I was able to observe “this little girl”.  Bad things were happening and she was frightened.  Many scenes flashed as we moved through the years.

As I observed something came vividly clear…

I was able to see the connection between me and the war vet. People go to war healthy mentally and can come home very different.  They can’t help it.  They lived through horror.  They can’t stop the psychological traumas: The flash backs.  The fears.  Living on edge.  Waiting to protect/defend.  Watchful.  Suspicious.  And everyone including themselves know why they changed from the great person they were before they left… the effects of war.

This experience broke open an understanding why “the little girl” in the visions became the way “she” had.

How much worse for “her” then the vet?

She was 2 1/2 when her mother married “her” step-father. “She” was just a baby. Never even had a chance to develop healthy mentally. Her brain was forming. Her experiences with life were taking shape. The networking being laid was hard wired with traumas: fear, jumpy, hide, go outside…run, protect, shut down, defend, stop listening, be suspicious, be watchful, lie, keep to herself, no one loves her, no where is safe, stop feeling, don’t express “herself”, shut up, go away, do as “she’s” told, don’t question, “she’s” worthless, who would want to love “her”, look for others to hurt “her”, be: depressed, suicidal, pull away, ice over, protect, feel worthless, shut down, survive, defend, argue…

“She” suffered the effects of “war”/horror/violence inside “her” home. It’s all “she” knew. “She” couldn’t help it.  “Her” brain’s beliefs and patterns took over and “she” was stuck there.  In that past.  Hopeless… unless someone helped “her”.  Everyone, including me, should have known…

But I didn’t know.  I didn’t cut myself an inch of slack. All through my life I have been destructively self-judgmental and just plain self-destructive.  I curse myself. Put myself down. Call myself names. I’ve had no patience with myself. Couldn’t receive compliments.  No acceptance of myself unless I was perfect and my bar was so high I rarely, if ever, reached it.  And certainly never accepted my failures.

The !BLAM!ming freed up a ton of bottled up energy that I used elsewhere…

The other day was the first time I connected with the small child inside. The one that was hurt and scarred.  For the first time in my life I was able to understand “her“.  Except “her” faults.  Feel compassion. I wanted to pick her up, sway side to side, stroke her hair, and tell her, “It’s okay, I’m here now.  I’m protecting you.  I understand.  I’m going to keep you safe.  I’m taking you out of here to live with me.  You don’t have to stay.  You can leave with me.”  And walk off with her in my arms and not stop till we were in my apartment.

You know what?  That’s exactly what I’m going to do right now.  Spend time with the “little girl”.  Let her know she’s safe…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-Tomorrow… what the response from my parents has been so far.