Evaluation Day

Parenting. What an adventure. Like Jeff Goldblum said of kids in Jurassic Park, anything can and does happen.  It’s D day. Doctor Day. It’s bound to be the beginning of a gauntlet of hoops both fiery and razor-wire wrapped that I’m going to have to jump through to figure out how to get the boy through school successfully.

Since second grade I’ve had the inkling that my kid lives in his head. Hell, so do I. We have great big imaginations, he and I. The real world can’t compete most days. The problem though, is that most teachers find that to be a problem. While most of them so far have agreed that he’s a brilliant and creative kid, he just has problems getting through the structured environment that is the classroom to get his work done.

A while ago, I discovered that wheat was a problem. It made him spin out. It also made me a bloated walrus of a craving carb fiend. Bad all around, so we eliminated it. That move made a huge difference for that school year. He calmed down, things were better for us both. His teacher loved him, he adored her and worked hard. There was no sign of a “meeting” about his student success. Last year, things were a little iffy. His teachers weren’t the most communicative but they assured me he was doing fine, so I took their word.

This year, however, almost from the outset, I’ve heard terms like “severe ADHD” and that he can’t focus for more than a few minutes. They’re concerned for his lack of “success as a student” and we already have a meeting planned. Back to that. It sounds like these teachers also like the boy. They find him to be sensitive and brilliant in that creative way that eludes most people, but just try to get him to sit down to finish a math worksheet when he wants to listen to the music the birds are making and the kid’s pencil next to him is obscuring the sound. He can’t sit still. He’s big on sound effects. He’s in his head. I know all of this and I both feel for him and fear for him.

While I want him to get the best out his school experience, because I loved school and learning everything I could, I don’t want him to lose himself. He’s a wonderful creative kid. I’m basically afraid that they’ll try to drug the awesome right out of my kid and that’s where my Mama Bear fight is coming up in spades. Yes, he needs to succeed. Yes, he needs to be able to balance, but yes, he also needs to be safe and be able to be himself. Somewhere there is going to be an argument I feel. I’ve already got a suit picked out for my meeting. It’s style is somewhere between Mrs. Malfoy and Regina Mills from Once Upon a Time. There will be no doubt that I’m going in there with my battle gear on to face the committee. We’re all supposed to be on the same side but it somehow feels like facing a firing squad; me against the school’s death committee.

I know that they will advise me to drug him to make their lives easier and to “help him be successful”. I don’t know if that’s the best course of action or not. It’s a lot of forward thinking I know. I’m only at stop one along the long road but I need to be ready for what’s waiting for us. The boy needs to know that I’m in his corner, wand and shield in hand, ready to fight for his well being and his right to be himself. I want him to be the best him he can be, as long as he doesn’t lose himself along the way, that’s all I can ask. We aren’t the first to be here and we won’t be the last. Time to see what step one brings us…

People. Pssshhhhht!

February’s theme in the Creative Every Day Challenge is “Hearts” and this month mine has certainly been cleaved in twain over and over again. I tried to be ok on Valentine’s Day. I wanted it to go by uneventfully, but some jackhole from my past hurt me and hurt me bad. I had a reason to be foul. Yes I did.

I had this fleeting idea that I might get back together with someone from my distant past. We discussed it, we toyed with it, and on Valentine’s Day he showed me just how much I need to not be considering that as an option. He apologized for hurting me but I was foolish to let him near my heart again and should have learned my lesson long ago. It was a glitch in the smooth passing holiday I was trying to ignore. Then, after him, slightly scuffed and shaken, DG threw me a little further down the lane of the scorned with an email that was 100% a “Piss-off” letter.

The thing is, I’d gotten over that. I made sure of it (with magical spells and all to get over the dumping he swore wasn’t a dumping…). I just missed our friendship, our conversations like I wrote the other day. I made a comment out of the blue because I have been truly upset at the zero time I’ve been allotted and all the brush offs, so he decided to write me a break up letter and it was pure and to form. You’re a lovely person but…(Dumping!). At this point in my life I need to focus. All I can offer you is friendship (which is all I wanted in the first place!). It just upset me like nothing else and I can’t tell you exactly why. Maybe it’s because he keeps repeating the rejection, as if I was too stupid to understand it the first time. As if I wasn’t aware that the brush off is a rejection every single time I say hello. It hurts every single time. He also sort of insulted me in other ways but I believe that’s because he doesn’t understand the scope of what I suffer with, but I didn’t need it nonetheless.

All I wanted was a reasonable amount of time and attention. We used to be actual close friends, check in on each other, speak regularly, joke, laugh, care, and so forth. He turned it off overnight. I don’t, for the life of me, understand what happened.  My instant gut reaction was that he never meant anything he’s ever said to me; that now, without a payoff, I’m not worth the time and trouble.

Is that what I deserve for caring about people? Well, Psssshhhht.

