3 Years from Now…

3 years from now….

I’m sitting here trying to picture it… My son will be 14 by then. I have sworn off dating and relationships until he is out of the house. It would take a LOT to change that.

I used to think that by the time my son was 14 I would be married and just working and raising my kids. Now that all seems like a far off dream. Its back to just me and B.

In 3 years B will be a freshmen in high school. Hopefully following the rules for once and staying out of trouble.

As for me? I feel like I’m entering my Carrie Bradshaw phase. I see myself going to all the work functions with free food (my favorite), spending my mornings writing (I don’t post everything I write you know..), drinking my coffee and enjoying the silence of a quiet life.

Carrie Bradshaw: replacing the shoes and clothes with books and dogs.

When Steve and I split up last spring all my friends laughed at me. Not in a “haha your life sucks” kind of laugh but in the “Other girls who go through a break up do something crazy with their hair. You got another dog” kind of way as my friend AJ put it. But you know what, I was truly happy when it was just me and B in our little apartment. Long before Steve came into the picture. I always wanted dogs anyway (I wasn’t allowed to have them while I was growing up because the apartment had a no pets policy).

Now I own my house, I love my job, I’m getting back into my routine, and I have been feeling more ME than I have in a long time.

From the age of 23 to 29 as a single mom with what feels like a lifetime in between.

Quiet nights that turned into early mornings. Writing on my laptop at the kitchen counter (now at my desk in my home office). Drinking my coffee. Mornings with B before school. Dinner every night. Bedtime stories after bath time (Not that bedtime stories or baths happen anymore, he thinks he’s to big for that now).

When life starts to feel normal again, you start to do your normal things again.

In 3 years… I hope that feeling isn’t “more me” it’ll just be… Me.

Daily writing prompt
What will your life be like in three years?
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Nope. Not at all. Not one single second.

Would I re-live an age or year of my life? I’ve been asked this question a lot over the years. I’ve been asked if I would change anything. Anything at all.

I’ve had a the “what if” thoughts. What If I had moved away after high school like I had originally planned? What if I hadn’t talked to that girl everyone thought was weird in 8th grade art class? What if I had lived with my biological mom instead of my parents growing up? What if my dad hadn’t gotten clean when I was 7? What if I never moved to where I live now?

My life could have been very different if even ONE of these things had happened differently.

I lived with my biological mother for about 6 months when I was 6 until I finished the 1st grade. I wanted to move home with my dad, so I did. A Few months later my dad moved closer to our family and got sober. I followed after staying with my grandparents for a few months.

When I was 8 my dad met my mom. This is the woman who would raise me and help shape the woman that I am today. Even after my parents split up I lived with her off and on until I graduated high school.

When I was in the 8th grade I took an art class in school. That is where I met Steve (my now ex), as well as the weird girl would come to be the biological mother of my son after 5 years of us being two peas in a pod. Never one without the other. Glued to the hip with the same name.

When I was 17 and starting my senior year, that weird girl got pregnant. She kept the baby and we knew the father would not be around. The two of us against the world and now we were going to be parents.

When I was 17 I had plans to move back east after I graduated. Once my best friend got pregnant and was going to be alone, those plans changed. I got a job and started saving money. My son to be was born 2 weeks before I turned 18 and just over a month before I graduated high school.

It may have taken until he was 9 years old to make it legal but the moment I would re-live over and over again is the moment he was put into my arms at 17 years old. My whole purpose in life changed that day. He turns 12 this year and while he may be the biggest pain in my ass. I wouldn’t give him up for the world.

If even ONE of those things in my life hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have the life I do now. Despite all the bullshit, I have what I would consider to be a great life. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Daily writing prompt
Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
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Have you ever broken a bone?

I have broken 6 bones in my life. 3 toes, my tailbone, my knuckle, and my skull.

I cracked my skull when I was about 4 years old. I still remember it like it was yesterday. We were AVid hocky fans in our house. My dad and I were in my grandmas TV room watching a match. I was sitting in one of those kid size plastic 4 legged chairs in front of the fireplace. I couldn’t tell you which team scored but almost 25 years after my grandmother sold the house I can still tell you what that fireplace looked like.

