Disappointment

The holiday is Thanksgiving (OK, it was yesterday) but all I'm feeling at the moment is disappointment. When the kids were little their needs were relentless, and I looked forward to when they were older and we could do things together, hang out, have fun.

Forget that. The boy treats us like garbage he scraped off his shoe. Tonight at Shabbat dinner (after inserting the phrase "Chicken butt" into as many of the blessings as possible) he told us how boring we were. I wanted to have people over to help us finish the many pounds of turkey and sides we brought home, but the girl begged us not to invite her friend and her parents. So we had our pathetic Shabbat where the kids couldn't wait to get back to their cell phones.

The kids top the list of disappointments, but it goes on: business, sex life, social life, all blah. No fun, nothing really to look forward to. No sense of accomplishment or pride. It makes me want to curl up in a fetal position. After eating all the Frango-mint cheesecake.

I know things could be worse. We have our health, and employment. Both kids doing OK in school and seeming to have friends. I don't care, I'm having my pity party anyway.

I'm bored

Both kids have been in school full days since 2004, but up until now I haven't been bored. I filled my time with exercise, errands, and putzing around on the computer. When there was therapy, that took up a four-hour chunk of day between commuting on the el, the appointment, and lunch with hubby. I had temple Sisterhood and Girl Scout things to deal with, and of course micromanaging the boy's life. I felt almost no desire to work.

This year, the school days are longer and emptier. I find myself sitting like a blancmange in front of this screen much of the day (this is the thing I criticize my son for most often) and I feel myself shriveling like a raisin. When I was in my temple-lady days I was crazy for myriad reasons but I was blooming like a flower, not shriveling.

There are few jobs out there, fewer still in the area I trained in (journalism), but I need to do something. Money would be nice too. I'm strongly considering getting into Shaklee. I know, its kind of embarrassing. Its a little cultish. But its something to do, and I would be mentored and trained and I would set my own hours.

I'd have to deal with rejection, which nobody likes but I am violently allergic to. But I think that I could handle rejection of a product without taking it personally. Here's a little mission statement I came up with in my head:

People are more important than things
Friends are more precious than money
I'm sharing this in the spirit of promoting good health
but don't ever be afraid I'll be offended by hearing "no thanks."

Or something like that.

Affirmations

OK this is totally Oprah-style "The Secret" bullshit. But I'm going to try it anyway...

My Affirmations

My home is full of laughter and music
It is clean and organized

My husband is content
We have a great sex life

My children feel loved and secure
They care more about people than screens

I am not afraid of rejection
I am being mentored, and mentoring others.

My family is healthy, physically and mentally
I am making the world a better place

The crazy returns

It was such a sane summer. I went off the meds in May. I went to see Liz in June to tell her that everything was peachy.

Summer had its bliss (boy away at camp for three weeks, and a child-free trip to Montreal) and its aggravations (the boy was either on a screen or in his room, no social interactions at all) but overall we all had some good hanging out time.

Usually the start of the school year is sweet freedom for me. Not so this year, at least not so far. Perhaps it is the transitional nature of it all (both kids moving up to middle and high school) that is adding to the stress. But things are getting to me again. I burst into sobs two days ago because the girl was refusing to practice her flute. And I've been despondent all morning over the fact that the boy went to his first "real" day of high school (yesterday was orientation) with no gym shoes, schedule, or school supplies. He goofed around on the computer until 10:00 without any thought to getting ready. He didn't even know where his backpack was.

Do I have to do all his think work for him? Is this how it has to be? I can't stand it.

Questions

Today was a darn nice day.  Somehow we got Joel out of the house for a nice long walk. Wait, it gets better....we stopped by a thrift store and he reluctantly agreed to have us buy him a book (a funny one about making prank phone calls).  And then he got home and actually read it! Halleluia.