At any rate, despite his belief that I’m after something more, there is nothing now or ever that will induce me to let him near my heart again. Friends I hope we may remain since I’ve shared so much with him, but if this continues, I’m not sure that we will. It’s been a hurtful few days. What I’ve tried to do, instead of going back down my usual track of believing that all men are bad and uncaring, is to tell myself that this has just cleared the decks for my future. Now I’m open to meet someone who will truly value me should that opportunity present itself, though for right now, I’m just fine on my own. Two people let near the proverbial heart, two that stabbed it. Brilliant moves by me, again.

My son hits the double digits tomorrow and I’m going to use my energy to celebrate him and show him a good time. I so hope I can help mold him into a good man. These years are crucial and without a role model here, and I feel right guilty about this, I wonder how he will be. I can’t teach him to be a man, but I can show him what a woman shouldn’t put up with and what behavior makes mommy feel like an old sack of discarded tangerines so he knows what not to do to his girlfriend. A mother can hope.

Speaking of hope, I’m not ready to give up on me yet. I’m not back to bitter, just a little flustered by recent events but unlike my normal routine, I’m spinning a silver lining and seeing the open door instead of the closed window. Anyone who knows me will tell you that’s a bit of a miracle in itself.  This is a personal one and from a raw place, but some things you just need to get out. I’m hoping this will put it to bed. The deck’s cleared. I wonder what’s coming my way now? God, I hope it’s better.

Be Ok

Valentine’s Day. For years the very words evoked an eruption of vitriol from me that would rival that of a Vesuvius style explosion. A venomous tirade would usually take written form at some point during the day.

I’ve always hated it. Always.

My usual M.O. is to dress all in black (not unusual anyway, but I made a point of it on this day to counter-act all the pink), smoke my now outlawed clove cigarettes (which were also black), and mutter angrily. I have an array of snarky anti-valentine buttons. It’s an event.  Bitter much? You think?

This year I’ve been feeling ok. I’ve been somewhat enjoying being with myself and accepting that as a thing. That whole idea that I have to be fine by myself first has sunk in and as things have been passing by without any kind of reaction from me, I’ve been thinking perhaps this year would pass without incident. I’ve seen the displays of pink bears and heart-shaped boxes, seen people perusing the flowers, heard the commercials on the radio, displays of television jewelry, and sort of just went “Meh”. Better yet, a few times I’ve sort of thought to myself, “Well, that’s nice”. (What the ?!?!) 

All of that is a good sign…as in, I’m over it. It’s good to be over anger. It’s good to be over bitter. It’s not an attractive quality. The problem is, I’m fooling myself. Well, a little bit…

As the day draws ever nearer, I find myself accepting of my situation, yes. I’m fine being with me. I’m accepting of myself like never before (minus the donuts I ate this morning-what was I thinking?). I’ve even made plans to spend the evening with the only man in my life who I know loves me to pieces, my son. I figured we’d go out somewhere, maybe get ice cream, have some fun. It’s almost his birthday after all and there’s no one I’d rather spend a fun evening with.

Today though, I realized that I’m missing someone. A lot. Realizing that he’s not missing me is probably the worst part of that equation. Oh, I’ll get a damned Valentine card from him because I’m on his card list, but it’ll have nothing to do with me. I know that nothing will come of us and that’s probably for the best, but I miss the small stuff. I miss talking to him. I miss our afternoons chatting about randomness, all the stuff we have in common, ghosts, trips, plans, writing,  joking about stupid stuff, his bad jokes, calling him the weird names that I make up… just all the small things. Talking. I miss talking.

It came to me yesterday that he was the picture window to my fly. I could see no other way but him. There may yet be an open door off to the side, I just can’t see it, because I’m a dumb fly and the window is so bright. I can see outside. It’s got to be the way hasn’t it? You know how it is when something seems like it’s the exact thing you’re looking for and you just keep hitting your head against it over and over again?

Even though I’m over the romance part of it all, the friendship part is a big hole that I’m having a hard time with. Like I said, I miss the talking. Friend-zoned usually indicates a friendship…right? An occasional discussion? A conversation? A how do you do?…but I digress…

Now I’m back to sitting in my office alone with myself like I used to. I have no one calling me anymore, nothing much to look forward to. I know that could change at any moment. Maybe, and Universe forbid, this stupid holiday is making me sentimental and mushy. I figure it’s probably alright to miss people now and again, especially when they were a big part of your life for a while. I suppose that this is all part of the growth part of learning to be alone and blah blah blah and yadda yadda.  I’m just miserable and I didn’t want another miserable Valentine’s Day.

Of course, I’m not really miserable being alone. I’m not angry. I’m not bitter. What’s the problem? I don’t know. I may feel a bit lonely right now, but I have me, I have the boy, and I’ll have half price chocolate the day after. (Yay!) I may even buy myself some discounted flowers. That’s the spirit! Nothing says patheti-sad-single-near-forty like discount post-Valentine’s Day chocolate and flowers except maybe a cart full of Fancy Feast, litter, and Mama Celeste Pizza for One. Still, I’d rather do those things for myself than have someone else getting them last-minute for me from the corner Walgreens the night before. At least I have forethought involved and a thrifty spending plan.