The fireplace was raised about a foot and a half off the ground on top of a brick ledge that was about 2 feet deep from the wall all the way across. The lower half of the wall was completely brick. Grandma had the mantel lined with the stereotypical 90’s posed family photos, along with a few embarrassing photos of myself.

I couldn’t tell you what team it was but someone scored. And then everything happened so quickly. I got excited and was rocking back and forth in my crappy little chair and jumping up and down like every 4 year old has been told not to from the moment they sit in one for the first time. The next thing I knew the legs bent and I went down. My head hit the brick ledge.

The funny part is that I don’t remember it hurting. I remember my dad scooping me up. I remember my grandparents running into the room. I remember my dad holding a washcloth to the back of my head while we sat on the couch. I remember that the fire was still on. I remember grandma looking at the back of my head. I remember that I never saw that chair again.

My dad told me that they never took me to the hospital. He stitched the back of my head up himself right there on the couch in my grandmas basement. As a parent nowadays, I don’t know how I would handle that situation. However, I would defiantly NOT attempt to stitch my own kids head up. I think the only reason that I don’t find it strange is because my grandmother didn’t object. If you knew her, you’d understand why that’s oddly comforting.

That is one of my earliest memories. I haven’t thought about it in awhile. I wonder if that has anything to do with my irrational fear of falling from even small heights… Probably.

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever broken a bone?
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How do you balance work and home life?

To be perfectly honest, finding the balance was hard. I spent a lot of years with more work than home.

At the time I wrote the schedules but I had required hours and shift due to my position. I worked 6 days a week. 4 10 hour shifts and 2 5s. My 5s were during the week when I had my son so I could be home a couple days with him after school and 2 of my 10s were on the weekends when he was with his other mom. The downside was that even when I wasn’t AT WORK I was still getting phone calls/texts from my employees and bosses every half hour or so until late into the night. Even when I wasn’t working, I was working.

One day I decided it was time for me to step back. My higher ups had gotten mad at me for not answering my phone one day due to being at a family reunion about 30 minutes away with family who had flown thousands of miles to see everyone. My father was one of those people. After that I decided I was done.

I ended up transferring back to the location in my hometown as the Assistant Manager. 40 hours. 2 opening shifts. 2 closing shifts. And a GM who had absolutely no idea how to do her job. So while I once again was physically at the restaurant less, I was still on the phone and answering texts almost all day on my days off.

About 6 months passed and I was informed that my GM was quitting and the higher ups asked me to take back over. No change to my schedule, they would take the after hours calls. At this point I had gone from having 1 child to 3. I did not want it. However, they were in a jam with nobody to do the job. I agreed to give them a 90 day test run. I wasn’t going to screw myself by not having anyone to do the things that needed to be done in order to make my job easier. At least this way I got the pay increase.

2 1/2 months later not much had changed. It was smack in the middle of covid and with all the new policies I was losing employees and still getting call after call, text after text.

One day I was sitting down with my family to watch a movie before the kids went to bed and my phone went off. My oldest asked me “Mom is that work calling again?”. Even years later I can hear him say it clear as day. That was the moment I decided I was done.

I had a standing job offer to bartend at a local place so I went to talk to the manager after work the next day. He asked me when I could start and I told him I would like to give my current boss a notice that my availability would be changing. I told my current boss that I would stay on a couple days a week until they could find someone to take over. I worked on the days they needed the food order placed, and would do the weekly inventory. This way I also got to keep my benefits.

6 months went by and I was finally training a new GM to takeover so I started looking for other jobs that would let me work during the day and not on weekends. While I enjoyed my bartending gig, I was tired of drunk assholes. I wanted out of the service industry all together. I finally got an interview with a local media company.

Almost 4 years later I am perfectly happy at a job that understands the value of family. If my kid is sick, no problem. Need to go to an appointment? See you when you get back. You want to go see your kid get an award at school? Congrats tell them we said good job! My boss is a bad ass momma too and I don’t know how she does it.

