Motherly Guilt

I know that every mom feels guilt -- guilt over not getting to her child in time to keep her son from getting hurt, from not keeping her daughter from getting her heart broken by that mean boy down the street, etc. I've done that and probably ten times my share of motherly guilt. But this time of year -- Mother's Day -- when I should be allowing my family to celebrate me and hoping to get lots of praise of what a great mom I am, I, instead feel guilty. I feel guilty because I'm NOT a good mom. I feel guilty because my kids grew up with a mother who fought with her own inner demons to a point that it affected them. I feel guilty that two of my three children suffer from their own "inner demons" and now will have to find a way to cope and make things work in their life as I am attempting to do in mine.

But mostly, I feel guilty that I want my family to celebrate me in all my Motherhood but my husband doesn't have his Mom to celebrate anymore. I feel guilty to even ask him to do anything for me because I know what he will always say, "You're not my mom -- it's not 'wife day.' It's "Mother's Day." I don't have a mom so I don't have to worry about it."

Part of me wants to yell at him that it is a celebration of ALL moms, of ALL the mothers in his life, not just his own. But then I feel the guilt. He's live without his mom for so long that this is probably a hard time for him.

I don't know what to do.

So, I go on with my Motherly Guilt and try to help my husband through it, wishing that his mother was here for him to dote over and hoping that maybe one year, my kids will dote over me.

Happy Mother's Day to all those wonderful Moms out there...

Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi!

I want my Pepsi. I've been told I need to cut down on my Pepsi consumption. I drink about a 6-pack (okay, maybe a little more) a day at times. I'm addicted to it. But hey, I quit smoking, didn't I?

To be totally honest, I want my damn cigarettes, too.

There, I said it.

Yes, I said that I am still craving my cigarettes after all this time. I quit smoking after I had to go into the hospital for an emergency surgery and have my appendix removed. I was in the hospital for three days and both my doctor and my husband told me, "Well, you may as well quit smoking -- you haven't had a cigarette for three days now! Keep going! You're doing good!!"

So, out of guilt, pressure (HHHmmm, how coincidental that "Pressure" by Billy Joel is playing the on stereo at this very moment in time!!) and hopes of pleasing my husband and making him proud of me, I caved and didn't start smoking after coming home from the hospital.

Now, you'd think that after not smoking for three days that the hard part would be over, right? Sure! The major "cravings" weren't there. It wasn't that. It wasn't that I wanted the nicotine or that I "Jonesing" for it or something. Okay, well, maybe when I was really, really stressed out I would get those really bad cravings. But the thing that was really hard was that it wasn't my choice!

People quit smoking when THEY want to quit. They decide that they don't want to smoke anymore, that they are done, that they want to quit. That's how my friend did it; that's how my parents did it; that's how my HUSBAND did it; that's how my husband's friend is doing it now! AND, my husband is telling him the same thing I'm saying right now! "You need to know that the time is right for you or you won't be successful. You need to know you want to quit - you have to want to do it."

Well, I was TOLD to quit. I never got to make that decision. It wasn't my choice! So is it any wonder that after all this time -- 8 months on May 10th -- that I STILL want a cigarette!!!??

I'm not saying that I want to smoke again. I'm not saying that I want to pick up a pack of cigarettes and start smoking every day or to get back into that habit. I know its a bad habit. Hell, I'm a nurse! I can list ten reasons why I shouldn't smoke without even thinking about it or putting any effort into it!

I just want to be the one to make the decision. I want to be the one to say "I chose to quit. I quit smoking." I don't want to say that I quit because I had to have surgery or because my husband and doctor told me to -- because that's really why I quit. I want to be the one that makes that decision.

Now maybe this is a bit of a tedious or mediocre -- hell, I'll even go as far as saying it might be down-right stupid -- thing to bitch about, as I know there are people out there who want to quit very badly but can't. But for me to get out from under these cravings -- emotional, mental cravings, not physical ones -- I'm going to have to be the one that breaks the addiction myself, not have someone break it for me. Otherwise, I may be an ex-smoker for five years, but I will ALWAYS want it, always feel I need it, and always crave it. The addiction will always be there ...

So, if it takes me buying a pack of cigarettes, lighting one of them and smoking one more time in order for me to break this addiction for myself, than so be it.

But it's my addiction to break ... before it breaks me.

Am I Allow To Be?

Am I allowed to be mad or angry? I mean, truly, honestly angry, mad?

I never feel like I am. I feel like if I get mad I'm doing something wrong. I'm not supposed to get mad. I'm supposed to be happy, smiling, loving, caring, take-care-of-everyone ... blah, blah, blah. To be honest, it pisses me off right now just to write it.

I was never allowed to get mad when I was a kid. I was allowed to be happy and smile and laugh (as long as it wasn't too loud and it didn't disturb my parental units when they were watching TV, "entertaining" their friends or sleeping); I was allowed to be sad and cry (again, don't do it too loudly!); but if I EVER got mad or angry about anything -- oooohhh, buddy!

Don't stomp your feet, slam the door, raise your voice or anything that showed you were upset or that would make one of THEM mad. And then you were in trouble. Whoever it was would come to where you were, yell at you, ask you "What the hell is your problem?" You may get grabbed by the arm or pushed from behind and by this time, you've forgotten why you were mad and slammed the door or were stomping your feet in the first place.

So, it was better to just not get mad.

But what about later? When I grew up?

Nope! Don't get mad then either!

