So when I was in college, I had a very bad habit. I hid it very well from most of my friends but every now and then I toked a cigarette or two. I never to my knowledge smelled of cig smoke and you honestly never actually saw me with cigs on my person but I had them. I smoked them every now and then. I coughed politely when someone blew smoke in my face because in all honesty some brands set off my asthma BUT ONLY THE SMOKE. The three times I tried smoking weed, it put me in the hospital. I've come to the conclusion that they were all three bad batches. And I can say that because second hand does nothing to me (Except make me very happy)
The few months that I was between pregnancies, I smoked a little. When life got a little too hectic, cause you know having three kids in three years is a freaking walk in the park and doing it while your SOB husband is out to sea is a cakewalk in the park, I bummed or bought the occasional cig and used the nicotine to calm myself but as usual in my life, hubs stopped that bad habit cold freaking turkey. One by spending our money to where a pack of emergency cigs would have actually broken us, and two by nagging at me. Like really nagging and calling my parenting into question. He didn't actually know that the very little smoking I did do was what kept my family alive because there were A LOT of times I wanted to go running screaming into the night.
The friends that I drink with all know I can take a cigarette and not kill myself. I don't actually know any of my drinking friends who have NOT had me snatch a cig out of their hand and puff like I've been doing it all my life.
So since I've been working, I have had moderately less stress than I did when I wasn't working and that's awesome beyond words but now my stress is coming back and it's coming with a whole new emotion. One that I don't like at all... resentment.
So okay, when I was a kid from like second grade to Fourth grade I was an afterschool program kid. I went to the classroom with the other kids and did my homework, had a snack, and played games until my mom got off work. Mom would take me home and then fix dinner (If it was summer dinner was whatever fast food was between work and home as she didn't cook in the summer... at all) and after she did that, she disappeared into her room to smoke while I sat in the living room and ate/watched TV. She called out for bath time, she called out for bedtime. I rarely entered her bedroom because the cloud of smoke that separated the ceiling from the floor was kinda terrifying... So very little interaction between she and I. If she wanted to go hang out at the club I went to a friends house so her mom could babysit me. I had babysitters come over the house. I can guarantee you that my babysitters and I probably single householdly kept my local KFC and Roy Rogers in business. In Fifth grade it was decided that I was old enough to have a key and let myself in in the afternoons. It was all good, I called the school to tell them I was home, I did my homework, I did my chores, I watched tv. If she was still working when I got hungry, I made hot dogs or grilled fish on the indoor grill. She usually made it home from bath and bed time. Still no real interaction because those days probably included working as a teacher then afterschool teacher or detention teacher, followed by softball practice, and/or a meeting, and then maybe an hour at the club. I watched a lot of TV. By high school she had quit smoking but she still came home and sequestered herself in the room. She actually picked up things at school to do since I was so old and usually wasn't even home anyway because I was in band or at track (Don't get excited, I was time keeper for the boys team, I do not run)
So riddle me this. I have kids and for the last ten years I have been the stay at home mom because I wanted them to have what I didn't have. I wait until they are teenagers to get a job and suddenly in everyone's eyes, I'm turning into a bad mom??? My mom worries about the girls because they come home and call me to let me know that they are home because I'm working. They have sandwiches or leftover pizza, or reheat something I cooked either that day or the day before,because I'm working. I am home in time for showers and to look over homework and inspect chores. If pick up a late shift at work, I call the girls to make sure that they are okay and they can call me at anytime. If i'm closing and they're home, I call to say goodnight. My mother however, calls then every hour on the hour to make sure that they are okay and when I get home puts on her best mother voice and tells me that she called them to just keep checking up on them. (When I first started working, it was not unusual to come home and find her here with them just sitting with them keeping them company.)
Tonight she advised me to keep a really good dinner for them tomorrow because they deserve it as I'm never here. I need to make it up to them.
I am seriously not handling this well at all. When I was there age, where was the person that came and sat with me when she had to work late and stopped off at the club? Where was the person to call me every hour? Did anyone tell her that maybe she should come home and cook me a special meal because she had to work all time? Were the babysitters that washed my hair and braided my hair and got me dressed for bed supposed to be mom when she went to the club for something? Was my childhood BFF's mom supposed to be the pinch hitter?
Don't get me wrong. We did things, she and I. We spent some time together. To be honest, my memory is lacking a bit because a lot of things are colored red at the moment, but I remember going to the steakhouse on Fridays after work and Sizzlers on my birthdays. Then I remember her dropping me off at football games that I had to play at. Picking me up from band practice after school.
WHERE WAS THE PERSON THAT MADE SURE I WASN'T SEEING TOO MUCH OF OTHER CAREGIVERS OR WATCHING TOO MUCH TELEVISION???
SO why am I made to feel like a bad mom? I don't get it. I have sat and thought about this for a few weeks now and I don't get it. Every single part of it is a complete mystery.
I sat home for ten freaking years. I didn't do babysitters, I gave up my life. I didn't go to the club, I didn't hang out with friends. At Twenty something, I was already forty. My kids didn't eat a shit ton of quickfood or fast food. I cooked. I STILL cook. Do you know how many mornings I've gotten up and made a meatloaf so my kids could have it for dinner. Or the nights that I stayed up baking a chicken so they could heat it up. Yes I bring them home pizza. Yes I take them to work for pizza because it's cheap. How am I the mom who has the mom who worries about the kids because I'm working all the time???
So yeah, last weekend, I bummed Patty's e-sig and the nicotine calmed me, tonight I practically jumped Kam for the rest of her cig. I can so see this becoming a habit again and not a minor one like before. This time I can almost see it turning full blown. So far as I can see, I have four choices. 1. I can take up smoking pot because let's face it. Pot calms everyone it touches. Two. I can take up smoking and just not care what anyone thinks about me. Three, start drinking... again.... or four find a BF and use sex as my stress reliever. The cons to this. One, pot is very hard to come by discreetly and I don't really want it in my house. 2. This will cause massive nagging from my mother. I will care. There is no way around this. I will be hounded into giving it up again and feel way worse for causing my mom t give me the talks that she will give me. Resentment will come roaring back and I will not be a happy person ever. Three. You cannot be a delivery driver if you exist in a constant state of hungover. This is no bueno. This causes you to lose job and enter more stress... 4. I have been trying so badly to do this one but I suck at flirting, I fell asleep for being direct 101 and literally no one notices me like that.
This shit is going to plague me like this until I have another nervous breakdown and my breakdowns are just that. The walls go up, the spikes go out and NO ONE gets through to me. In the past this has caused doctors to drug me and take away my driving privileges.
I so don't understand. I don't like it. I don't like feeling this way. I just want for five minutes to be the normal girl with the normal parents that ignore her the normal amount and let her life life a certain way and remember that she's thirty five and NOT sixteen. Can I be the normal girl that likes a guy and has no problem letting him know because she understands that if he rejects her, it's not the end of the world? Can I use the car that my own money bought and not feel like it's going to blow up on me?
Can I be normal. Just one day? Please. I promise I've been extra good this year Santa.
Le Sigh... I've got nothing else. I'm spent. Stay Frosty Bloggers. I have stuff to do tomorrow and I may or may not be working. I don't know yet. We'll see.
Goodnight...