I realize not everyone is as lucky as I am and its not always possible but, the right job, and I mean THE RIGHT JOB, won’t make you set your family aside. They’ll give you the flexibly to do both and encourage you to put your family first. Wait for THAT job.

Daily writing prompt
How do you balance work and home life?
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April 15th, 2024

So tonight is the first night in my house without my kids here. I’m honestly struggling.

I haven’t been without my kids in years. Their dad took them to spend the night in a hotel. I feel awful because I know he just wants to be away from me and they still don’t know whats going on. He just decided tonight that thats what he wanted to do.

He stayed out with my daughter after he picked her up from her visitation with her mom until waaayyy past her bedtime last night. Normally I wouldn’t care but it was a school night and he didn’t tell me he was keeping her out that late. Then today he comes home after work and B and I I were home because he was having some side effects from being off his meds. He said he was taking a shower and then going to pick A up. He got back and then informed me they were leaving. Didn’t ask or anything. Just said that was what he was doing.

I get it. I do. but he could have at least talked to me you know? They have school and therapy tomorrow. He said he would take them to therapy so I hope he does.

I feel like he is reverting to treat me like his ex wife who did absolutely nothing for these kids and made them care for themselves…. I know he would never take them from me and he would never leave B but the thought is still there you know?

Hes been out most nights since we split. Turns out hes been at the bar. I learned this because I finally got a chance to get out with Cyn and Tash on Saturday night and my buddy that works at the bar made a comment about it. I worry about him. Alcohol makes him angry. I don’t like when he drinks and I really hope that he finds a different way to cope…

I guess I’m just afraid. I know everything will be fine. I just don’t know what path this situation is going to take.

April 10th, 2024

Once again, its been awhile. I know nobody actually reads this but it makes me feel better to just get things out.

Long story short, we split up on Sunday. He is moving out. We haven’t told the kids.

So far we’ve managed to keep things calm and civil. We are going to try and stay friends for the sake of the kids. We are working out a schedule for the kids so that they don’t lose either of us. I don’t know how B would handle losing the only dad he has ever had. I let his and A’s therapists know what’s coming and they’ve started talking with them about change and how to help work through things.

I took today off work to try and process everything. I haven’t cried or been mad or anything. Either it hasn’t fully hit me yet or I have been checked out for so long that I’ve already processed it? I just don’t know yet.

He thinks I have feelings for our friend and that our friend has feelings for me. I don’t know what I feel. This is a friend that I’ve known for 14 years. We went to school together, we worked together, I officiated his wedding. Now he’s divorced and sleeping on our couch with his 2 kids. Steve is convinced that he has feelings for me. I just don’t know. I’m trying not to think to much on it right now.

I’ll keep you posted.

To the Biological Mother of My Children…

I am 4 years into being a mother to these 2 kids. They were 3 and 5 when I became their mom. They are now 7 and 9. Here is what I have seen and what I want you to know and understand.

To give you some insight as to my viewpoint, I am like you. I had a horrible example for what a mother should be and so did you. Neither of us speak to the women who gave birth to us. I want you to think about why. Think about your childhood. Think about the things you saw and the things you heard.

Here is where we differ. I got extremely lucky and a woman came into my life and raised me as her own while my biological mother was completely absent for 8 years. Your mother did what she had to do to make sure you survived while you had no contact with your father. Your mother talked major crap about your father. The mother who raised me said not one single horrible word about my father or my biological mother who later made an attempt to be a part of my life. My biological mother spoke poorly about my father every chance she got while my father was silent on the matter. My father was my constant. Your mother was yours.

Our parents did what they had to do to keep us alive long enough to get to adulthood and that came sooner than it should have for both of us. We raised our siblings when we were teenagers and that shouldn’t have been our life. We then became parents in our late teens. You through the birth of our son, and me through the adoption of my oldest child. These were the moments we had to make our choice about what kind of parents we wanted to be.

These children get 9 HOURS A WEEK with you. And that has become your decision. The courts gave you a list of requirements to fulfil in order to see them more. It has been 4 years and you have not completed a single thing on that list. Instead you tell the children that it is our fault you don’t get to see them.

