Slightly Productive Weekend Recap

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Tis that fear inducing beast Monday we all love to loathe.  (Unless you have the day off for the holiday which would be Columbus Day in these parts as I'm too old and grizzled to type anything else.)  I spent Friday getting the rest of the stuff I picked up last week divided up and ready to figure out where it needs to go.  I found a notebook that I didn't know Mom kept keeping track of our guest lists for the bridal shower, the wedding and RSVPs.  A list of what we needed to bring to the church that day and a note she wrote me to clean up and if I wanted to come out to the sibs house for pizza after work to let her know.  She had a few specific things listed for me to do but "anything else I wanted to do would be appreciated."  Knowing me, I'm sure I did the bare minimum as usual.  Those things cut me like a knife now; knowing I could have and should have done more than I was asked for a single mom working two jobs to give me everything I needed and most of what I wanted. 😞

It was a little easier than the first time I had to go through stuff but also came with some real stabs in the heart.  A little envelope with some love letters my parents wrote to each other in high school, a few with some surprising feelings of angst from my father, one from my mom admitting she liked him as more than a friend and then a heart wrenching one of a wife and daughter deserted begging him to stay.  I don't know if he read it and left it behind or what but it tore my heart out.  Then finally the official divorce papers and the nice little loophole he left himself to duck out of paying for my post high school education.   The one that always gets me and I'm not sure Mom would want me sharing it but it has a lot to do with why I am the way I am:

That is a picture from their wedding my mom shellacked onto a piece of wood that hung in our homes.  Why is it broken like that?  Because one day he came to pick something up at the house right after the divorce and Mom had the locks changed at the advice of everyone.  Well, he didn't like that, broke down the back door, threw a tantrum and started breaking and ripping stuff in the area of what he was there to get.  (I need to make this very clear, this was the first and last time he did such a thing and was not a physically abusive person!  This is what happens when you are raised by a 'suck it up' household who views men sharing feelings as 'weak' and you finally blow.  Not his proudest moment, I'm sure.)  One of the things he knew would hurt her was busting this and a similar plaque she made from their wedding in half.  What he also grabbed was an 8x10 family photo of us taken professionally and ripped it in half as well as one of my stuffed animals and it's innards were all over the second floor.  I will never forget watching Mom sob when we found it all and 9 year old me sobbing in her arms asking why Daddy did this and was he mad at me?  Hello lifetime of abandonment and self worth issues no matter what anyone says or does.

What a dick. 🙄

Why am I sharing something so personal and painful to me?  As someone who has now lived some part of the consequences of that day for 40 years now, this is why it is imperative to think before you act when you are angry.  Let me say that again for people in the back: think before you act when you are angry.  Because if you are from a family that never taught you how to acknowledge or deal with feelings and encouraged suppression, one frustrated blow out session like that could ruin the life/lives of anyone left in your wake and you find yourself buying books in your 40's trying to figure out why you are the way you are.  There is not a day that incident doesn't tie right back to everything that is wrong with me and the difficulties I live with.  Any time someone makes me feel less than or breaks my trust, I am 9 years old sobbing in my mom's arms asking why was he mad at me.  

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But for as task oriented as that felt doing that stuff to get everything organized to keep my mind busy, I knew what that meant.  Like clockwork, a few hours later the panic hit.  The void and nothingness that encroaches to remind you what your new reality looks like.  She's gone.  All you have are pictures, scribbled notes, birthday cards, an occasional video where if you can't see her you can hear her laughter filling the room with her presence... something you'll never have again and it hurts like day one.  You get the signs, the ones that tell you she's still with you and comforting you and your family but it's not enough, not when there was so much left unsaid and stuff you thought you had time for but you didn't.  Don't get me wrong Mom, give me all of the signs but the one thing I desperately need is you calling me and saying "has it been three hours?!" on an ear numbing phone call or an email that ends with your signature sign off.  

I felt like I got a lot done Saturday but when I looked around it sure as heck didn't make much of a dent and I felt pretty defeated.  The Mr's birthday is coming up this week and I want him to have a clean house.  I can't tell you how crippling cleaning is for me now.  I know once it is done I always feel so much better but I literally can't do it to the point I look at it and cry.  What I am able to push myself to do usually feels like more than it ends up looking like which depresses me further.  I know those who don't suffer with depression don't get it but throw grief on top of it and I seriously feel like this house will never feel like a home again.  

Saturday night we mistakenly thought it would be a good idea to watch a new to us horror flick.  A search on Tubi showed Vamp with Grace Jones.  OMG... that was 90 minutes of our lives we're never getting back. We have no clue how it's listed as a "cult classic" and gets 4.5 stars on Amazon.  Oy!!   I was on night two of insomnia after that, not getting to sleep until after 3am.

Sunday morning we talked a bit about Mom's situation and relived some of that horror.  That's a whole other layer we have to deal with and it's never easy to look back at the ways she was failed by a medical system that appears to be set up to write you off the second directives are signed.  We both are rethinking handing over any directives when it applies to what the hospital deems as 'terminal' because we saw some shit that changed our minds when it looked like getting a free bed appeared to be more important than care. 

We did our workout which was a kettlebell circuit that always gets us.  OMG, my hamstring, which has been in a sad state for over a week was NOT pleased with me and I had to constantly massage it to get through some moves but we got through it.  We had grilled cheese and soup for lunch because tis the season!  Then we started going through so old paint under the stairs and at the stair landing from March to see what could be kept and what could go.  I think there were about 8-10 cans that weren't any good to us so the Mr grabbed some leftover joint compound to mix up and get them solidified to be properly disposed of later this week.  I went through some stuff and I cleaned up two tables of Mom's that are mine now.  We got them in their new homes and we got some stuff put away that was clogging up the living room.  It's certainly not done but it's better.  I need to get some stuff moved but I went through the bag from her service.  I kept what I was going to and threw away some other stuff especially that f**king printed bag from the funeral home.  That place can kiss my big white azz.  If I never hear the name of it again, it'll be too soon and I'm giving it a few more months before reviewing it so it's not obvious who it is.  They were just horrible.  So a little headway was made and I REALLY want to push to get a lot done today even though those same blocks are there for me.

We settled in for the night and watched some boob tube whilst sipping a cuppa after a dinner of pre-made chili.  I separated my crockpot chicken into some containers for quick thaw meals and I need to make this turkey meatloaf before the mushrooms I bought tank.

How was your weekend?  Any meal planning going on- I need some ideas!

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