My favorite new lyrics that I keep repeating today, and I woke up singing are no accident I think… “I thought I knew the answer was you, but now I know it’s always me.”  That’s how I know next year will be better than this year and why this year is easier than last year. It’s self-love day. I’m going to get the hang of this.

Aliens

I’ve been sitting here for a few with Ingrid Michaelson’s last record on repeat feeling a bit weird. Yes, I said record. Yes, I’m old, but that isn’t my issue…well, right now.

Firstly, I feel a lot like Sigourney Weaver and no, not because I’m shimmying around my office in tiny undies trying to fit into a space suit  but because I have a weird feeling that there’s something moving around inside my guts that has nothing to do with my guts. It’s an odd sensation, like a pile of squid dancing the rumba. Maybe they like Ingrid Michaelson too.  Whatever it is, it’s decidedly alien. Maybe I can sell tickets to the eruption. Look out Jonesy!

The cornbread wasn’t that bad…

Secondly, I’m just bothered because there’s been a lot of thinking going on, the uncomfortable kind that makes you question your beliefs and fundamental structures of perception. That can also be good, but the last time that happened, I lost it, not to put too fine a point on it.

I went full atheist. Now some things, some mighty big coincidences have occurred that have made me question that assessment. That’s not to say that I’m down for a bearded deity in the sky, just that it may be more complex than my current belief system is accepting of. The energy system of which we are all made may be more vast and diverse and include things like bloody weird coincidences. That’s it for now, but it’ll start my brain going full tilt. That’s what happens to me.

I can’t leave anything alone. I have to read and explore and dig. I have to think around something until I do the flop. Not that I’m not already in awe of the mysteries of the universe, the beauty of nebulas, the way the structures of the eye mimic them, the way everything mimics everything else in extremes of scale, but I’m starting to wonder about more. More? Surely not!

I’ve found a book of energy experiments. That’s where I’ll start to see if I’m nutty bonkers. I don’t seem to have an off switch. It’s kind of a bad thing. The one thing that is positive here is that it has given me back something vital that I had lost. Hope. Faith. In what I’m not sure. I guess that’s the point of my insanity. I’m not sure, but that’s ok. I need to accept the mystery.

Now the mystery of what’s up with my intestines is another thing…

Stuffed Birds

I’ve had far too many mint chocolate M&Ms today, and too many aren’t nearly enough. I need something and chocolate isn’t cutting it. Coffee either. Laps, forget it. I’m in the midst of one of my odd periods of need. No, not neediness, nor loneliness, just need. Yes, I’m talking about that.

Every once in a while, as a single parent with no prospective suitors and no outlet, well, you go a little mad sometimes, to quote Norman Bates. Hmmm. I do have a newly formed interest in taxidermy and spend a lot of time alone, but I have yet to put on my mother’s dress and stab anyone. I could sure use some companionship though.

The M&Ms have done little. Chocolate, oh how you’ve let me down!

Every once in a while I just wish there was someone with a little interest. A simple thing. Nothing too complicated. It may seem crass, but until my knight in shining armor comes (Eye Roll anyone??), I still could use some affection. I’m one of those people that needs a lot of physical contact, hugs, kisses, hand holding, etc. I’ve been in a drought for a good long time to say the least. Of course I get hugs from the boy and that’s all great, but there’s something missing. There’s that feeling of being cherished, of cuddling up with someone and feeling them next to you. It doesn’t feel entirely natural to be without these things.

Yes, of course, I can do without them. I’m still alive after all, but physical contact is a basic need after all. What’s a person to do? It’s a horrid question really. I feel like that old woman in the Looney Toons cartoons that chases men around…”A man!”  That’s really how it feels too, though to be honest at this point I really couldn’t care less about a relationship. Even Valentine’s Day isn’t getting on my nerves this year, and to anyone who knows anything about me, that’s got to be a small miracle or one of the signs of the apocalypse. Normally around this time of year I’m outside smoking like an old surly Frenchman. I’m just indifferent to it all. I suppose I’m past broken and over the hope that I’ll have that part of things. No one picked me for their team. Maybe I don’t believe anymore and there’s no such thing as fairies.

Somewhere Tinkerbell just fell down dead.

On the human end though, there’s still the need for companionship and for somebody to effing touch me. I don’t really think that’s too much to ask, of course, and whatever help me, I think it was Dr. Phil who said this, but in order to meet someone he’d pretty much have to fall onto the hood of my car the way the days go…

Otherwise, I’m not beyond the unthinkable when it comes to attractiveness. I’m not so old either. Bits of me are still pretty good and in the right places and I’ve got a lot of energy for certain things, but I also have a kid and no one knocking on the door. Who knows? Some days my attitude stinks and I have some not so nice thoughts running through my head. Maybe if I was once of those vibrant women, positive and shining, then they would come running. I don’t know how to do that. I just want someone to like the me that I am; to want the me that I am, the dark me and the light me, the funny me and the snarky me. All of it comes together and can be pretty fabulous and pretty entertaining in certain ways.

Hell with it. I need some more M&Ms.