You get 52 days a year with them, and in the last year you have bailed on the ten times. While that may not seem like a lot, to them its been enough that they don’t believe you want them. When you don’t show up, I am the one here to dry their tears and remind them that you love them and that you will hopefully see them next week. I am the one who reminds them that it is your birthday and mothers day so they don’t forget to tell you. I am the one here when you don’t call on their birthday or show up to their birthday parties. I am the one reminding them that you love them when they get mad about you prioritizing your two younger children over them.

I have to sit here and watch you do the same thing to these children that our mothers did to us. And there is not a thing I can do about it but hold them and tell them how much they are loved.

The only thing we have ever asked of you, is for you to be the mother these kids deserve. They love you so much. Someday they will figure out who you are as a person, and I honest to
God hope that they can be proud of you.

The children come home from their visitation with you and tell us about their day, you are not usually mentioned in their recap. They tell us what everyone else did with them while you stayed in your room. They get so excited on the days when they get to come home and tell us that you played with them. On these days, we get excited with them.

We have always rooted for you to do better. For yourself and for your children. We have never and will never say anything bad about you to them even though we know you do not provide us with the same curtesy.

We are happy to be your support system. You are not alone in this even though you think you are. When all of their parents can work together and communicate with each other, the kids win. It is not you versus us. It is all of us doing what is best for the kids and doing what we need to do in order for them to have their best chance at a good childhood, and a good life.

We cheered for you when you cut your toxic mother out of your life and backed you up when she tried to get around you and go through us to see the kids. We cheered for you when you and your boyfriend got your own apartment. We cheered when your boyfriend got a drivers license. We cheered when you had another baby. We even cheered when you had your 4th child. We invite you to every holiday, and every birthday party, and when the children ask if you’re coming we let them know that you were invited and that you are always welcome in our home. We cheered for you because we are ALL a family.

You can make us out to be the bad guys. That’s fine. But one day, not to far away, these kids are going to see you for who you are and won’t want anything to do with you. I think you know that. My fear is that they will see you the way we see our mothers, and experience the trauma we inherited from them.

That is not my wish for you.

My wish is that you will break the cycle. Be the mother that you and I both deserved and didn’t get. Be the mother that fights tooth and nail for her children. Do what you need to do to spend more time with them. Be a person, and a mother, they can be proud of.

Neither of us are perfect and we never will be because nobody is. But our children deserve for us to fight for them to have a better life than we did. And that happens only when we can work together as adults to do what is best for these children.

We are two sides of the same coin. We each had a choice to make about what kind of parents, and what kind of people, we would be. Do we follow that paths that our mothers laid out for us? Or do we choose to be better?

Sincerely,
The woman raising OUR children

January 21, 2021

Well fuck. Its been rough guys. We are still dealing with court shit with Steve’s kids. It keeps getting pushed off and his ex is putting on a hell of a show for the courts. Lets recap shall we? She started telling the kids they don’t have to listen to me because I’m “not their mom” which caused Andrew to start telling me the same. For months now I have had all 3 children that I am raising remind me on a regular basis that I’m “not their mom”. So that’s been fun. She got fired from her job that she only got because we served her with court papers. Shes pregnant by an abusive asshole that we now have a restraining order against because we do NOT want him around our children (she went along with this and now tells Steve’s kids that her baby doesn’t have a dad). She has a new boyfriend we found out. This concerns us due to the fact that she likes to move in with her boyfriends and she has made some poor decisions in the boyfriend department since she and Steve split up. She is bitching about then fact that our daughter goes to my mothers while Steve and I go to our JOBS like ADULTS and our son goes to the school aged program with Andrew and their classmates. She tells the kids that we get more time with them when it is spit evenly TO THE HOUR on a week by week basis. She complains because she has them all weekend and no time with them during the week. She does not have a job or any responsibility and complains that she actually gets to spend TIME with the kids when she has them while we get an hour in the morning before school and 3 hours before bed with them every day. But shes complaining about her time that she gets… She bitches about their clothing that they come to our house in and wants back every week and then bitches about how we go about making sure she gets them. And now she is trying to drag MY MOTHER into it by telling the kids that we leave our daughter at A STRANGERS HOUSE. That is MY MOTHER. She can go fuck herself. She thinks shes all high and mighty because she sits on her ass and lives off of her mom and does nothing but watch tv all day and thats all she lets the kids do when they’re there. My daughter has 7 CAVITIES because all she feeds them is junk food. We pick them up on Monday Mornings and they are shoving candy in their mouths. She does all of this and then plays it off to the courts like shes a freaking saint and the GAL is fucking buying it. We have given the courts YEARS of proof that this kind of stuff is a pattern. She plays by the rules when she is under a microscope but as soon as all of the home visits are done she turns right back around to the same old shit. I’m sooooo tired of it. And then tonight she starts Bitching Steve out while on her phone call with the kids (which isn’t mandatory BTW) and is swearing at him and yelling at him with the kids sitting right there. I’m afraid for the children. Once she has this baby those kids aren’t going to matter anymore. She has someone new to love her that she won’t have to share, providing the babys father stays in jail. Did I mention he tried to burn down his other Baby Momma’s apartment while she and his kid were still inside it? Great set of parents this kid is going to have. I’m just ready for all of this court shit to be done so I don’t have to keep my mouth shut anymore.

