Tag Archives: Faith

I just want to watch Twilight and be sad.

Posted on by
3

My mother has been dead for two years, today. I woke up at 4:30 remembering all the awful things I ever did or said to her. I prayed for forgiveness for not being a better daughter. I thought about the trendiness of going no contact. I considered how if I could change it, I’d have put up with her drama, her antics, and her awful husband for a few more years if I’d only known she’d be gone so soon. I could have just made her happy. I also admitted that I didn’t have much of a choice without that knowledge.

I’ve been scanning the photos my mother left behind, so I can make an album for each decade. She always wanted to do that, but never had the organization skills. Every picture I see of her young, beautiful, happy, and hopeful breaks my heart. I hate that her life went the way it did. I hate myself for the part I had in it, no matter my lack of options. I frequently imagine how different things could have been, had she been well. I fantasize about what we should have had together. I think about how much she’d have loved her grandkids. I picture her going to the zoo with us, taking them shopping, having sleepovers… making all the wonderful memories I have with my Gramma.

I found a photo of my mother with my brother, when he was almost exactly Thomas’s age. I imagined where she’d have seen herself 38 years later, where I’ll be 38 years from now. I’m not sure I’ve gone a week since her death without envisioning myself alone in my final days, my children not having spoken to me for years. I can’t fathom the pain I would feel if Violet, Scarlett, or Thomas one day wanted nothing to do with me. I quit my career to do things differently. I’m there for every hug, every tantrum, every giggle. I clean obsessively, so my children will grow up in a tidy, healthy home, while simultaneously trying to balance my need for order with their need for fun and freedom. I take them to every doctor’s appointment, soothe every fever, kiss every owie. Sometimes, I cry when I lose my patience or snap at my babies, thinking that this will be the moment they stop loving me. I spend every day of my life with something to prove, praying it’s enough, that I have children who will adore their mother the way they’re supposed to, who will be by her side when she goes. I workout and eat right, with it in the back of my mind how much I desperately hope to live long enough to see my grandkids, while praying my children allow me to do so.

I’m not stupid. I know my mother wasn’t innocent in how her life unfolded. I know that she was abusive, manipulative, and deeply mentally ill. I know I couldn’t heal her. I also know she wanted something so very different. So, for one day, two years from the moment I forever ran out of time to fix things, I just want to hate myself. I want to wallow and weep as the good memories flow through my mind alongside the bad. I’m just so fucking sorry. I don’t want calls from the family who never treated her properly. I certainly don’t want to hear their historical rewrites. I just want to keep scanning my photos while I cry. I just want to watch Twilight and be sad.

THE GREATEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE HAS OCCURRED!

Posted on by
12

It’s true. I have peaked. This news shall not be surpassed by my wedding day, the births of my children, or the announcement that Hollywood has remade Titanic and Rose chooses Cal over Jack…*

tumblr_inline_n94owf5jeg1sybzrb

*probably not true

…  because this week, I finally got the call. I HAVE BEEN PROMOTED TO FULL TIME SUPERVISORY LIBRARIAN! 

533047

When I was 21 years old, a year and half out from graduating with my bachelor’s in family and consumer science education (home-ec), I announced to the world that I wasn’t going to teach. I was going to immediately enter the graduate program to receive my master’s degree in library and information studies. The general consensus was a resounding scoff.

arrested-development-lucille-sure

“A librarian? Do they even have librarians anymore? Isn’t that mostly a dying field?” – everyone ever

Before I met Jake, every date I ever had was with a man who either openly mocked my profession or downplayed it as a secretarial hobby job. After I finished my master’s degree, the exact same people who rant about entitled millennials expecting to start at the top, berated me for working only half time after spending so many years in school. As much as I love my daddy lunches, I began to dread the moment he’d ask if I had heard about any more job openings. Four months into my relationship with Jake, I hesitantly asked him…

Me: “Does it bother you that I’m only half time?”
Jake: “What? No. Not at all. If that’s all you were doing and you couldn’t pay your bills, I wouldn’t be here, but you work.”