If you got mad about your husband not coming home until 3 or 4 in the morning, about him smelling like perfume, having make-up on his shirt or finding a girl's phone number in his pants pocket when you were doing the laundry, you better not say anything or show that you were mad! Just keep it to yourself. If you got mad and tried to show or tell him you were mad, he would sit quiet for a moment or two and just stare at you. Then he would start asking questions, like "Where'd you find that number? In my pants? So you've been going through my things?" Or maybe he'd say, "You think I should be home with you instead of going out for a beer after I work hard all day? I bust my ass and then I should just come home and be with you?"

This is about the time that you begin to wonder why you were angry in the first place, think that maybe whatever it was that made you mad wasn't such a big deal after all and wish you hadn't said anything. Within a few minutes, as you hold the ice pack on your face, your hand, or whatever appendage your trying to pop back into place, you can't even remember what you were mad about at all, but you do remember that you won't be telling him the next time you're mad about something.

I wonder if maybe not being allowed to be mad all those years is perhaps part of the reason why I am so passionate with all of my emotions now. When I feel something -- whether its anger, sorrow, pity, fear, happiness, or otherwise -- I feel it with every inch of my body, with every ounce of energy I have, and with ever pore of my being.

Am I overcompensating in some way? I know that there are times when actually feeling things gets me in trouble now, too.

Maybe I should go back to putting my emotions in some type of check ... but how?

Why am I not allowed to be ...

I'm a Big Fat Liar

Throughout my life I've been a liar in one sense or another. As long as I can remember I've been lying about something, to someone, and to be honest, I can't even remember half of them. I lied for my mother, for my step-father, for a boy in 3rd grade, for several ex-boyfriends, for my biological father, for my first husband, for one of my half-brother's friends, for my ex-fiance', for my son, for a friend, for my husband, and to keep my own medical conditions a secret for over 15 years! And those are just the ones I can recall sitting her right now!

Now don't misread this, I'm not saying that I lied to people to deceive them or make them do things I wanted them to do or to be mean, spiteful or be malicious. That's not it. Not at all. Instead, most of the lies I told -- felt I had no choice to tell -- were to protect people. I would lie to protect people, their reputation, their property, their safety, or to keep myself from harm, to keep them from getting in trouble, or to keep a secret that they had either entrusted in me, sworn me to, or threatened me to keep "or else."

My life has been about protecting these secrets, about coming up with story after story, lie after lie, plan after plan in order to keep anyone from finding out. Bad things happen when people find out your "secrets" or discover that you have been lying to cover things up.

I slipped once. Someone caught me in one of my lies and discovered a secret that I had been hiding for a long time. They tried to help me, to help me from having to keep telling lies about this secret but all it did was make things worse. I ended up having to tell more lies to cover up the lies that had been discovered. I blamed the person who tried to help me -- I called her a trouble maker and said that she didn't know what she was talking about and was just trying to stick her nose where it didn't belong. I even accused her of having a crush on my husband -- to make it sound good.

Lies. All lies. But everyone believed them. My secret was safe once again and was able to go back to living with the secret safely hidden with no one suspecting a thing.

It wasn't until recently when I started trying to remember things about my past that I realized that it wasn't *my* past I was trying to remember anymore -- it was the life I had created. I didn't have a past. I only had the lies and the secrets. I only had the life that I had created in my mind in order to protect all those people and their secrets. I only had their lives, their past in my memory.

I'm not going to lie anymore.

I'm not protecting anyone anymore.

I'm not keeping the secrets anymore.

I'm going to start creating memories -- MY memories now.

So if you have a secret that I've been keeping for you, you might want to start coming up with a lie or a story of your own if you want to cover it up from here on -- because I'm not doing it anymore.



***I have begun to write my memoirs and in my story, "Big Fat Liar," I will be telling everything, as I remember it, as it is the truth, to me. No names will be changed unless the person is a minor if/when it ever gets published, as I feel that it's time for people to take responsibility for their own actions, their own lives and their own secrets. I've done it long enough.***

A Name By Any Other ...

You're probably wondering how I got the name for my blog. If you've ever read the quote by William Purkey, you probably already know. However, for those of you who are not familiar with the poem (some call it a "saying"), I've written it here for you:

"Dance like no one is watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like no one is listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth."

I honestly love this poem. I have a want and a true desire to be a person who can live like this, who can throw caution to the wind and put her past mistakes behind her, never allowing those who have hurt her influence her here and now. But can I do that? Can I truly and honest do that? Can anyone truly do that?

There are many times when I do dance like no one is watching, but only when there truly ISN'T anyone watching. And I will sing like no one is listening, when I am alone in my home, the radio volume turned up so loudly that my voice -- even when I am so passionately involved in one of my favorite songs that I sing my heart out (so to speak) -- is but a small vibration mixed somewhere in between the treble and the booming base. Love is not something I'm good at, so I'll skip that one all together.

That leaves us only with the verse that speaks of how we should "live." Well, that, my dear friends, is why I am doing this blog in the first place. I am hoping that through this, I will be able to uncover how to live, and not just be be alive, survive and walk my way through life, one day to the next.

Just a final note on the name of my blog. I wanted to have the name be simple, no characters, no dashes, nothing. However, after attempting several times to register my blog, it appears that there are numerous people who love this poem as much as I do to the point of where they have taken any and all versions of the verse except for the one I have created here. Let's hope that I can do it justice, shall we?