Well. Thanks for letting me bitch and moan. Sometimes I just need to get it out. Its a nice relief.

August 2nd, 2020

Well we are officially in the count down to the trial date for my nephews. They just went back to their Dad’s for two weeks and I get them back next Sunday evening. Their mom Mom will be here when they get back though!!! I am beyond excited for her to get here. I don’t like that my best friend lives so far away 😥 Andrew has been on an “I’m going to do whatever I want” kick today… Thats been fun..

I work a 12 hour shift tomorrow and am waiting to hear back about a couple of job applications I put in this week. It just hit me yesterday that I am ready to move on. I’ve been back and forth about leaving but I’ve been with this company for 7 years and its just time.. I can’t deal with the stress anymore. I’m litterily afraid to leave my phone in the other room because its constantly going off. I don’t know how I’m going to tell them I’m leaving… I have a meeting on the 11th to tell them.

Other than that not much has changed around here.

More soon.

July 28th, 2020

What. A. Weekend.

Thursday night I worked late because my closer got sick and I had to wait until someone else could come in. Friday I worked an Open-Close (17 Hours total). Went back in to Open on Saturday. Got the last half of my shift covered so I could get some rest since I only had a few hours between shifts. Closing Manager called out. Got it covered, still ended up having to go back in and help because we also ended up short two drivers, one was sick and the others car broke down. Ended up working up until a half hour before we closed. For reference, an opening shift starts at 8:45AM and a closing shift ends (if you’re lucky) at 1:30AM. I went back in for my opening shift on Sunday, actually got off work at about 3:00PM. Monday rolled around and once again I was missing a closer and down two drivers again. Luckily we got the closing shift covered and people to help out in store so even being short drivers we were able to get them out at a decent time. I hung around to help get stuff done and my closer basically kicked me out around 9:30PM since everything was done. Today, was my day off. At least it was supposed to be. I ended up having to go in and open again. I only worked until about noon since another Manager and I were splitting the shift.

Needless to say, tomorrow is my day off. I don’t have ANYTHING I have to do. I will be sleeping in and not doing a damn thing all day. At least thats the goal. I made sure to run all of my errands today just so that I won’t have to do it tomorrow.

Wish me luck for a day of peace and quiet.

The kids have been great. They argue but what kids don’t at this age when there are so many of them. Andrew and I have decided that we need a Mommy and Me Day the next time the other kids are gone.

The court case for my nephews is in just a couple of weeks so we have limited time with them left. The next time we get them back from their dad however….. MY BESTIE WILL BE HOME!!! I can’t wait for the boys to see her. We aren’t telling them she will be here. I will just go pick them up from their dad’s like normal and then we will get home and BOOM!!! There she is!!! I’m so excited!!!

We’re still trying to find a bigger place to move into.

Ummm… I think thats it. I work, I mom, I girlfriend. The usual.

More soon! 🙂