Work I did. Some weeks, I worked 65 hours only to go home and do 20 cumulative hours of graduate school work. In the beginning, I was substitute teaching and working at the community center for minimum wage. Those 65 hours wouldn’t even pay my bills. Later, I saw a wage increase when I got my first library job, working circulation, but even that was only  $11.50 an hour. Finally, after graduation, I was promoted to half time librarian, where I am today. I was overjoyed that I could finally afford my bills without financial aid assistance, but only just. Between substitute teaching and working as a very well-paid (hourly) librarian, I was still only pulling in $30,000 a year, with no benefits save for the year and a half I qualified for my dad’s health insurance. I had to pay student loan debt and buy a new car, after discovering that that wasn’t condensation leaking from the engine. All the while, I hoped and prayed for my health, because even a single hospital stay could financially ruin me.

Over the last 10 years, my entire adult life, the closest I have ever come to a sense of financial security were the months I subbed every day I could, averaging out to that 65 hours per week. Not only was I too exhausted to enjoy it, but it still didn’t mean anything, because I had to save that money to get me through the summers without substitute teaching. Sure, I could’ve gotten another job, but not one that paid me any more and allowed me my nights and weekends at the library. If I worked full time, I wouldn’t be able to take off for interviews, if and when I got them. I couldn’t work a weekday that a coworker was out, go to staff development or state conference, or do any of the things that would make me a competitive candidate for a full time librarian position. Substitute teaching may have only averaged $10 per hour, but it allowed me to work the hours I chose. So, I worked every day I was able, lamenting any time off I took because there weren’t open sub jobs or school was closed for snow or a power outage. I looked forward to the days I only worked one job or the other, because I might have as many as ten waking hours free.

uitgeput

Just five weeks ago, I was devastated to learn that I’d been passed up for a position, after an interview I felt went really well. I cried inconsolably into frozen pizza and even refused to answer the phone, when Jake called me. For two days, I could barely speak a sentence without bursting into tears. I had to, of course, because I worked both jobs to afford the aforementioned frozen pizza. I was exhausted and considering looking for office jobs or teaching positions just to have benefits and a comfortable wage. I convinced myself to wait it out, though. My system recently announced several internal openings. If I couldn’t get one of those, fine, my career with the system was over. I wasn’t being dramatic, either. If I was qualified, experienced, and interested, but still couldn’t wow anyone in regards to an internal postion, for which I had little competition, there wasn’t a lot of hope for any forward momentum.

I got the email three weeks ago, that I would sit down at my library for a short interview. After only two days of preparation, the meeting on which my career was riding took all of ten minutes. For a moment, I genuinely started to hyperventilate, which is not considered a desirable leadership trait. Ultimately, I thought it went alright, but how much can you really tell from ten minutes?

nervous-gif

This time, I told no one about the interview, in part because every one of my coworkers knew I’d go for the job and it took place at my own library. If I didn’t get it, they would all know, eventually, that I’d been turned down. I hoped I’d hear back before the holiday, so I could enjoy my Thanksgiving (or skip it and eat pie in tears), but had no such luck. For nearly two weeks, I literally waited by the phone. I vacillated between two extremes: either my career was over or just beginning. I went into deep bouts of depression and got very little sleep, all in silence, because I couldn’t bear to break the news to my family and friends that I’d failed. Then, on Monday, I couldn’t find a sub job. I knew I’d hear back that day and quite literally stared at my phone all morning. I tried to do things that would distract me like starting a Harry Potter marathon. During The Sorcerer’s Stone, I received the e-mail that a different position I’d applied for would no longer be filled. I was still looking at the phone, because if HR was sending e-mails, then I’d be getting something soon. The screen lit up…

tumblr_ljndwhekav1qbncy4

… and my adult life started. I finally feel like a grownup. I start my new supervisory librarian position the first week in January. I get excellent retirement benefits and health care. The wait is over. I did the college thing. I worked my way up. I have financial security. Come Christmas break, I’ll no longer substitute teach. I can buy Christmas presents and get my car repaired and start paying off some of my debt. I can get new glasses and see a dentist. I can move and finally get a cat! I can afford to turn on the heat!!!!!!