I had a strange chat with Barbara's boyfriend today. She bequeathed me her cookbook collection, and I was going to swing by to pick them up. We had a bit of a chat and it seems that Barbara made up a lot of the stuff she told me -- and him.  She wasn't in the mental hospital at all. I kind of thought that the therapist there was too good to be true. We're both left wondering what was true and what wasn't.

Irritability

Irritability -- in psychological terms, being oversensitive to the little (and not so little) annoyances of life.  Letting stuff get to you.  Crying, as it were, over spilled milk.  Irritability was big reason I went on the Zoloft, and I tell you, it was like lubrication, letting things slide off my back.  I was much more patient with the kids, seldom even raising my voice. It worked so well it was even worth the hit to my libido.

Don't know what's different now, but the Vitamin Z is not working its magic today.  I find myself despondent that the boy refuses to read the books that school assigns him because they are "boring" and "stupid" and that he's "lazy."  We both know that's bull.  He has amazing verbal skills but he also has a learning disability that makes it really hard for him to see "the big picture" instead of a bag of details.  He just refuses to read, so he gets no practice at it either. This is like a knife to the gut of his English-major, book-inhaling mother.

I wonder sometimes, am I like the dad who was a football hero, and is aggravated when his son rejects sports?  I don't think so.  After all, sports are great, but not really that necessary when it comes to education and employment.  However, it is quite hard to get through high school (much less college) without successful reading (though my son is determined to try).

Sometimes I think, let's get him tutors, let's find him a good LD program, etc.  But the fact is that he doesn't want help, and actively uses his amazing powers of avoid/evade to reject it.  As you can imagine, it makes me want to scream.

Yesterday, I did -- alone and at him.  Irritability rears its ugly head, folks.  Then, this thing with the Girl Scouts starts up and I'm infuriated by it.  Long story short, I took the initiative to train to run one of those Real Beauty workshops for the girls and their moms, and my micro-managing control freak co-leader made me reschedule it for one person who was going to be out of town.  Now only two people have agreed to come and the one we rescheduled for?  Well, she might come, but only if her daughter doesn't have too much homework.

So this is all getting to me and making me teary, so I increased my Zoloft dosage back to 25mg. Hope it helps.  I know there are real serious problems out in the world and mine are rather petty, but it feels like everything sucks right now.

Frustration

I'm feeling quite sad and frustrated.  About the boy, but other stuff too.  My friend Barbara died last week.  I knew she was ill, but she seemed to be getting better.  I got to go to the hospital and see her in her final hours.  She was unconscious, but I held her hand, sang her a little song, and thanked her for being my friend.

She was a troubled soul, but she let me help her and she helped me too.  She had suffered the loss of a child, but never belittled me or judged my kvetching about my kids.  She understood mental illness, therapy, meds, etc. but our favorite things to talk about were (in no particular order) politics, food and sex.  

I should mention that 90 percent of our communication was on gmail chats. Which means I still have 250 conversations.  I went back and looked at them the other night.  She was so open and loving, and had a great sense of humor in spite of all the crap she had gone through.  When I amused her she said "heh" or "funny girl."  I giggled, "hee."  Well, it beats ROFLMAO.

She would be glad I didn't cry when she died...she asked me not to.  Not that I can do much crying on Vitamin Z.  But it has been under the surface, waiting to emerge.  Today I am feeling such frustration with the boy, that thinking about some dumb English paper he blew off reduced me to tears.  Sobs, even.  

Barbara would have been great to talk to about this. She was always up at all hours of the night to chat (it's about 11:30 now).  When her edema made it hard for her to get out of bed, the computer was inaccessible and the chats ended just after Christmas.  Neither one of us were much for talking on the phone.   I visited her at her home, but the last couple of times she kept the TV on the whole time, like some elderly person.  

I started to really miss Liz again, and now I see why.  Barbara was my transitional object.  She would listen to my problems and she would let me help her with hers too (my fantasy reciprocal relationship).  Now she's gone and the void has returned.  And so have the tears.