I’m not only going to be okay, I am going to be wonderful, doing the job I love, the job I’ve dreamed of for years and taking care of myself. It all worked out and it was worth every second of struggle. Five years ago, I was a broke, terrified, 23-year-old graduate student, just days from filing for divorce. Today, almost all of my dreams have come true.

 

Thank God I lost the baby.

Posted on by
16

pacifier on floor

You’re not supposed to say that. It’s one of those unspoken rules.

One of the worst parts of miscarriage is that other people don’t always consider it a baby. I was starting my second trimester. I had just registered at Baby’s R’ Us. I’d have bet money it was a boy. I had a name all picked out that I have no intention of using now. I was supposed to hear his heartbeat on my 22nd birthday. I didn’t. I have a box full of baby clothes that were never worn. Every now and then, I take out some tiny overalls and have a good cry. It was a baby to me. My ex-husband lost his job days before the bleeding started. I was home alone through most of the pain. It broke my heart.

Another one of the worst things about a miscarriage is everyone high-fiving you over it. I’m not a fan of a particular married-in family member in general, but I’ll never forget when she called after her husband received my text message (not her) to point out all of the perks of my miscarriage.

“Well, maybe this is for the best. You can wait until you’re done with school and you both have jobs to start a family.”
Yeah. It’s for the best that I just passed my baby into the toilet with gut-wrenching pain all alone. FUCK. OFF.

Even the ones who truly meant well (and no, she wasn’t one of them) were relieved. They were kind enough to keep their mouths shut about that fact, but I could hear it in their voices… as sad as they were that I was hurting so much.

The absolute worst part about my miscarriage was that even I was relieved. Even then, a part of me knew the man had burned down our house with all our pets inside. He tied the dog to the wall and left him in his own urine without food or water. Said dog still can’t get through bathtime without my ridiculous and terrible singing to calm him, because my ex would scream and hit him when he bathed him. My ex-husband wouldn’t do the dishes because the dishwasher was pretend broken and wouldn’t take the trash out because it was too far. He once left glass in the floor after the cat broke a dish and didn’t clean it up until after I cut my foot on it. I still have the scar. While I was home losing our child, he insisted on going to a birthday party, because he never got to have fun. Then he cashed in my WIC checks for the free food. Not only did he steal and pawn my things, but he wasn’t allowed in his mother’s or aunt’s homes because he’d stolen from them as well. He’d already pretended to have several jobs and I didn’t see that coming to an end. I didn’t even know how I’d fund my own living expenses, let alone a little one’s. I prayed to God that he’d take it back, that he’d make it not so and I’d wake up not pregnant. I wasn’t ready and he was a terrible person. Then I bled… and bled. I screamed and cried all alone in physical and emotional agony, while laying on a towel to catch the blood. At 12 weeks, they should’ve done a D&C, from what I understand. They didn’t and it just all tore through me naturally… and painfully. With every ripping sensation, I knew it was me, it was my body, that was killing my baby and there was nothing I could do to stop it. There’s nothing like the guilt of asking God to take it all back and having your prayers answered.

Today… I wouldn’t change it. Even if I had been ready to have a baby, had been the person I am now with the morals and priorities I’d want to instill in a child (which I knew I wasn’t then)… I’d never wish him on anyone, especially not a helpless child. Gail regularly wishes she’d never told her ex he was the father of her daughter that died at eight months. She knew he had a sick mind for little girls and would still rather live without her little lady than ever have her experience that pain. I’d rather have lost my baby than come home to glassy eyes and no explanation for his unresponsiveness. I was due March 5, 2010. I’d have had a three-year-old right about now… and he’d have been cursed. I’d rather God have kept him.

You’re not supposed to say that. It’s one of those unspoken rules. Actually, scratch that. It’s one of those spoken rules. But God had a plan. I’m where I’m meant to be… and so is my baby.